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I know about the Fire Bee.
It's not a missile.
This awareness is why I am questioning the new terminology for missiles.
At the root of it, there's not a lot of technical difference between a missile that is intended to ram the target and something that will fly past and take a picture then return home.
But the mission is all.
I don't like letting language slip like this because the Air Force has made a habit about of calling attack planes fighters for a long time and planes like the F-111 and F-117 are emphatically not fighters.
the designation of the F117 as pure misdirection. the US went to great lengths to keep the aircraft and it capabilities secret. Knowing leaks were going to happen at some point, they purposely mislabeled it.
ReplyDeletethe F111 program was about as messed up as it could get. One universal plane that could be both a fighter and a bomber for both the air force and navy. The navy got smart and dropped it. it was never intended to be a dog fighter. It was a missile carrier. At the time some people thought that long range missiles had made dog fighting obsolete. you just need a good radar and bunch of long range missiles.
I think there's strong evidence that the F-117A is an older project than they let on. The cockpit (the original one, before several rounds of updates) shows styling trends from the late 1960's and not the mid 1980's of the official timeline. It looks appropriate for the last century series in there. It's pre-MacNamaran.
DeleteI prefer the theory that, rather than re-numbering the F-19A, what they did was reveal the old stealth-fighter under its real name and kept the replacement hidden.
Never mind that both should have A designations!