RARE: The Story Behind the F-19 Stealth Fighter! (Documentary Video)

[VSKYLABS Newsletter] issued 11 Feb 2023

VSKYLABS is very exciting to share a new, short video regarding the story behind the F-19 Stealth Fighter!

The video includes a rare audio recording of an intriguing interview. Mr. Don Ecker conducted this interview in his radio program 'UFOs Tonite!', back in 1994, with Mr. John Andrews, the man who designed the F-19 Stealth Fighter model during the year 1985.

The F-19 Stealth Fighter model carried a whole generation of aviation and flight simulation enthusiasts into the fascinating world of military aviation and stealth technology back in the late 80's / early 90's.

A HUGE 'Thank You!' goes to Mr. Don Ecker, for allowing VSKYLABS to use the audio recording of the interview in this video, which was edited as a humble appreciation to all who were involved in the making of the 80's F-19 Stealth Fighter concept model, and above all, to Mr. John Andrews, the man behind the legendary F-19 Stealth Fighter model design.

*Video background footage: Flying segments of the VSKYLABS 'Test-Pilot': F-19 Stealth Fighter Project, in X-Plane 12 flight simulation (early version).

More information about the VSKYLABS 'Test-Pilot': F-19 Stealth Fighter (for X-Plane 12) can be found in the project's page: https://www.vskylabs.com/p/f19sf/

*The development of the VSKYLABS F-19 for X-Plane flight simulator is approved by Testors/ITALERI S.p.A. However, it is an independent VSKYLABS development effort which is not endorsed and/or affiliated with/by Testors/ITALERI S.p.A

Determining the VSKYLABS F-19's True Scale

[VSKYLABS Test-Pilot Notes] issued 19th September 2022

Determining the F-19 aircraft true scale was quite of a challenge...

MicroProse defined the F-19 in the PC simulator with overall length of 59'0", and with 'mission' weight at takeoff of 17 tons (~37'480 pounds)...Selected engines were two F404-GE-100A turbofans that provided 34,000 thrust altogether. (this is taken from the PC 1988 F-19 Stealth Fighter manual).

The Testors plastic model (1:48) had physical length of 31.8cm by specs...that goes up to ~50+ feet. Their 1:72 model was 21.1cm long...that is close to 50 feet long in true-scale.

It seems that Testors were aiming to a light attack stealth fighter ('long' as the F-16), and Microprose aimed for an F-18 'long' aircraft...

From this little analysis, it was obvious that the F-19 (in both renditions) was assumed to be a light to medium-light attack stealth fighter...with the length of F-16 (~50' long) to the F-18 (56'+ long)... and maximum takeoff weight around the fully loaded F-18 (without external loading...where the maximum takeoff weight if the F-18C/D exceeding close to 52,000 pounds...)...

That was the starting general point of the VSKYLABS F-19 realization process.

In short, the original concept was not designed to carry external fuel load or external weapons, and due to its wing planform shape (span, geometric shape and plausible thickness), and the fact that it was a twin-engine aircraft...and had to carry certain internal payload (that was 3-4 bays by concept)....and also there should be an internal volume reserved to the landing gears and other 'accessories'....

Once challenged by a plausible aircraft propulsion, fuel, controls and other systems design and practical implementation, all of the above (and more) were proved to be too-small to become a plausible design.  So we (VSKYLABS) 'stretched' the aircraft to 18.9 meters long (~62'0").

Reminder: The main objective was to create a plausible aircraft, yet to 'fight' for keeping it as close as possible to the original design...not to design a new aircraft...

The additional length (significant compared to the Testors model, and ~ 2 feet longer then the Microprose design) was a minimal addition to allow the hosting of the two selected engines (will get into this in another post), and to allow a plausible fuel tanks arrangement.

Imagine: most central fuselage volume is reserved to cockpit, intakes, engines (with a 1:1 scale implementation), landing gear bays and 3-4 internal weapon bays. The wings are...thin as the F-104 wings...and the slender delta wingspan is short...where you stuff a plausible fuel system and tanks into this arrangement? (fuel quantity was not specified in either one of the MicroProse F-19 manual).

Lets say that when designing plausible systems...the F-19 strong side does not include excessive fuel load. Why there is an afterburner in the VSKYLABS F-19 design one may ask? That is for another post

OK back to the scaling...the 3-d pilot figure was measured to match a ~1.8m (standing) man. The seat in all screenshots is set in its lowest position... (..you can set the 3-d pilot seat height just like in real world...electrically operated...useless yet very cool feature...). But indeed, following the actual Testors design, scale, contours...all dictates a very spacious cockpit, with a huge headroom.

A different angle to tackle the scaling subject, was the 3-d cockpit design, which was build and modeled following actual 1:1 scale of the F-18 cockpit measurements, ergonomics, MFD's size, inner dash width...overall internal width...etc... Then is was found, not in theory, but practically, that when sitting in the 1:1 scaled aircraft in VR... there is a huge headroom. We embraced it as it is faithful to the original design (same contour), and also because the effect on performance and drag (streamlining the canopy a bit lower) was rather low to none.

Variants: Only additional variant that is planned is with a bubble canopy (yet the same contour, so it is still specious) and XP12 3-d HUD. But this is planned for at least 6 months after release, into the future...

Other then that, there are no plans to divert from the Testors concept, and as with all 'VSKYLABS' aircraft, the development road-map is focused on getting the existing aircraft better and better, with additional features and improvements following X-Plane 12 progress.

JMH