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Saturday, September 18, 2010

F-19 Stealth








Here are some images of Testors/Italeri/Model Technologies 1/48 scale F-19 Stealth fighter. From Wikipedia "

F-19 is a designation for a hypothetical United States fighter aircraft that has never been officially acknowledged, and has engendered much speculation that it might refer to a type of aircraft whose existence is still classified.

Since the unification of the numbering system in 1962, U.S. fighters have been designated by consecutive numbers, beginning with the F-1 Fury. F-13 was never assigned to a fighter due to superstition, though the designation had previously been used for a reconnaissance version of the B-29. After the F/A-18 Hornet, the next announced aircraft was the F-20 Tigershark. Northrop had requested the "F-20" designation, but the USAF proposed F-19 instead. The USAF finally gave approval for the F-20 designation in 1982. There have been a number of theories put forth to explain this omission, but none have ever been confirmed.

The most prevalent theory in the 1980s was that "F-19" was the designation of the stealth fighter whose development was an open secret in the aerospace community. When the actual aircraft was publicly revealed in 1988, it was called the F-117 Nighthawk. There seems to be no evidence that "F-19" was ever used to designate the Nighthawk, although the National Museum of the United States Air Force website does include the entry "Lockheed F-19 CSIRS (see F-117)" as of 2009. Another theory suggests that F-19 was the designation applied to the Have Blue technology demonstrator which led to the development of the F-117.

4 comments:

Arkonbey said...

Wow. Silk purse from a sow's ear, there!

I built this back in '89 or so. All I have left is one of the stabilators, that wing-like exhaust fairing thing and the ejection seat.

I liked Testor's Russian stealth fighter better, actually :)

-Warren Zoell said...

I agree the Ferret is a more believable aircraft.

Pat Tillett said...

I know nothing about all that. But it's a cool looking model

-Warren Zoell said...

Thanks Pat I suspect the big mystery around the F-19 moniker is really just the result of a government bureaucratic screw up.