Beginning in the 1980s, four manufacturers offered models of the F-19 Stealth Fighter: Revell, Monogram, Italeri, and Testors
The first operational aircraft in the world built to take advantage of low-observable stealth technology was the F-117A Nighthawk. This precision-strike aircraft employed laser-guided weapons against critical targets while penetrating high-threat airspace. The single-seat F-117A’s distinctive design offered remarkable fighting capability.
In addition to having a wide range of weaponry, the F-117A had advanced attack and navigation systems built into a digital avionics suite, which reduced pilot workload and improved mission performance. Detailed planning for missions into highly defended target areas was accomplished by an automated mission planning system developed specifically to take advantage of the special capabilities of the F-117A.
The urgent national need for a jet fighter that could operate entirely undetected from the enemy led to the development of the Nighthawk. It was built fast and in total secrecy, in a typical Skunk Works way.
Skunk Works founder Kelly Johnson preferred traditional, sleek aircraft designs, but the F-117’s special design allowed it to reflect radar waves. With its angular panels bolstered by an external coating of radar-absorbent material, the aircraft was nearly invisible to radar.
In the summer of 1975, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held a “pole-off” competition. Skunk Work’s design demonstrated unmatched low observability and won Lockheed Skunk Works the contract for Have Blue, the stealth demonstrator that led to the F-117 Nighthawk.
Less than a year after Have Blue’s successful first flight in 1977, DARPA gave Skunk Works the contract for the Nighthawk, and the US Air Force and the Skunk Works team immediately worked together to make F-117 production a reality. Only 31 months after the contract was awarded, the first flight occurred in 1981, and deliveries started the following year.
The aircraft was operated in absolute secrecy for many years after achieving first operating capability in 1983. The program wasn’t made widely known until 1988, and it wasn’t until 1990 that it was first introduced to the public. By this time, the aircraft had been in service for seven years.
Notably, the most mind-blowing fact about the F-117 is that a very unclear picture of the jet led to the creation of one of the most legendary fictional aircraft, the F-19 Stealth Fighter. Noteworthy, the F-19 was based on some very unclear pictures that didn’t show the true shape of the actual plane.
Beginning in the 1980s, four manufacturers offered models of the F-19 Stealth Fighter: Revell, Monogram, Italeri, and Testors. Each of them asserted that the model they used started as a kit based on images of a real aircraft captured in nearby Area 51.
The manufacturers had decades of experience in producing highly detailed models that pilots and aerospace engineers purchased. The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and other media discussed the models after they hit the market in the mid-eighties; when the real stealth aircraft crashed in California in July 1986, news stories used the model to depict it. Representative Ron Wyden asked the chairman of Lockheed Corporation why an aircraft that Congressmen could not see was sold as a model aircraft.
In the meantime, the F-19 became a cult classic; it appeared in Nintendo games and the GI-Joe cartoon series. Everybody agreed it was a real plane, but nobody knew the actual look, the maker, and the role played by the aircraft. The cartoonist who drew the famed Buck Danny comics series depicted all three of the different models of the F-19 parked on the tarmac to make fun of the fact that nobody agreed on the actual shape of the “real” aircraft.
When the F-117 was publicly revealed in November 1988, it was clear that the F-19 did not resemble it, which no doubt pleased those working with the real, black aircraft. However, even though the F-19 Stealth Fighter never came into existence, this one-of-a-kind aircraft that never was will always be remembered as one of the ultimate pop-culture icons of the 1980s.
Photo by Bill Abbott and Bsivko via Wikipedia and U.S. Air Force
