The Americans went from the F/A-18 to the F-22, after which came the F-35. Not even mentioning the freak that was F-117 which should have been A-11 or whatever, as it was an attack aircraft.
O/T
There is a reason why it ended up like that.
F19 was skipped because Northrop was working on what would become the F20 and didn’t want someone confusing their single engine export fighter for the MiG 19 and wanted a round number.
F21 was the Kfir the Israeli fighter was used for a time by the USN/USMC as a surrogate for Russian fighters in Dissimilar Air Combat Training.
F24 was what was expected to be the designation for the JSF however they skipped to F35 using the X plane designation. It’s suspected that YF24 and YF25 were used for some black planes though
F117 got its designation from the black programs it was operating along side. Basically to hide the program in the budget but in plane sight they continued the Century series number system well evaluating a number of then secret aircraft.
YF110 was the MiG 21. The letter after the designation told you the source and variant the J7B was YF110C.
YF112 was Sukhoi SU22
YF113 was a mix of aircraft. The YF113B and E were MiG 23 variants the YF113D was the J5.
YF114 were MiG 17s
YF115 Klingon Bird of prey…. JK unknown probably a black aircraft program.
YF116 HAVE PHOENIX program which may have been other Russian aircraft as it’s under FME but after 1988 the CONSTANT PEG program squadron was closed and the Red Hats took over for the Red Eagles.
YF117 covers a number of SENIOR TREND & TACIT BLUE aircraft Not just the YF117A/F117A.
YF118G is Boeing Bird of Prey. With potential that the YF118 A-F being any number of other things that we probably never heard of.
They used these numbers for documenting flight hours and other administration functions. A pilot’s flight hours are sacred.
