Some 50 years ago today: The first Northrop YF-17 Cobra prototype made its first flight on 9 June 1974, with Northrop’s Chief Test Pilot, Henry “Hank” Chouteau, at the controls. The flight ran 61 minutes, reaching an altitude of 18,000 feet, and clocked a maximum speed of 610 miles per hour in the clear skies above Edwards AFB.
Photo: National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
YF-17 chief test pilot Hank Chouteau, left, shakes hands with the Northrop CEO, T.V. Jones. Chouteau logged more than 7,300 flight hours in more than 80 models of aircraft and, having flown F-51s in Korea and F-5s in Vietnam, called the YF-17 a fighter pilot’s plane. (Photo credit: Northrop Grumman)
The aircraft, a single-seat all-weather interceptor powered by a pair of General Electric YJ-101s, was Northrop’s initial entry into the US Air Force’s Lightweight Fighter (LWF) technology evaluation program but would lose out when compared to the YF-16.
Via the March 1974 issue of Air Enthusiast International, click to big up
However, it would later morph into the carrier-capable Navy Air Combat Fighter (NACF), the GE F-404 powered F/A-18 Hornet multirole fighter and attack aircraft, which would be adopted in 1978 with the first production aircraft delivered on 12 April 1980.
The same aircraft, now in Navy colors, was operated by NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in May-July 1976 for a series of drag studies. NASA Photo Collection
The above aircraft, 72-01569 (MSN 1), had been rolled out on 4 April 1974 and passed on to the Navy as Bu. No 201569.
It was later retired and is currently in the collection of the Western Museum of Flight at the old Torrance, California airport.
It currently wears a now proudly displays a rather fictitious paint scheme as well as the emblem of the Navy Fighter Weapons School.
Its only Cobra sister, 72-01570 (MSN 2), flew in August 1974 and was exhibited for a couple of years marked as the “F-18 Prototype.” In the collection of the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola since at least 1989, it has been on exhibit at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park since 1996.
YF-17(F/A-18) Prototype 72-01570 (MSN 2), Bu.No 201570 at USS Alabama Memorial Park, beside the USS Drum in the background. Note the Bicentennial flash on the tail, the Cobra program emblem on the nose, the GE logo on the body, and “Hank Chouteau” under the cockpit. The aircraft to the left is a Vietnam-era F-105B-1-RE 54-0102, an early Thunderchief test bird that spent most of her life at Edwards and in NASA’s hands before retiring to Brookley AFB and then the Alabama park. Photo by Chris Eger