On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 12:55:12 -0500, "John A. Weeks III"
wrote:


It used to be something that the manufacturer did. For example,
North American used the "thunder" series names (Thunderbolt,
Thunderchief, etc);

That would of course be Republic.

Lockheed used astronomy names (Constellation);

Lockheed use "Star-xxxx" as in Starfighter or Shooting Star or
Starfire. Close enough to astronomy for government work.

Boeing used terms from the atmosphere (Flying Fortress, Super
Fortress, Strato Fortress, etc).

Like Fortress, Fortress, Fortress?

During WWII, some airplanes were first bought by the Brits, and
the Brits gave them their name. This included the Mustang and
the Lightning.

Lockheed's Lightning (astronomy??) wasn't first bought by the Brits.

Prior to Fighting Bob McNemara taking over the DOD in the early
60's, the DOD pretty much used the names that manufactures suggested.
Starting with Fighting Bob, airplane projects became far more
political, and the names became part of the political game.

Don't think we can attribute that to McNamara. On his watch we got the
F-4 Phantom II, named in the tradition of McDonnell with a
supernatural bent following the Voodoo. And the LTV Corsair II,
following Chance-Vought's Corsair.


The F-22/23 program started as a flyoff between the YF prototypes before
the winner was awarded contracts for full scale development aircraft.
During the flyoff, the planes used manufactures names, the Thunderchief
II and the Lighting II--designed to bring back memories of great WWII
aircraft. Once a winner was selected, the USAF assigned the name
Raptor to the F-22.

While Lockheed did dub the -22 as Lightning II, Northrop tried Black
Widow II on F-23. Neither manufacturer would have weathered the
backlash of trying to call their airplane Thunderchief.

I always suggested, while I was at Northrop that based on its
appearance and the previous carnivorous insect name tradition that the
-23 be called "Mantis".

Another unique modern name is the F-14 Tomcat. Grumman has a long
history of building "cat" planes for the US Navy. This includes the
F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, F7F Tigercat, F8F Bearcat, F9F Panther and
Cougar (Panther was straight wing, the Cougar was sweptwing), F10F
Jaguar, and the F11F Tiger. When the F-14 project began, the Deputy
Cheif of Naval Operations of Air, Tom Conolly, was responsible for
the project from the Navy. The F-14 project became known internally
as Tom's Cat. The name stuck, and the official name became the
Tomcat.

So, if Grumman has a long history of building "cat" named aircraft,
how then is Tomcat "unique"?