Mystery Plane Identified (theory)!

If we are talking about a real F-19, being a contemporary of the F-117, then there would be zero possibility of any existing components from foreign aircraft being used in it. Also it would have a ceiling of no more than 60,000ft, probably use F404 engines and be no faster than m.1.08, both of the latter would also mean that the plane was not nearly so stealthy as people suppose. Basically I don't buy it at all, but I would love to be proved wrong.

If it were possible to build a super high flying, supersonic, agile stealth fighter then the F-117 would never have been built, that is why the F-22 (which would also never have been built) took so long to develop.

If an 'F-19' airframe was flown then I think it would have been to the F-117 what the X-32 was to the X-35, maybe it was even called F-119 and performed basically in the same way as the F-117 but simply lost out to it? (pure speculation)

'F-119D Stealth Fighter' from the Sega Genesis videogame



Some stealth models here.
modelstories.free.fr...

[edit on 16-12-2006 by Browno]

Originally posted by waynos
If it were possible to build a super high flying, supersonic, agile stealth fighter then the F-117 would never have been built, that is why the F-22 (which would also never have been built) took so long to develop.

Good thinking, but the point of this thread is the idea that the supersonic stealth plane we're studying might be a Spy Plane that evolved from Lockheed's Blackbird. While not agile, the Blackbird is stealthy and supersonic. The A-12/SR-71 Blackbird was a first generation stealth. It used RAM and absorant paints, it was also design with a low RCS. Clearly the Blackbird is supersonic.

Second, we don't know when this project really started! Based on that, you can't judge the time frame. You assume that if this aircraft was developed in the 1980's it couldn't be supersonic. However, information for the book America's Stealth Fighters and Bombers, By James C. Goodall, might lead you to rethink that oppinion:

In the summer of 1981, the Air Force issued a request for information about a stealthy air-superiority fighter to eventually replace the McDonald Douglas F-15 Eagle. The New fighter would be caled the Advanced Tactical Fighter.

Now, if you remember June 18, 1981 was the date when the F-117 prototype made it's first test flight from Groom Lake. So around the time the Nighthawk was taking off, Lockheed was starting to design the F-22.

We don't really know what the time frame for this project is! 1986 is when the first roumors surfaced about the "F-19" as it was then called. Let's hypothetically say, the sucessor to the Blackbird was fast-tracked (as many back project are)! The first prototype could have flown in 1988-9 (not inconcieveable when you rememer Lockheed design and built the A-12 Blackbird in 30 months (2 1/2 Years). If we assume the project could have started in 1985, that would have put the first flight in 1987 or 1988!

That would have allowed for it to use technology more advanced then the F-117, and still be in the right time frame. Also, unlike the F-22, a spyplane would not require high agility, just a high dash speed in level flight. This key difference would have made the design simpler. All the plane has to do is maintain balance and directional stability while flying at high speeds. Look at an SR-71, how agile would you think it is? Probably not very, huh?

Tim

I foound this just before seriously.

www.answers.com...

[During the 1980s, Lockheed led the industry in government defense contracts, primarily in building F-19 stealth bombers and Trident II missiles, as well as in servicing NASA's space shuttles. During the early 1990s, the company remained successful in defense technology, with its stealth fighters being used in the Persian Gulf War. After an unsuccessful expansion of its commercial divisions, Lockheed reversed course to attempt to become the nation's largest defense contractor. In the mid-1990s, the company employed 81,300 workers and predicted a 10 percent annual increase in its earnings.]

I supect it's might be a misprint only because it mentions the "F-19 Steath Bomber flying in the 1991 Persion Gulf War". Some people incorrectly refer to the F-117 Nighthawk as a Stealth Bomber because it is used for air to ground strike mission and not dog fighting.

I have a feeling this might be another case of the F-117 being mixed up with other Stealth Aircraft.

Tim

You put forward an interesting argument tim, and I disagree with it in only one particular area, namely yes, the SR-71 is an early example of stealthy design, but it is not stealthy while supersonic, indeed the very reason that the F-117 is subsonic was because the technology did not exist to make a supersonic aircraft that was stealthy, that was one of the primary design goals of the ATF programme because it was known that this handicap needed to be overcome for LO to play any meaningful part in the F-15's replacement.

Having said that I take your point that this F-19 design might be a basis for a spyplane rather than a fighter, which would bring me back to the point in my earlier post that the plane would necessarily be a lot less stealthy than anyone supposes, especially if it were to be particularly fast. Regarding timescale I am supposing (for supposition is all I have) that the F-19 was begun after the F-18 but before the F-20. I understand that apologists might try to make a case for this not being so but there is no logical reason to accept that an 'F-19' would be started after the F-20 and F-21 designations had been allocated to other types, therefore, if we are making a case for there really being an F-19, it would have to have been started between 1977 and 1981.

The timescale could have been later if the 'F-19' designator is completely wrong (maybe F-119 as I suggested?)but my thoughts at this point are that the design is not real because the technology did not exist at that time, or there would have been no reason to deploy the F-117 in service, also, whether it was a spyplane or not, the failings of the design as a practical flying machine, as I highlighted earlier, still stand. I would like someone to address those for me as I am no aviation professional and accept that my amateur assesment could be wrong.

This does not mean I don't believe there is a secret spyplane (I am sure there is, in fact) only that I am sure, unless someone can show me where my assumptions about the design are wrong, that this is not it.

If that were true, I'd agree with you! However Not all of the SR-71's roles have been filled.

We currently don't have a Known long range, supersonic Reconnassance platform with any kind of penetration capibility to it. The UAV's are too slow and basically Sitting ducks in high threat areas. Sattelites on the other hand don't have the flexability to be tasked at moment's notice and sent anywhere in the world.

Tim

Interesting post Tim. Though I'm not sure about some of the dodgy looking models some people have posted.

I do tend to agree that not all the roles of the Blackbird have been filled, but wasn't the replacement given the codename Astra? I seam to remember reading that a while ago.

As for those who doubt if there was ever a replacement, if the Blackbird wasn't replaced, what exactly have the 4000 odd workers at the Skunk Works being doing for the last 10 years? Something is keeping them busy.

Originally posted by Nismo

Interesting post Tim. Though I'm not sure about some of the dodgy looking models some people have posted.

I do tend to agree that not all the roles of the Blackbird have been filled, but wasn't the replacement given the codename Astra?

You could be right about the code name! I was only proposing a design!

Tim

it looks exactly like the jet off the movie "stealth" so i don't beleive this is a TOP secret plane.... i can understand that it would be a certain level of secret by the airforce, perhaps its an X-Topsecret plane, that is now on the verge of being released, eg, the U-2 bomber and Blackbird went through exactly the same thing. Gooooddd Hunting, by the looks of the movie, looks like a beast of a plane lol

btw the unmaned plane in the film "Stealth" i think looks abit or alot like "Aurora" the other supposed secret aircraft project.


cheers

Waynos, I was thinking about installing 4x F-5 Tiger engines in the F-19A Specter airframe, Would this configuration perform well?

The F-5 used the GE J85, this engine was designed for use in missiles in the 1950's so would not really offer anything special over twin F-404's such the F-117 has.

If I remember correctly there are quite a few references to the F-19 in Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. Including a battle sequence at the beggining of Operation Dreamland. The pilots in the book called it the "Frisbee." I dont know if its real or not, but that book is a work of fiction. Interesting thread though. I've seen some of the others involving the F-19. Is there any significant evidence that would suggest it did or was planned to exist at any point?

The one thing that everyone seems to have latched onto is the gap between the F-18 and the F-20, helped enormously by the extremely feeble explanation given by the DoD that 'F-19' was skipped to avoid confusion with the MiG 19 (then already obsolete).

However taking that as proof of the existence of the F-19 stealth fighter is like adding 2 plus 2 and getting 500.

I am sure that there are secret prototypes we have not yet seen, I would be astonished if it were otherwise, but I am not convinced that the F-19 is anything more than a red herring.

You raise a great point Waynos! I never thought of that, but you are right.

Exactly how does missing F-19= Top Secret Stealth Fighter? That requires a leap in logic that we can't support with any known facts. Great Job Denying Ignorance!

Tim

The F-19 was designed and built by Lockheed Aircraft. They built 62 of them. The F-19 went down an assembly line parallel to but hidden by a steel curtain between it and the F-117A. The F-117A was an airplane ordered by the U.S. Air Force. The F-19 was ordered by the U.S. Navy but funds did not come from a budget for an “airplane”. It was budgeted in some other way.

Both the F-117A and the F-19 used the same engines. They also used other identical parts like the landing gear, portions of the center section and avionics.

The Navy used the F-117A as a cover for the F-19.

General Bobby Bond was killed in an F-19 although the cover story was that General Bond was killed in a Mig 23.

My sources for the above information are:

(1) Avionics technician who installed avionics in the F-19 both at the Skunkworks in Burbank and up at the test site in central Nevada. (No, not Groom Lake and not Tonopah Test Range. It was a temporary test facility that no longer exists. It could have been located near China Lake in California.

(2) Lockheed test pilot who didn’t fly the F-19 but who knew about its existence.

(3) Navy SEAL team member who saw them fly off an aircraft carrier at night.

I believe that Israel currently operates several F-19’s.

The f-19 as a naval aircraft idea has got me thinking, especially as a paralell project to the f 117.

the one thing the wing and canard shape inexorably reminds me of is wing in ground effect seaplane concepts I've seen. It would also explain the top mounted and far aft of wing root engine placement. Assuming you keep going in this line of thought maybe it was optimiized to more or less fall off of the carrier deck and rely on ground effect to stay below over the horizon radar to get away from the carrier groups vicinity before it popped up and grabbed altitude. In which case it wouldn't need to worry about scraping it's tail much on takeoff because it's runway is essentially 50 feet above the ground by the time it starts achieving takeoff velocity.

Also I am thinking it fits alot of the profiles for an electrostatic propulsion aided aircraft, and anyone whose played with lifters or studied electromagnetics knows salt water has some very interesting properties. I have always been of the school of thought that with the severe mauling the geometry jet exhausts of stealth aircraft seem to indicate that they attain their thrust from some other method. I've personally always wondered if maybe all that shrouding is there to hide static electricity generators used to charge the leading edge of said aircraft in a manner similar to T Townsend browns research.

After all it's a well publicized fact that stealth aircraft hate the rain... Maybe it has more to do with their propulsion system than the vulnerabillity of RAM. I KNow this has been went over again and again but somehow it always just sticks in my head that they can't be using jet exhaust to fly with their bastardized exhausts.

Anyway that's just my two cents but it looks a heck of alot like a part electrostatically propelled Wing in ground effect vehicle to me

Originally posted by johnlear
The F-19 was designed and built by Lockheed Aircraft. They built 62 of them.
(etc. blahblah...)

Warning to others: Mr. Lear has been telling this story, which has severe plausibility problems and flies straight into the face of all available evidence, for some time on ATS. Other than a few anonymous "witnesses" known only to him (and whose existence, let alone credibility, is therefore by definition impossible to verify), he has zero evidence for it.

Therefore, think twice before believing in Mr. Lear's "F-19" at face value.

Regards
yf

Originally posted by johnlear
The F-19 was designed and built by Lockheed Aircraft. They built 62 of them. The F-19 went down an assembly line parallel to but hidden by a steel curtain between it and the F-117A. The F-117A was an airplane ordered by the U.S. Air Force. The F-19 was ordered by the U.S. Navy but funds did not come from a budget for an “airplane”. It was budgeted in some other way.

Both the F-117A and the F-19 used the same engines. They also used other identical parts like the landing gear, portions of the center section and avionics.

Since they use the same engines I'm assuming that your F-19 is subsonic, is this correct?

Also if the Navy was already operating the F-19, why did Lockheed make proposals to them for an F-117N, a Navy variant of the nighthawk? This proposal even made it as far as the pentagon who turned it down.

Originally posted by johnlear
The Navy used the F-117A as a cover for the F-19.

What do you mean? The Navy never operated the F-117A so how could they use it as a cover?

Originally posted by johnlear
General Bobby Bond was killed in an F-19 although the cover story was that General Bond was killed in a Mig 23.

Actually the cover story was that Bobby Bonds was flying an F-117A when he crashed. This was to ide the secret project flying foreign jets from Groom Lake, he was actually flying a MiG-23.

The F-19 went down an assembly line parallel to but hidden by a steel curtain between it and the F-117A.

John, why was this measure even necessary, given that the F-117 itself was produced under a blanket of complete secrecy and production was complete before anyone else even knew it existed? That seems a major discrepancy in the story.

Originally posted by johnlear
Both the F-117A and the F-19 used the same engines. They also used other identical parts like the landing gear, portions of the center section and avionics.

Thats interesting information considering that the F-117 used parts from the production of other aircraft, like the landing gear which came from the A-10. So are you saying that the F-19 used identical parts as the F-117 which used identical parts from other planes?