Message posted by F-117A Webmaster on March 28, 2002 at 14:31:28 PST:
The 3 original Senior Trend aircraft that fly today from Palmdale are still listed as YF-117As offically in the logbooks. The YF-12 is still known as the YF-12. Also, the YF-22 and YF-23 airframes still have that designator. We all agree that demonstrators and prototypes fly from the test site, so why would we look at X numbers? X planes fly from the California desert. YF planes fly from the Nevada desert. (And other deserts) The JSF demonstrators shouldn't have been X-planes, but the YF-24 and YF-25 instead. (Most people agree with this statement). The X-32 designator came from LOCKHEED'S designation of it's JAST aircraft, which was eventually was enveloped by the JSF program. (The JSF program actually combined 3 or 4 different existing programs into one if I understand the confusion correctly) The same type of thing is going on with the grey UAV's. Maybe it is a political move more than anything, but some of the new X planes don't deserve the X designation. They should be Y's, or N's. But, you have to log SOMETHING into the logbook ;) F-117A Webmaster
In Reply to: Re: Numbers posted by F-117A Webmaster on March 27, 2002 at 20:28:56 PST:
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