The System
The system conveyed its information in the form:
- (Mission)(Design Number)(Manufacturer)-(Subtype)(Minor Modification)
For example, F4U-1A referred to the first minor modification (A) to the first major subtype (1) of Chance-Vought's (U) fourth (4) fighter (F) design.
For the first few years after the system was introduced, the manufacturer's letter and the mission letter were sometimes reversed. If it was the manufacturer's first design for that particular mission, there was no number before the manufacturer letter.
Read more about this topic: 1922 United States Navy Aircraft Designation System
Famous quotes containing the word system:
“In a universe that is all gradations of matter, from gross to fine to finer, so that we end up with everything we are composed of in a lattice, a grid, a mesh, a mist, where particles or movements so small we cannot observe them are held in a strict and accurate web, that is nevertheless nonexistent to the eyes we use for ordinary living—in this system of fine and finer, where then is the substance of a thought?”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)