Non-Standard DOD Aircraft Designations
Copyright © 2002-2005 Andreas
Parsch
1.1
Allocation
of Designations
1.2 Errors
in Designations
2.1
Boeing
(McDonnell-Douglas/BAE) AV-8 Harrier
2.2 De
Havilland RC-7B
2.3 Lockheed
Martin CC-130J Hercules
2.4 Boeing
(McDonnell-Douglas) F/A-18 Hornet
2.5 Lockheed
Martin F-35
2.6 General
Dynamics FB-111 Aardvark
2.7 Lockheed
Martin F-117 Nighthawk
2.8 Boeing
AL-1
2.9 Lockheed
SR-71
2.10 Lockheed
TR-1
2.11 Boeing
KC-767
This article will show a
few misapplications of the U.S. Joint Aircraft Designation System of 1962. I
want to present and discuss the various thoughts about why the particular
designations were assigned, and what designations would have been correct.
Please note, that the list of non-standard designations is not intended to be
complete. There are many more designations, which do not strictly follow
the official rules and regulations. Especially the use of non-standard prefixes
and suffixes has become standard ;-) in recent years! If your favorite
"wrong" designation is not included, please drop me a line, and it
will be added.
There are also numerous
aircraft used by the U.S. armed services which do not use any official military
designation at all, or worse yet, use a "pseudo-designation" which
somehow looks like a real one (e.g. "MH-90" or "UC-880").
These undesignated aircraft are outside the scope of this article.
The current regulations
for allocating aircraft and missile designations, called MDS (Mission, Design,
Series) designations, are defined by Air Force
Instruction (AFI) 16-401(I) (PDF file, 480 kB). For a detailed explanation
of the terms, definitions, and code letters of the MDS system, please refer to
the article about Current
Designations Of U.S. Military Aircraft on this site.
I'd like to outline the
procedure for allocation of an official MDS designator briefly (for a much more
detailed explanation, see article about Allocation
of Official Aerospace Vehicle MDS Designations). The various
"activities" (responsible for procurement, maintenance, and/or use)
of an aircraft or missile program make up a designation and forward it (via the
Program Office of the aerospace vehicle) to the USAF Nomenclature Office at
AFMC/LGSI (Air Force Material Command, Logistics Division, Supply) at
Wright-Patterson AFB, OH (formerly AFMC/LGIS in Battle Creek, MI). The staff of
this office will then look for and correct any inconsistencies with the regulations,
and arrive at a recommended designation, which may or may not be identical to
the original request. Now both the recommendation and the original
request are forwarded to the USAF Headquarters in the Department of Defense (office
HQ USAF/XPPE) where the final decision is made. HQ USAF then decides for one of
the designations (or comes up with one of it's own), and returns this to
AFMC/LGSI for official allocation and storage in the nomenclature records
database. The whole process is said to take about 60 days. So there is
obviously no "single point of blame" when an MDS is allocated which
doesn't conform to the regulations.
While it probably can't
be expected that the regulations are always followed to the letter, there have
been some gross violations of them. I want to briefly summarize the various
types of errors made in these "wrong" designations. The list of
examples for each category is far from complete.
1) Some aircraft use
non-standard or misleading basic and/or modified mission letter(s). Examples
include: F/A-18,
F/A-22, CC-130J,
FB-111,
F-117,
AL-1,
SR-71,
and TR-1.
2) Several designations
use out-of-sequence design numbers (e.g. A-37, KC-767,
F-35,
F-117,
RU-38, T-6) or reuse previously assigned numbers (e.g. AV-8,
RC-7B,
KC-10, FV-12).
3) The series suffix
letters are frequently not assigned alphabetically. Typical cases include
special suffix letters for export versions of aircraft (e.g. UK variants
usually use the suffix "K", as in C-130K or F-4K), or use of
identical suffix letters for rather different variants (e.g. F-16C/D for all
single/two-seaters of the F-16 despite significant changes). The use of
"special" suffixes or dual letters, where a new series letter would
have been appropriate, is also not uncommon (e.g. AV-8B+, F-16CJ). However, the
latter are always unapproved semi-official designations.
4) Another frequent
misapplication of the designation system is the allocation of several different
basic (Mission-Design) designations to the same aircraft design. The most
striking example is the Boeing 707. The designations C-18, C-137, E-3, E-6, E-7
(cancelled and replaced by EC-18), E-8 and T-49 all refer to modified 707s. All
these designations are valid by themselves, but according to the regulations,
only one basic designator (C-137, as it was the first) should have been used
for the military Boeing 707. The Boeing 747 is similar with five different
basic designators (C-19, C-25, C-33, E-4, L-1).
5) The opposite of the
previous type of error can also be found, although not as often. Sometimes the
same basic designation is used for rather different aircraft. Typical examples
include the H-1 series, shared by the UH-1 and AH-1 helicopters, and the C-12J,
which is a different type of aircraft (Beech 1900) than the other C-12s (Beech
King Air 200).
While the AV prefix is of
course perfectly fine for the Harrier VTOL attack aircraft, the number 8
is not. The V-8 designator was originally allocated to the Ryan XV-8A
Fleep, an experimental Army aircraft with some resemblance to today's
"ultra-light" aircraft.
When the Harrier
was selected for operational use by the U.S. Marines, it was originally
designated as AV-6B. This was a logical designation, because the Harrier
was a direct development of the Hawker-Siddeley Kestrel, which had been tested
in the U.S. under the designation XV-6A. However, for unknown reasons,
it was later decided to designate the Harrier in the attack series - the
next available number was A-8. However, someone obviously was very
"smart" ;-) and realized that the Harrier was still a VTOL
aircraft, which are represented in the designation system by the "V"
vehicle type symbol. So instead of A-8, it became the AV-8 ... and the fact
that the next number in the V-series wasn't anywhere near 8 had been completely
overlooked (or - more probable - ignored)!
The initial AV-6B was a
logical choice, but if for some reason a new design number had been necessary,
the Harrier should have become the AV-12 (the V-series had
reached V-11 at the time). When later allocating a designation to a then
proposed supersonic Harrier development, the Navy did a much better
nomenclature finding job, and came up with the perfectly valid designation of AV-16A.
As a side note, available
official documentation doesn't show any official reason for the redesignation.
The official confirmation of the redesignation of AV-6B to AV-8A explicitly
requested the cancellation of the XV-6A and XV-8A designations to avoid any
further confusion. It also said that the AV-8A designation was orginally
confirmed only orally, and adds that in the future the proper paths for MDS
assignment and allocation should be used (implying that the oral confirmation
was given prematurely) to avoid unnecessary confusion (thereby apparently
referring to the reuse of the not-yet-cancelled V-8 designator).
It is possible that the
U.S. Marine Corps wanted to avoid having both "A-6" and
"AV-6" aircraft in the inventory. One interesting theory even says
that AV-8 was chosen because it reads as "aviate" - certainly
attractive for USMC aviators! A designation allocated just for pun :-)?
The RC-7B is not
a modified version of the de Havilland C-7A Caribou (DHC-4).
Instead, the designation was assigned by the U.S. Army to the de Havilland Dash-7
modified as intelligence gathering aircraft for the ARL-M (Airborne
Reconnaissance Low - Multimission) program. Apparently, someone in the Army
just liked to assign the number "7" to the DASH-7 airframe.
Apart from the obvious
problem, that the same basic designator (C-7) is now applied to two
completely different aircraft, there are two more remarkable facts about this
"mis-designation":
Available documentation
shows that the Army requested an MDS for the ARL-M aircraft, and explicitly
asked for an "RC-7" designation:
|
[...] |
|
Although the remainder of
the request clearly described the aircraft as a modified DHC-7, no reference
whatsoever was made to the fact that "C-7" had been previously used
for a different de Havilland aircraft. When the request was forwarded by the
USAF Nomenclature Office to HQ USAF for approval, the following information was
included:
|
[...]
[...] |
|
It seems that someone at
Nomenclature Office correctly determined that the next series letter in the C-7
series was "B", but did not realize that the C-7A was a different
type of de Havilland aircraft than the DHC-7. This is the only explanation I
can imagine for the description "C-7A modified ...". Interestingly,
the number of engines was correctly given as "4" in this letter, but
it finally ended up as "2" in DOD 4120.15-L (possibly because someone
thought that a "modified C-7A" must have the same number of engines
as the C-7A itself).
UPDATE: On 15 August 2004, the
designation EO-5C was officially allocated to the ARL-M aircraft. This
is one of the rare cases where a non-conforming designation was officially
replaced by a correct one.
Other than one would
expect at first glance, the CC-130J is not the Canadian version of the C-130J
Hercules. Instead it's the new USAF designation for the stretched
variant of the C-130J, previously known as C-130J-30. The "CC"
prefix is however not covered by the designation system. It would mean "a
transport aircraft modified for the transport role", which doesn't make
sense. As a side note, the suffix letter "J" for the modernized Hercules
is also non-standard, because it's a reuse of a previously allocated suffix.
The next proper suffix would have been C-130W (following EC-130V).
According to Lockheed
Martin, the USAF could not use the C-130J-30 designation, because "the
documentation structure within the Air Force cannot support a suffix such as
-30". This appears strange, because such "block number" suffixes
are widely used by the USAF, e.g. for the numerous F-16C/D variants. Anyway,
whatever the exact reason is, the USAF apparently found out that they couldn't
use the C-130J-30 designator. The Nomenclature Office actually proposed C-130W,
and the C-130J Program Manager eventually agreed to that. However, for reasons
unknown to me, HQ USAF/XPPE did not approve C-130W, and suggested CC-130J
instead. It seems they wanted to keep the -130J suffix for the stretched
version, and so the only way out was a modified mission prefix. As a matter of
a fact, however, the stretched C-130J is a transport and nothing else, and
therefore no other modified mission letter than "C-for-Transport" was
applicable. This is about the only explanation for the CC prefix I can think
of. As has been confirmed by Lockheed Martin, any CC-130Js modified for other
missions will retain the second C to distinguish them from non-stretched
C-130Js modified for a similar purpose. E.g., a search-and-rescue variant of
the CC-130J would become the HCC-130J.
Note: On 5 January 2004, the CC-130J
designation was changed to a plain C-130J in the DOD's official MDS designation
table. Whether this is only a "paper change" or if the USAF will
actually cease to use the CC-130J designator remains to be determined.
The origin of the Hornet's
F/A-18 designation lies in the fact that originally two different
versions were planned (F-18 and A-18), the capabilities of which
were eventually combined in a single production version. The A-18 designation
would have been out-of-sequence, and therefore non-standard, too.
Slashes or other
"special characters" are not allowed in aicraft designators. In fact,
the aircraft appears as FA-18 in DOD's designation listing (DOD 4120.15-L).
"FA" is actually a valid prefix (attack aircraft, modified for
fighter role), but the designation is now in the "A" series, and
therefore out-of-sequence. It is interesting to note that the "F"
modified mission letter was not included in the designation system until at
least 1977. It is quite possible that its introduction coincides with the
adoption of the FA-18 designation for the Hornet.
The Hornet should
have simply retained the F-18 designation. The "F" designator
explicitly includes fighters with ground-attack capability (otherwise, almost
all fighters would have to be designated "AF"). If for any reason the
ground-attack features had to be emphasized, an "AF" prefix could
have been used.
Anyway, the actual reason
for the "F/A" prefix is relatively simple - sort of. As soon as it
had become clear that the air-to-air (Fighter) and air-to-ground (Attack) roles
of the Hornet would be integrated into a single variant, the Naval
"attack community" refused to a fly an F-designated aircraft, and
vice versa. The "AF" prefix wasn't acceptable either, because to the
"attackers", it still looked like no more than an adapted fighter
(which it is, of course!), while the "fighters" complained
that the "A" came first! As it turned out, the only
"acceptable" designation prefix was "F/A".
It has also been argued
that the new F/A-18E/F "Super Hornet" versions should have
received a completely new design number (i.e. F/A-24A/B) because of the
extensive changes. However, enlarged variants of aircraft with significantly
larger internal volume but very similar overall appearance didn't always
receive new basic designations in the past, either.
The F-35
designation for the Joint Strike Fighter is the latest in a line of
out-of-sequence designations. What's new about this one is the history of its
creation. On 26 October 2001, a press conference was held at the Pentagon to
announce the winner of the JSF competition, held between the Boeing X-32
and the Lockheed Martin X-35. When the X-35 had been declared the
winner, one of the questions asked was about the designation for the production
JSF. USD ATL (Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology and
Logistics) Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge mentioned the X-35 designator of
the Lockheed Martin demonstrators, briefly exchanged a few words with his
co-presenter, JSF Program Manager Major General Mike Hough, and then said it
would be called "F-35". That's it ... and please no questions about
the accuracy of the story ;-), the transcript of the press conference can still
be found here.
As it turned out, no
designation whatsoever had been reserved, let alone approved, for the production
JSF at that time, and Aldrigde and Hough - obviously not knowing much about the
aircraft designation system used in their department - simply replaced the X by
an F. Of course, just about everyone interested in the subject had expected the
logical designation of F-24. In fact, Lockheed Martin had also expected
this, and was reportedly a bit upset about the turn of events, apparently
already having referred to the hoped-for production JSF in-house as the
"F-24".
The official request for
MDS designations for the three JSF variants was placed by the JSF Program
Office on 17 December 2001. The paragraph requesting "F-35" said:
|
It is
the program office's desire to designate the JSF as the F-35. This request is
consistent with the statement made by the Under Secretary of Defense for
Acquistition, Technology and Logistics during the public announcement of the
contract award. He said the JSF would be called the F-35. This is also
consistent with the X-35 designation of the Lockheed concept demonstration
aircraft. The USAF, USMC, and USN variants will have the Series designators
of A, B, and C respectively. |
|
It was not before 16
April 2002 that the requests for F-35A, F-35B and F-35C (for the CTOL, STOVL
and CV variants respectively) were forwarded by the USAF Nomenclature Office to
HQ USAF/XPPE for approval. This is an unusually long delay, and may indicate
that there was much discussion about the validity of the F-35 designation
and/or the reasoning why it should be assigned (the latter boiling down to
"It should be 'F-35' because some high-ranking but ill-informed official
said so"). Nevertheless, the Nomenclature Office included the following
paragraph in its letters (example for F-35A):
|
The
last fighter aircraft was assigned YF-23A, and therefore this aircraft should
be assigned F-24A as design numbers are to be assigned consecutively
according to AFJI 16-401. This office recommends the designation be F-24A. |
|
However, the
recommendation was to no avail, and on 5 June 2002 HQ USAF confirmed the F-35
designations (without further commenting on the F-24/35 controversy).
This strategic bomber
version of the F-111 should have been the BF-111 - a fighter, modified
for strategic bombing (there is currently no "B" modified mission
letter, but there is no reason not to introduce it). I haven't found any source
suggesting an explanation for this wrong designation. Maybe SAC just refused to
fly its bombing missions in an aircraft with a basic "fighter"
designation ;-). Also, "FB" can be conveniently read as
"fighter-bomber".
This is probably the best
known "illegal" designation of them all! Both the type letter
"F" and the number 117 of the Nighthawk's designation don't
conform to the regulations in the designation system.
Although it is commonly
called the Stealth Fighter, The Nighthawk should have received an
"A" designation. It has no air-to-air role whatsoever, and the
"A-for-Attack" designator is in fact prefectly made for tactical
ground-attack aircraft like the F-117. The topic has been discussed to death
among enthusiasts, but there seem to be essentially two possible reasons for
the assignment of an F-designation:
There are several
theories about the origin of the number 117 in the Nighthawk's
designation, ranging from the plausible to the bizarre. For the sake of
completeness, I will discuss all of these.
Although not officially
acknowledged, it is known that aircraft (mostly Soviet/Russian ones, but also
including U.S. "black" prototypes) used in secret testing at Groom
Lake or Tonopah AFB have designations assigned that look like continuations of
the pre-1962 "century series" designators (see article on Cover
Designations for Classified USAF Aircraft). Examples given include YF-110
for MiG-21s and YF-113 for MiG-23s. Suffix letters (as in YF-113E
or YF-113G) are also used. The YF-113G designator actually refers to a
completely different aircraft type (a U.S.-built stealth testbed) than YF-113
designations with no or other suffixes. It has been reported by one source that
all of these "designations" use a "YF" prefix (for
simplicity and/or secrecy), even if they don't refer to fighter aircraft. This
would be another explanation, why the F-117 doesn't use an A designator. Now
the most "popular" theory about the Nighthawk's designation
says that the aircraft (then known as SENIOR TREND) acquired the YF-117
designation in this scheme. When the aircraft was prepared for operational
service, flight manuals etc. had to be printed, and these were labeled with F-117A,
either on purpose or because of some intra-service communication problem.
Because nobody wanted to re-label all documentation and manuals for the
aircraft, the designation was kept even after the Nighthawk went public.
As to why exactly
"117" (and not, say, 116 or 118) was selected for the SENIOR TREND
aircraft, no really convincing ideas have come forward. Therefore the most
plausible explanation is that it was simply arbitrarily selected - one number
is as good as the other. It should be noted that the SENIOR TREND most probably
hadn't reserved the 117 for exclusive use. There are several reports which
mention a "YF-117E" aircraft, unrelated to the Nighthawk.
One really bizarre theory
about the F-117A designation, which has been floating around the internet for
some time, is that the old pre-1962 F-series was really continued. I.e.,
all the "official" post-1962 designations (like F-15, F-16, ...) are
"just for show" and the services internally continue to use their
respective pre-1962 systems. This results is the following table:
|
Official
Designation |
|
"Real"
Designation |
|
F-5 |
|
F-112 |
|
F-12 |
|
F-113 |
|
F-14 |
|
F13F
(Navy) |
|
F-15 |
|
F-114 |
|
F-16 |
|
F-115 |
|
F-17 |
|
F-116 |
|
F-18 |
|
F5H
(Navy) |
|
(F-19) |
|
F-117 |
|
... |
|
... |
So F-19, which was the
"expected" designation for the Stealth Fighter, is really F-117 -
obviously, the Air Force decided to use the "real" designation in this
one case! .... OK, I said it's bizarre ;-), and I won't even start to
discuss all the flaws of this idea - it certainly has no base whatsoever in
reality.
Independent from the
question, why the number 117 was allocated to the Nighthawk, there was
much speculation about the missing designation F-19. For a long time,
the only known fact was that F-19 was never officially allocated to any
unclassified aircraft project.
UPDATE NOTE: The designation F-19 was
definitely skipped! The reasons are now known, and are documented in the F-19
section in the article about missing
USAF/DOD aircraft designations. The following section in small gray print is now obsolete, and only
kept for historical purposes ... and to give everyone a chance to judge how
near or far my speculations were from the truth ;-)!
At one time
the official reason for skipping "F-19" was quoted as "possible
confusion with 'MiG-19'" ... well, this is obviously nonsense! There are a
few other theories about the F-19. I present and comment on them in the order
of plausibility:
If one puts everything
together, the only "valid" designation for Lockheed's stealth fighter
would have been A-11A. The fact that this number is also
"missing" certainly doesn't help ;-)!
AL-1A is the designation for the
planned ABL ("Airborne Laser") aircraft, a Boeing 747 equipped with a
high-power laser to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles. The designation
has several flaws.
First, the
"L-for-Laser" basic mission prefix was introduced just for this
aircraft. While the addition of new letters is nothing to object to, a mission
letter based on the type of weapon used by an aircraft is grossly against the
original purpose of the designation system. Before "L" all prefix
letters described the mission (or vehicle type) of an aircraft regardless of
the equipment used to fulfill this mission. Nobody would have considered
designating, say, nuclear capable aircraft with an "N" designator,
yet an equivalent thing was now done for laser-equipped aircraft.
It seems that the ABL was
considered as such a "revolutionary" weapon that only a new
"special" designation would do. The original letter which initiated
MDS assignment for the aircraft, dated 15 April 1996, includes the paragraph:
|
After
considerable review of AFJI 16-401, standardized MDS designators symbols and
descriptions for aircraft, the SPO believes that the current MDS designations
do not capture the mission of this revolutionary aircraft. The Airborne Laser
is a "shooter" - the gun is a multi-megawatt laser whose bullet
travels at the speed of light. Its mission is a new one for the Air Force -
boost phase theater missile defense. To get the ball rolling, the SPO
proposes YAL-1, for Prototype Attack Laser-1. This MDS could be suitable for
this revolutionary system with a small change to the current instruction
(AFJI 16-401) within the "basic mission" category. Currently no
"L" prefix exists within the "basic mission" category,
but this change would add an "L" prefix to denote "Laser"
capability. |
|
While the rules were simply
bent to allow for the "L" prefix, the "A" modified mission
letter is just another misapplication. "A" is defined as "Ground
Attack", something which the ABL will never do. The "AL" prefix
was probably chosen because it can be conveniently read as "Airborne
Laser" or "Attack Laser" (another name sometimes used for the
aircraft). However, designation prefixes were never meant to be acronyms (a
similar error was made when the ASAT missile prototype was designated as
ASM-135 (ASM = Anti-Satellite Missile), when AIM-135 would have been
appropriate). The correct prefix would have been "F", which is
explicitly defined as applicable to aircraft designed to intercept and destroy
other aircraft or missiles. This is exactly the mission of the ABL.
The correct designation
for the AL-1 would have consisted of an existing basic designation for the
Boeing 747, prefixed by an "F" modified mission letter. There have
been several basic designations assigned to the 747 (thereby also violating the
regulations), but the most applicable would be the two non-cancelled ones, E-4
(used for E-4A, E-4B) and C-25 (used for VC-25A). Therefore the ABL should have
been designated as either FE-4C or FC-25B. I admit that both of
these designations look rather unusual with their "F-for-Fighter"
prefix, but they are in perfect agreement with the designation system as
defined. It is interesting to note that the designation YFC-36A was
reserved by the USAF Nomenclature Office in spring 1996 for a
"four-engined" (no other details available) Air Force aircraft. While
I cannot definitely confirm this, the "YFC" prefix of this
designation strongly suggests that it was tentatively reserved for the ABL in
case the new L-for-Laser mission designator would not be approved.
The SR-71
designator is actually a continuation of the pre-1962 bomber series, which
ended with the B-70 Valkyrie. Late in its career, the B-70 was
proposed for the reconnaissance/strike role, with an RS-70 designation.
The "RS" prefix (sometimes written as "R/S") was actually
allowed as an explicit "special case" in the orignal 1962 issue of
the designation regulations. When it was clear that Lockheed's A-12 aircraft
(then used by the CIA) had much greater performance potential, it was decided to
"push" a USAF version of that one instead of the RS-70. This USAF
version was to become the RS-71.
"Conventional"
wisdom now says that then president Lyndon B. Johnson messed up the designation
in his public announcement and called it the SR-71 - and nobody wanted to correct
the president. Because the strike mission had been cancelled anyway,
"SR" was quickly reinterpreted as "Strategic
Reconnaissance". However, a first-hand witness of those events recently
revealed in Aviation Week & Space Technology, that LBJ did not misread
anything. In fact, then USAF Chief of Staff LeMay simply didn't like the
"RS" designator - he already objected it when the RS-70 was
discussed, preferring "SR-70". When the RS-71 was to be announced, he
wanted to make sure it would be called SR-71 instead. He managed to have LBJ's
speech script altered to show "SR-71" in all places. Using archived
copies of LBJ's speech, it can actually be verified that it reads SR-71 both in
the script and on the tape recording. However, the official transcript of the
speech, created from the stenographic records and handed to the press
afterwards, shows "RS-71" in three places. It seems that not the
president but a stenographer did accidentally switch the letters, and thus
create a famous aviation "urban legend".
Anyway, the correct
designation for the SR-71 would have been simply R-1A. There is an
R-for-Reconnaissance mission letter in the designation system and it doesn't
make any distinction between strategic, tactical or other reconnaissance.
The second production
batch of the U-2R was initially designated TR-1A (and TR-1B
for the two-seat trainer). This was purely for political reasons, to emphasize
the reconnaissance role of the aircraft. While the "R" primary mission
letter and the design number 1 are text book examples for correct use of the
designation system, the "T" prefix letter is not! In the TR-1, it
stands for "Tactical", apparently to contrast it from the "SR -
Strategic Reconnaissance" designator of the SR-71. In 1991, when the Cold
War and the need for such "diplomatically correct" designations had
ended, the TR-1A/B was redesignated as U-2R/TU-2R.
Note: The NASA used a version of the
TR-1A/U-2R for environmental reconnaissance work, calling the aircraft
"ER-2". This was not a military designation, and does not fit into
the "R-2" slot of the R-series (which has, so far, only the
non-standard members TR-1 and SR-71). The TR-3A designation, which is rumoured
to be allocated to a secret stealth battlefield surveillance platform, is
purely speculative.
In September 2002, KC-767A
was officially approved as the designation for the projected Boeing 767 tanker
conversions to be leased by the U.S. Air Force. Instead of using the next
number in the C-series and designating the aircraft as KC-42A, the
manufacturer's design number was used.
The MDS request from the
CDARA (Commercial Derivative Air Refuelling Aircraft) program office to the
USAF Nomenclature Office, dated 6 August 2002, says:
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The
CDARA Team requests approval for the model designation of KC-767A for the
subject aircraft. We understand the next available MDS designator for this
type of aircraft is KC-42A. However, Air Mobility Command, the using command,
has requested an out of sequence designator of KC-767A for this aircraft. |
|
As usual (nowadays), the
Nomenclature Office stated their objection when forwarding the request to HQ
USAF, and included the paragraph:
|
According
to AFJI 16-401, KC-767A is a nonstandard designator. This aircraft should be
assigned the MDS of KC-42A. |
|
Also as
usual, HQ USAF ignored the objection, and confirmed the KC-767A designation on
18 September 2002 with the words:
|
As
approving authority for Mission Design Series (MDS) designators, we approve
MDS designator KC-767A [...] |
|
The special reference to
the "approving authority for MDS designators" is unusual for these confirmation
memos, and may indicate that USAF/XPPE wants to make clear just who is
the boss on all MDS issues ;-).
I would like to thank the
following people who helped to write this article:
Comments and corrections to: Andreas Parsch
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Updated: 8 February 2005