A product of disinformation: the F-19 was designed to be F-117 opposite (perhaps)

The prima donna of the Gulf War

It was night.
It was hot, very hot, and I was, for various reasons that I will not list here, standing in front of the nose of an F-117, the infamous invisible aircraft that had become the prima donna of the Gulf War.
Outside the hangar where it was housed, nothing could be heard except the wind lifting the sand and depositing it everywhere. That fucking sand was a problem: you could find it everywhere. On you, in the vehicles, in the containers, in the most hidden mechanical parts of the engines. By then, we didn’t even keep count of the sand filters we had replaced anymore.
Not even the F-117s were an exception; sand was bad for them too.

The conversation began almost by chance, while we were working around that monster.
A conversation not about the aircraft as we know it today, after decades of photographs, documentaries, books, and missions that have now entered the history of military aviation, but about the F-117 from when it still did not officially exist.
The one that flew over the Nevada desert while the Pentagon continued not to publicly admit its existence.

Talking with them, the discussion inevitably ended up on the F-19.
You know that model produced by Testors, which looked like some kind of small black spacecraft, with two tail fins?
Well, exactly that one.
And it was then that I was told a story which, if it were true—and I am not telling you that it is—would completely change the way we have always looked at what is probably the most famous aircraft ever to exist only in the imagination of enthusiasts.

F-19: designed to be the opposite of the F-117

The story I am reporting to you is simple, almost banal in its formulation, but extremely sophisticated in its possible consequences: the F-19 had been conceived as a decoy.
A false image of the mysterious American stealth aircraft, built according to one precise rule: take the real F-117 and make, as far as possible, its opposite.
A very simple rule which, once applied to the real aircraft, produced one of the icons of aviation and modelling culture of the 1980s and 1990s.

And this is precisely where the story becomes even more interesting. Let us begin with the official story, supported by the Testors drawings, the models, and all the related merchandising.
The documented story, at least officially, revolves around an extraordinary man: John Andrews, and I believe it is appropriate, before telling you the “real” story of the birth of the F-19.

At the end of the 1970s, while in the United States the HAVE BLUE program was experimenting in the Nevada desert with the technology that would lead to the birth of the F-117, increasingly persistent rumors began circulating in the aviation world.
There was talk of a mysterious aircraft with low radar observability, revolutionary technologies, and secret activities at Area 51.

The program was protected by extraordinary levels of secrecy, but it nevertheless involved military personnel, technicians, engineers, and companies. In an era without the Internet and social networks, information traveled slowly, becoming distorted along the way, passing through specialized magazines, informants, and conversations among enthusiasts.
Someone saw something, someone else heard a rumor, and someone else still managed to connect apparently insignificant pieces of information.

The birth of the F-19

Among these people was John Andrews. Born in 1932, a former U.S. Army intelligence non-commissioned officer during the Korean War, self-taught in numerous scientific fields and, by the end of the 1970s, chief designer at Testors, Andrews was above all a man with a particular ability: he knew how to connect the dots.

He was president of the Golden Eagle Society, a group of enthusiasts, pilots, engineers, and observers interested in aviation activities in Nevada, and already in the 1950s he had managed to reconstruct with remarkable precision the shape of the highly secret U-2 using only public information and deductions.
Andrews always maintained, obviously, that he had never had access to classified documents: he simply collected information, studied the available technology, and tried to understand where that information led.

When the first rumors about a new American stealth aircraft began circulating, Andrews did, at least officially, what he did best.

Deducing from the available information that the mysterious aircraft would have to be single-seat, twin-engine, equipped with shielded air intakes, and have a completely new shape to reduce radar reflection, he began to mentally construct its possible appearance.

When he discovered, through industry publications, information about engines that he believed might be connected to the program, in 1985 he decided to turn that reasoning into a model.

Thus the F-19 was born.

Extraordinary success

The success was extraordinary. Within a year, the Testors model became a cultural and commercial phenomenon, helping to create what, for a great many people, would become the very shape of the stealth fighter.
The F-19 appeared futuristic, elegant, menacing, and sufficiently plausible to influence illustrators, comic artists, video games, and even the military fiction of Tom Clancy.
For an entire generation, before the real Nighthawk was shown to the world, that was the American stealth aircraft.
The problem is that, when in November 1988 the Pentagon finally showed the first official photograph of the F-117, the world discovered that the real aircraft looked almost nothing like the one imagined by Andrews. At least officially, but in reality, things were different.

And here the conversation from which this article was born returns.
The matter became so serious that Andrews was approached by the FBI and Air Force security services, interested in understanding how he had managed to get so close, at least conceptually, to one of the most secret programs of the Cold War.
If it had been only a fantasy drawing, how could it have been so precise, and with such an “inverse logic” so well applied, and so blatantly evident to anyone who knew the shape of the F-117?

Observing the F-117 and F-19 carefully side by side, something more curious begins to emerge: the F-19 does not simply appear different from the F-117.
It seems, element after element, precisely to have been built according to an opposite logic.
Simply saying that Andrews got the design wrong means stopping at the first impression. Certainly, he got the shape of the real aircraft wrong. But precisely, he got it “wrong” in an extremely coherent and logical way.

F-19: A product of disinformation

According to the story that was told to me that night, this would have been precisely the principle behind the entire operation.
Andrews, in reality, was not approached by the government to answer questions but, on the contrary, precisely to produce an actual product of disinformation.
If you had to confuse Soviet intelligence, you could not simply invent an absurd airplane. Nobody would waste time studying it.
You had to create something that appeared sufficiently advanced, sufficiently secret, and sufficiently plausible to force analysts to take it seriously.
But you also had to make sure that aircraft revealed nothing about the real program and that, on the contrary, it led analysts to waste time on plausible details that were not present on the real aircraft.
Thinking about it carefully, there was one solution, and it would have been almost perfect.

Construct the exact opposite of the F-117, in order to lead Soviet analysts to examine details completely opposite to the real ones, a plausible general configuration, and a project that, at least at first glance, would have appeared authentic.
This was the strength of the entire operation: hiding an aircraft in its complete opposite, therefore mentally denying its very existence in favor of something nonexistent, but plausible precisely because it was based on a functioning logic.
If the logic that made the F-117 fly worked, then a hypothetical F-19 could also have been plausible, being essentially a kind of inversion of a design based on that logic.

“Real VS fake”

The Soviets, in order to obtain a design that came even partially close to the real one, would therefore have had to take the F-19 model and reapply exactly the same inverse logic to every single one of its elements; and, knowing the strictly bureaucratized mentality of Soviet officials, mentally squarer than a brick, conceiving such a thought would have required an independence of thought and an imagination completely outside their mental framework.

And now, let us proceed with a “real VS fake” analysis that better highlights this inverse logic.

The F-117 is an angular machine.
It is made up of flat surfaces, inclined planes, angles, and abrupt changes in geometry. Its shape does not arise from the need to appear aerodynamically elegant, but from the necessity of controlling the way radar waves are reflected.
Looking at it from above, the different volumes that make up the machine can be clearly distinguished: a central section, the large lateral surfaces, the volumes of the air intakes, and the particular rear section.
The F-19 is the opposite. Its fuselage is long, curved, continuous.
Where the Nighthawk is made up of distinguishable elements, the F-19 tries to absorb everything into a single silhouette; where the first separates, the second blends. Where the first seems to have been built by adding volumes together, the second seems to have been designed starting from a single continuous line.

The same inversion becomes even more evident in the wings.
On the F-117 they are large, broad, and clearly distinguishable from the fuselage.

A wide machine

Looking at the machine from above, there is a very evident geometric separation between the central body and the development of the wing surfaces: that particular visual “gap” that immediately makes the wing appear as an element extending laterally from the fuselage.
The Nighthawk is, in this sense, a wide machine. The wingspan dominates the silhouette and contributes to that compact and flattened shape that makes it immediately recognizable.

The F-19 does the opposite. It is long and narrow.
Its wing surfaces do not visually detach from the fuselage in the same way, but seem instead to merge completely with it. You no longer have a central mass from which two large wings emerge: you have a continuous fuselage that incorporates the lifting surfaces. On the 117, development is mainly in width; on the 19, it is mainly in length. In the first, the large surfaces immediately characterize the front and central part of the machine, while in the second the impression is that of a configuration that develops more of its surfaces toward the rear. Long and broad wings versus shorter and integrated surfaces, wide fuselage versus long fuselage, separation versus continuity.

Then come the tail fins, and here too the opposition continues.
Those of the F-117 are long, thin, and divergent, two elements that clearly emerge from the rear part of the fuselage. On the F-19 they become shorter, stubbier, and much more integrated into the general mass of the aircraft. The relationship with the propulsion section also changes. On the Nighthawk, the exhausts are treated as part of a very specific rear geometry, without the fins directly enclosing them; on the 19, instead, the rear configuration seems to have been built precisely to incorporate that area more completely, with surfaces that contribute to shielding it.

Exhausts: opposite philosophy

The exhausts too follow this opposite philosophy.
The F-117 presents a geometric, flat solution strongly conditioned by the requirements of low observability and infrared signature reduction. On the F-19, the rear area instead appears more smoothly blended, with a directional surface and a rounder and more continuous nozzle configuration. Once again, where the 117 exposes a technical solution made of planes and angles, the 19 seeks a shape that appears to belong to a single body.

The comparison between the air intakes is perhaps even more interesting. On the F-117, the central structure of the fuselage can be clearly distinguished and, on the sides, the volumes housing the intakes and ducts. Looking at it from above, it is almost possible to describe it as a sort of central pyramid to which lateral elements have been added. The intakes are also protected by the characteristic grilles that prevent a direct view toward the internal parts of the engine. On the F-19, the opposite happens: the openings become long and thin, the ducts no longer create recognizable lateral volumes and instead seem to disappear completely inside the fuselage. On the 117 you can distinguish the central body and the lateral additions; on the 19 you have a single silhouette containing everything.

Then there are apparently minor details which, taken together, become difficult to ignore. The F-117 has no canards; the F-19 concept introduces them. In the Nighthawk’s canopy, the central section is dominated by the transparent surface and the main frames are lateral; on the F-19, instead, the structural frame crosses the central section, dividing the glazed surfaces. Glass in the center versus structure in the center.

Forward sensors

The same happens with the forward sensors. On the F-117, the electro-optical system is installed in the upper-front part of the fuselage, beneath the cockpit, while the nose continues ahead of it. On the F-19, instead, the sensor is brought directly to the tip. It is no longer an element inserted into the fuselage: it practically becomes the fuselage itself at its front end. Even the inclination of the transparent surface appears inverted: in the comparison we made, that of the 117 rises upward, while that of the 19 slopes downward.

Let us then talk about those long, rectangular grilles present on the F-19 and absent on the F-117. In the model they would serve to cool the engine, or at least to allow additional air to enter. And they are on the upper part of the fuselage, which on the F-117 is instead closed.
Curiously enough, the air intakes of the 117 are indeed covered by grilles, but they are in a forward position.

The logic of opposites continues with the control surfaces. The F-117 uses large movable surfaces integrated into the wings and a sophisticated multiply redundant fly-by-wire system to control an aerodynamically anything but conventional configuration. On the F-19, at least in the configuration we are analyzing, the functions instead seem to be distributed differently, with canards, air brakes on the wing surfaces, and a different conception of rear control. Where the 117 concentrates, the 19 distributes.

Logically plausible

Even the arrangement of the weapons seems to follow the same philosophy. In the F-19 concept, the weapons bay is long and narrow, consistent with the general shape of the fuselage, and the ordnance is arranged one behind the other along the longitudinal axis. In the comparison with the F-117, instead, the arrangement appears more compact and developed transversely, with the weapons side by side. Long versus wide even inside the aircraft. Even the doors are represented according to an opposite logic: on the 19 they open outward, while on the 117 the configuration we are comparing moves in the opposite direction.

At this point, the list begins to be too long to dismiss simply by saying that the two aircraft look different.
Angular fuselage versus curved fuselage. Separate volumes versus a single silhouette. Wide aircraft versus long aircraft. Broad and visually distinct wings versus integrated surfaces. Long, thin, and divergent fins versus short and stubby fins. Air intakes built as lateral volumes versus openings absorbed into the fuselage. No canards versus the presence of canards. Central glass versus central frame. Sensor inserted into the fuselage versus sensor brought to the tip. Upward inclination versus downward inclination.

And this is where perhaps the most interesting aspect of the entire theory comes into play: the F-19 would not necessarily have had to be an aircraft that actually worked, but one that was logically plausible.
Not everyone, at the time, was convinced that the F-19 was truly credible from an aeronautical point of view. More than one engineer expressed doubts about the ability of a machine with that configuration to fly and, above all, to be effectively controlled.

A technical problem that had no solution

Those criticisms were largely ignored because the aircraft had exactly the appearance everyone expected from a stealth aircraft: futuristic, elegant, technologically advanced, and mysterious.
It was believable precisely because it appeared to be aerodynamically realistic, being based on the logic of a real and functioning aircraft.

And this is precisely where the story told to me by the pilot and the technicians takes on a completely different meaning.
If the F-19 had really been conceived as a form of deception, its purpose would not simply have been to make the Soviets believe that the F-117 had a different shape.
It would have been much more subtle.

Forcing them to study a technical problem that had no solution.

Let us imagine being a Soviet intelligence analyst at the end of the 1980s. In front of us appears an image considered credible of a new American stealth fighter. We cannot simply say that the machine does not appear to work.
If we are convinced that the Americans actually built it, we must start from the opposite assumption: if the Americans managed to make it fly, then they must have found a way to solve the problems we can see.

And therefore, we have to look for it.

We have to study longitudinal and lateral stability. Analyze the position of the lifting surfaces. Understand the role of the canards. Try to comprehend how the fins work. Analyze the air intakes and their effect on the general configuration. Simulate the behavior of the machine at different speeds. Imagine unknown fly-by-wire systems. Hypothesize advanced control technologies. Try to understand which aerodynamic principle allows that shape to do what, according to some engineers, it might not actually be capable of doing at all.

The mathematical calculations of a Soviet scientist

In other words, if the theory were correct, the Soviets would not have wasted time trying to understand what the real F-117 looked like.
They would have wasted time trying to understand how an aircraft that could not fly could fly.
And this is, perhaps, the most diabolical part of the entire hypothesis. Not providing the enemy with a false answer. Providing him with a false question. Not telling him how your secret aircraft works, but convincing him that another aircraft exists and forcing him to invest time, intelligence, and resources in discovering the secret that allows that machine to function.

A secret that, quite simply, does not exist.

Meanwhile, the real F-117 would have continued flying over Nevada, completely different from the object the analysts were trying to understand, but still the child of the calculations of one of their own underestimated mathematicians.

And here, once again, the same concept of logical inversion is applied to the very mathematical foundations that were at the origin of the F-117.
The story of the F-117 Nighthawk, the world’s first operational stealth aircraft, is linked to a striking paradox of the Cold War: American invisible technology was born thanks to the mathematical calculations of a Soviet scientist. In the mid-1970s, Denys Overholser, a radar engineer in Lockheed’s ultra-secret Skunk Works division, came across a Russian scientific publication from 1962 entitled “Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction.”
The author was Pyotr Ufimtsev, a Soviet physicist at the Moscow Institute of Radio Engineering. The censors of the USSR had authorized the international publication of the paper because it was considered pure mathematical theory, without concrete military or economic applications.

MiG-37 Ferret

Ufimtsev had demonstrated crucial mathematical formulas: the reflection of a radar wave depends primarily on the shape and edges of an object, not on its overall dimensions. It was possible to calculate the radar cross-section (RCS) of two-dimensional and three-dimensional geometric shapes.
Overholser used these equations to write software called ECHO-1. Since computers at the time did not have the necessary computing power to process the radar signature of curved surfaces, the program was designed to calculate reflection from flat panels, or facets.
The result was the angular and geometric design of the F-117, nicknamed the “Hopeless Diamond”: an aerodynamically terrible and unstable configuration, manageable only thanks to electronic fly-by-wire systems, but capable of deflecting 99% of radar waves away from enemy receiving antennas.

Reversing this logic of facets would have led to three extremely important results.
First: it would not have brought back to the minds of the Soviets the existence of that now-forgotten study, and therefore would not have given them real foundations—which, moreover, they already had—for developing their own stealth aircraft, even though a model of the famous MiG-37 Ferret was produced.
Second, it would have masked the real technological capabilities of American engineers, while also redirecting them toward a “curved” concept rather than an “angular” one.

And third, by analyzing the real RCS of the F-19, which in reality turned out to be decidedly high, the Soviets would have classified that aircraft as a failed attempt, heavily underestimating the real American capabilities in reducing the signature of an aircraft.

“Inversely identical” to the F-117

Naturally, we must return once again to the facts. Public documentation attributes the birth of the F-19 to John Andrews and his extraordinary work of deduction.
To date, there are no public confirmations demonstrating that Andrews was part of a deception operation, or that Testors received instructions from government agencies to deliberately construct a fake.
Certainly, the converging fins of HAVE BLUE and the similarity with the pilot’s canopy are an interesting detail that could reveal something about his actual availability of material and access to classified documentation, but we remain in the field of pure deduction from external sources and accept the fact that they were “only” a coincidence.

The story told by the available sources shows a man who sincerely tried to guess the shape of the most secret American aircraft of his time and who, when the real F-117 was finally revealed, discovered how different his interpretation was from reality.
Andrews did not disappear after that mistake: curiously enough, he became, together with his friend Jim Goodall, one of the leading civilian experts on the F-117 and in 1991 produced a model of the Nighthawk still considered today among the most accurate ever made.

But this does not erase the question.
Why is the F-19 so systematically “inversely identical” to the F-117?

Why does the F-19 not simply appear to be a wrong prediction?
Seen next to the real Nighthawk, it almost looks like its geometric negative.
As if someone had taken the F-117 and, component by component, applied an extremely simple rule:

• Angular? Curved.
• Wide? Long.
• Separated? Integrated.
• Large? Small.
• Front? Rear.
• Center? Sides.

F-19, a product of disinformation to hide the real F-117

And, if it really had been a decoy, the stroke of genius would not have been convincing the enemy that the F-19 existed while hiding the real F-117.
It would have been convincing him that the United States had found a way to make something fly that, perhaps, could never have flown at all.
Perhaps it is only the result of two completely different design philosophies.
Perhaps Andrews, following his own knowledge and the information available to him, naturally arrived at a shape that represented the opposite of the one chosen by Ben Rich and the Skunk Works engineers. This is, based on the publicly available evidence, the strongest explanation.

Or perhaps there really could be a part of the story that still belongs to the shadowy areas of the Cold War.
Although no publicly available official sources exist documenting direct involvement by the Pentagon or the CIA in the creation of the F-19 as a tool of deception against the Soviet Union, the story continues to be one of the most fascinating and debated hypotheses connected to the secret history of American aviation.

An imaginative legend?

Until verifiable documents emerge, the story that was told to me will remain the story of one night in a hangar, told by a pilot and two mechanics while the sand raged outside the hangar.
A story that could very well be an imaginative legend, just as it could be a truth still waiting to be confirmed: after all, by taking one of the two versions and applying the same inverse logic to it, you obtain—curiously enough—exactly the other one.
But it is a story that, after systematically comparing the two aircraft, becomes difficult to dismiss without at least stopping to observe, make a few comparisons, and ask a few questions.

I dedicate this article to the guys from that night: obviously, I will not mention their names, but they will know who they are if they read this article.
And in the end, I dedicate it to that sand too.
It was everywhere, always present and annoying like an overly jealous girlfriend.
And now that I no longer have it under my feet, in my combat boots, inside my pockets, and in my nose, well… I miss it.

Photo credit: Unknown, U.S. Air Force and Francesco Jerace