Message posted by Peter Merlin (Member since 11/13/2003) on June 05, 2022 at 8:54:08 PST:
The X-plane designations are part of the aerospace vehicle Mission-Design-Series (MDS) system that was established in 1962 to standardize tai-service designations. The MDS system has long since been corrupted by non-standard and out-of-sequence designations. The current list of X-planes already goes uo to X-62. Some X-plane numbers have been used unofficially prior to having an actual MDS designation assigned (the X-38 was originally referred to as the X-25 and the Lockheed JSF was being called X-32 in-house before officially becoming the X035). Several X-panes never flew and some numbers were skipped or never issued for various reasons. X-52 was supposedly skipped to avoid confusion with the B-52, which seems absurd but not implausible. Classified projects have historically been given non-standard, three-digit YF- numbers (as well as a few out-of-sequence two-digit YF designations). Similarly, there have been non-standard, three-digit X-plane designations. Considering the above, trying to guess the NGAD designations is a mug's game.
In Reply to: Re: NGAD moving forwards posted by Vahe Demirjian on June 01, 2022 at 19:20:28 PST:
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