F-19

Diagram of the Northrop-Loral F-19A Specter

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

History

Since the unification of the numbering system in 1962, U.S. fighters have been designated by consecutive numbers, beginning with the North American F-1 Fury, with the exception of F-13, which was never assigned to a fighter due to superstition After the F/A-18 Hornet, the next announced aircraft was the Northrop 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.

Cultural References

• In the 1983 Chevy Chase film Deal of the Century, Gregory Hines' character "Ray Kasternak" piloted an F-19 in a dogfight against an autonomous drone fighter.

• In 1986, the Testor Corporation released a model aircraft kit, calling it the F-19 Stealth Fighter.

• Like the Testor Corporation, Monogram models also released the F-19A Specter which was based on the design by Loral Inc.

• Jane's Information Group published an incorrect entry on the F-19 in their aviation reference, Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1986-1987. In addition to the fictitious artwork, the 1987-1988 and 1988-89 editions lists the aircraft as the "Lockheed RF-19 and XST".

• In 1988, Microprose released a computer game entitled F-19 Stealth Fighter, the first computer simulation of stealth air combat.

• The 1990 videogame Air Diver had the similar designated F-119D Stealth Fighter as the main aircraft during gameplay. The designation code F-119 actually refers to the powerplant of the F-22 Raptor currently in use with the United States Air Force.

• The 1990 videogame James Bond 007: The Stealth Affair featured the "F-19" as the captured stealth fighter stolen during a testflight at NAS Miramar that ends up in a fictional Latin American country called Santa Paragua where James Bond is sent to retrieve it.

• In his 1986 novel Red Storm Rising, Tom Clancy featured the "F-19A Ghostrider" (nicknamed "Frisbee" by the pilots and crew) as a secret weapon used to combat a Soviet invasion of Germany. This vehicle was considerably more capable than the F-117, being a supersonic fighter rather than a subsonic precision bomber. The F-19A as described in the book featured underwing hardpoints for various ordnance, including air-to-air missiles and BLU-107 Durandal runway-cratering bombs. The aircraft also has circular wings instead of angular ones, hence the name.