Teen Series

This article is about U.S. combat fighter aircraft. For YA fiction, see teen fiction.

The Teen Series is a popular name^[1][2] for a group of American combat aircraft. The name stems from a series of American supersonic jet fighters built for the United States Air Force and the United States Navy during the late 20th century. The designations system was the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system, which reset the F-# sequence. The term typically includes the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, and McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.^[3]

Unsuccessful experimental and prototype fighters assigned numbers in the teen range (13–19) are generally not considered part of the series. Thus it does not include the Northrop YF-17, which later evolved into the F/A-18. The designations F-13 and F-19 were not assigned.

• F-14 Tomcat - twin-engine, two-seat, swing-wing fighter
• F-15 Eagle - twin-engine, tactical fighter
• F-16 Fighting Falcon - multirole fighter
• F/A-18 Hornet — carrier-capable multirole fighter

See also

• Century Series (US fighters of the 1950s and early 1960s)
• F-19 (hypothetical US fighter aircraft)
  • Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk
• Lockheed YF-12 Blackbird
• Northrop F-20 Tigershark
• List of military aircraft of the United States

Footnotes

1. "Heat Vision: US Teen Series Fighters Getting IRST". Defense Industry Daily. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Programs are underway to give some American "teen series" fighters this capability, albeit in a somewhat unusual way…
2. Carlo Kopp (April 1991). "The Advanced Tactical Fighter [YF-22 and YF-23]". Australian Aviation. 1991 (April). Originally published Australian Aviation, April/May, 1991. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Unlike earlier designs, the ATF is a careful blend of advanced aerodynamics, propulsion and electronics and involves a degree of system integration never before attempted in a tactical aircraft. The reason for this unprecedented effort is quite clear - the Russians have finally deployed their equivalent to the teen series fighters (see May, June 1990 AA), the Flanker and Fulcrum, and have thus very rapidly closed the technological gap which offered such favourable exchange rates for so long.
3. Kopp, Carlo (13 May 2011). "Lockheed-Martin / Boeing F-22 Raptor". Ausairpower.net. p. 1. Retrieved 14 May 2011. The Sukhoi and MiG fighters were designed around the aerodynamic, propulsion and tactical ideas which were central to the US teen-series F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18A fighters: highly agile 'energy fighters' capable...

Bibliography

• Spick, Mike, ed. The Great Book of Modern Warplanes. St. Paul Minnesota: MBI, 2000. ISBN 0-7603-0893-4.