The numbers and letters painted onto a warplane’s skin are more than serial numbers—they’re a heritage. They convey the traditions of the services, the decisions of engineers, and occasionally an element of superstition. The American military has, in turn, evolved from piecemeal, service-by-service systems towards an attempt at a single design. However, with the advancement in technology, the neatness of the structure has become increasingly difficult to maintain.
Both the Army Air Force and Navy employed their own marking systems on their aircraft in the early days, and this tended to lead to confusion. To bring about order, the Department of Defense came up with the Tri-Service aircraft designation system in 1962.
Its aim was straightforward: a common system for all of them—the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. The system gave us the familiar abbreviations: “A” for attack, “B” for bomber, and “F” for fighter. It worked for us for a period, but once planes began serving more than one purpose, such as the F-35, the categories got blurry.
That didn’t stop the system from ever being strictly logical. Some nicknames simply disappeared without comment. The F-13, for example, got omitted—presumably due to the ill-fated association with ill fortune inherent in the number.
The F-19 was also absent from the series, which raised rumors of being retained on hold for clandestine projects or simply omitted to prevent confusion with overseas aircraft designation. Even prototypes made an impact on the sequence: the YF-17, which lost to the F-16, went on to become the Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet, demonstrating that even an unsuccessful number could still make history.
When drones entered the scene, the story grew more complicated. First, unmanned aircraft were given the “Q” designation, mostly target drones and test vehicles. But with drones specifically for actual combat becoming more well-known, a new strategy was in order.
By 2025, the Air Force officially introduced its first “fighter drone” designations for cooperative combat aircraft, or CCAs. Anduril’s and General Atomics’s designs were referred to as YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A—departing from the old idea of unmanned systems.
That choice caused surprise. Some criticized that the Air Force could have plugged drones into the empty fighter positions between F-24 and F-34 and been done with it. Others griped about giving the “Q” designation to combat aircraft when it had long been used for target drones. But these new drones are not repurposed old manned fighters—they’re engineered from scratch expressly for combat, as strike planes, scouts, or loyal wingmen.
The missing YFQ-43A only served to heighten the mystery. The theory was that it had been left out to accommodate squadron numbering conventions under which some slots are reserved for commanders. Whether or not that’s true, it wouldn’t be the first time those on the outside looking in were left wondering how the Air Force makes such decisions.
The most important thing is the message behind such designations. With the YFQ-42A and the YFQ-44A, the Air Force has sent the clear message that drones are not afterthought tools—drones are combat machines unto themselves. The naming strategy that once made distinct separations between fighters, bombers, and drones is now reconciling a world where distinctions do not apply.
As the Air Force moves increasingly into manned-unmanned teaming, nomenclature rules will continue to shift occasionally rationally and sometimes seemingly illogically to the layman. But as with the platforms themselves, the designations will always reflect the evolving shape of air power.
