One of my oldies: The BAC/Republic F-114 Napa
Tales from Area 51*
The BAC/Republic F-114 Napa
The Missing US Fighters**: The numbers 112-116 and 24 to 30.
One in the Missing Fighter number designations that has recently been unearthed, the F-114 Napa was the result of a secret deal signed between the US Government and Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom. In exchange for cancelling their own TSR-2 strike aircraft and ordering the F-111K (which was eventually itself cancelled!) the US Government licensed the production of an UK designed fighter. Since BAC had been working on the Concorde design, it was natural that a lot of that aircrafts' characteristics found their way into the new, and highly top secret USAF fighter.
License built at Republic Aviation, the F-114, or Napa as it became known (Since the Concorde was named after a wine, it was felt an American wine would be suitable name for this aircraft) was only produced in a small number of airframes, numbering either 35 or 37. Records are unclear as to whether all the allocated airframe numbers were actually built, or if some were merely produced as spare part airframes instead. The small run was due to the UK government cancelling their order for the F-111K, which ended the license agreement.
The only operational service for the F-114 Napa appears to have been as air patrol from Kwajalein Atoll Air Force Base to intercept and escort away intrusive Soviet recon aircraft, as the area was a secure missile test range. Typical loadout was three long range fuel tanks, two Sparrow and two Sidewinder missiles. The aircraft carried no gun, a crew of two and had a cruise capability of Mach 2.5. Range was 2500 miles, and maximum altitude was 65,000 feet.
All Napas were eventually retired and placed in permanent storage at the USAF Secret storage depot under McMurdo Ice Sheet, Antarctica, in 1992. No record, except this, exists of their deployment.
Alvis 3.1
Story link:
http://www.arcair.com/Gal5/4301-4400/gal4356-F-114-Petrie/00.shtm*Area 51 is a Top Secret US Air Force facility that handles all the Secret, Top Secret, Ultra Top Secret and Real Super Ultra Uber Top Secret paperwork. It does not in any way actually test or contain aircraft of terrestrial or extra terrestrial origin. That stuff is at Area 42.
*Missing US Fighters: With the public unveiling of the F-117 Stealth, it was inadvertently exposed that the USAF had been using numbers AFTER the F-111, up to at the very least F-116. Also, in the early 21st century, the designation of F-35 was applied to the JSF winner, revealing that numbers from F-24 to F-34 had been utilised as well. Sloppy record keeping is to blame, and the relevant personnel have been transferred to Area 69 for retraining.
