The stenciled numbers and letters on warplanes are more than identification; they are a story of what is important to the designers and pilots, their idiosyncrasies, and even superstitions. The way that the U.S. military has labeled its planes over time has changed from a variety of service-specific labels to a system intended to consolidate them all under one roof. But with technology, even the best-planned nomenclatures become muddled.
Early on, there were separate systems of designating aircraft for the Army Air Force and the Navy, confusing letters and numbers. In an attempt to correct this, the Department of Defense introduced the Tri-Service aircraft designation system in 1962.
Its objective was to introduce a uniform, combined system for all branches—Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. Standard nomenclatures like “A” for attack, “B” for bomber, and “F” for fighter were codified. But as aircraft began doing more than one job, like the F-35, these nomenclatures started to overlap.
The system was never free of oddballs. Some numbers simply disappeared, typically for reasons that appear more superstition than sensible. The F-13, for example, was left out, allegedly because of the superstition against the number 13.
The other mysterious exclusion is the F-19, reportedly in reserve for covert undertakings or evaded to prevent confusion with Soviet interceptors. The YF-17 that lost the F-16 bid would end up as the Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet, given how even the prototype could be significant.
As technology changed in aviation, the military initially began testing drones under the “Q” prefix for targets and drones. However, with the advent of combat drones—aircraft capable of fighting with or without crew on board—it has ushered in a new era of designations. In 2025, the United States Air Force used its very first “fighter drone” designations on cooperative combat aircraft (CCAs). Anduril and General Atomics’ offers turned into YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A, a sharp deviation from how unmanned vehicles had been viewed before.
The use of a letter with a number was contentious among bureaucrats and hobbyists both. Some thought that the Air Force could have simply occupied the idle spaces between F-24 and F-34 and thrown in a “Q” to designate them as drones.
Others pointed out that in the past, the “Q” status was assigned to a target drone, not a special fighter. But these new aircraft aren’t modified manned fighters—like the special drones that were deployed before, they are built from scratch to fight, with an element of flexibility for supporting multiple missions.
Even the lost YFQ-43A came as a surprise. The theory is that in a four-plane squadron, there are reserved numbers for flight leaders, and these drones are flown as faithful wingmen. Even if the reasoning doesn’t make sense, it’s not the first time individuals outside of the military brass are scratching their heads about its rationale.
What does it all mean? The statements by YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A affirm that unmanned systems are no longer target reconnaissance platforms or targets—they are now accepted as combat aircraft in their own right.
The nomenclature system, in all its strangeness, is adapting to a world where boundaries between manned and unmanned, fighter and attack, are increasingly blurred. As the Air Force explores the possibilities of air war in the postmodern world, so too will the naming of aircraft—occasionally sensibly, occasionally obscurely to those outside, but always consistent with the changing face of air war.