Originally Posted by
just another jocky
Equally strange that we refer to the new ac as the F35 rather more than Lightning (or Lightning II) yet the Typhoon is the Typhoon, almost never the FGR4.
Yes, but F-35 is an aircraft, while FGR4 is just a mark number. If somebody mentioned 'GR1s in RAF Germany', you wouldn't know if that was Harriers, Jags or Tornado mud-movers. I don't think it's ever been common to use the mark number other than to distinguish between versions of the same aircraft,
except for the two different flavours of Tornado, and even then it only really worked after the MLU as we didn't have anything else with GR4 or F3 after its name.
I reckon if we did give the JSF a proper designation it would have a much better chance of being called Lightning, but since we seem to be using the American name that's what's stuck.
Consistency seems to have gone out of the window recently. Hercules, Phantom, Sentry and Poseidon get British military designations, but not Globemaster or Lightning. Not sure about Rivet Joint or Reaper!