I originally worked on the boat program for Boeing when I was hired back in 1980. I worked on the military side, building the US Navy PHM hydrofoils.
Boeing seems to only use letters in the early stages of development, before officially announcing the model number. the 787 was called “7E7” early on.
Are there similar Y2K issues with DOD-designated B’s and F’s?
AFAIK, no, the F-22, YF-23, X-32, F-35, etc. weren’t affected.
European manufacturers took a liking to it though. There was the Mirage 2000 and the Eurofighter 2000 (before it became the Typhoon.)
Oh wait - the USAF’s new bomber is going to be called the B-21, for 21st century. That’s the LRS-B.
Boeing made everything as far as I can tell, depending on what the market was doing. After the aerospace market crashed post WWI (yay for a decade’s worth of military surplus hardware sitting unused in warehouses), Boeing supposedly started making wood furniture to keep the revenue flowing. After Vietnam, they built commuter trains (and rails, and everything else, they’d offer a whole package installation to communities looking to upgrade their mass transit systems).
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Oh wait - the USAF’s new bomber is going to be called the B-21, for 21st century. That’s the LRS-B.
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That one’s going to be a Northrop Grumman design. The Air Force put out a call for suggestions from airmen suggesting names. My dad suggested I vote for “Blackjack” for obvious reasons, but that’s already a NATO reporting name for a Soviet swing-wing bomber. I went with “Spectre” since it’s a scary name and the bomber looks like NG’s older B-2 Spirit. Also, I’m a James Bond fan. I can guarantee someone voted for “Bomby McBombface”.
And yeah, as far as non-standard designations go, the F/A-18 Hornet’s designation is technically illegal, but nobody important cares (it should be F-18, or FA-18, or possibly even A-18 though that would be out of sequence, but F/A-18 is right out). Similarly, the SR-71, which supposedly was the RS-71 until the President switched the letters right before the speech announcing the thing’s existence to the world.
Incidentally, the B-21 will also sort of be a recycled designation. The XB-21 was a North American design for a medium bomber which served as the basis for the B-25 Mitchell. That said, the entire aircraft numbering system was overhauled in the 60s, which included a mass reset that, among other things, turned the F-110A Spectre into the F-4 Phantom.
Commuter trains, or their light-rail streetcar? I’d forgotten about the streetcar, although I’m sure I’ve ridden on them several times in Boston. Took one of their hydrofoils between a couple of the Hawaiian Islands, too. They’ve dipped their toes in a bunch of different businesses; not always successfully, but you couldn’t accuse them of just resting on their laurels, either.
Might be the streetcar I’m thinking of. They could market a line of organic protein bars and it wouldn’t be out of character for them to try and diversify.
I didn’t really grok the differences among streetcars, subways, commuter trains, and the like until I moved someplace that had them. I figured they all ran on rails and moved people, so how different could they be; but in practice they seem to be distinct worlds for technical, managerial, and historical reasons.
When looking something up for an earlier post in this thread, I found that Boeing made the US Standard Light Rail Vehicle (used in Boston and San Francisco), some cars for the Chicago elevated system, an a people mover system at West Virginia University, all from Boeing’s helicopter division.
Familiarity doesn’t cause a problem for the car people… Many car names have carried on despite complete change of design (not a reworking of the last model) , and even change of class …
Indeed the 747-8 has the engine and cockpit from the 787, which may be why its the 747-8 ! The use of 747-X had been foreshadowed by the engineering level “frankenstein” (steal from 787, 777, airbus etc design ideas ) update project being named as 747X…