YF-17 Cobra

The Northrop YF-17 Cobra would eventually become the McDonnell Douglas F-18 Hornet.

The Northrop YF-17 (unofficially nicknamed "Cobra") was a prototype fighter aircraft designed for the U.S. Air Force's Light Weight Fighter (LWF) technology evaluation program. Although it lost the LWF competition to the F-16, the YF-17 was selected for the new Naval Fighter Attack Experimental program. Northrop partnered with McDonnel Douglas to produce the enlarged F/A-18 Hornet which was adopted by the Navy and Marine Corps to replace the A-7 Corsair II and F-4 Phantom II, complementing the more expensive F-14 Tomcat.

Significance

An F-18 desk model similar to the one Kevin keeps in memory of his Uncle Bill

The YF-17 is of particular significance to REDdimension Wiki Circle member Kevin McNulty whose uncle, Bill Gillotti, worked for Northrop for much of his career. Having been fascinated by planes from a young age, Kevin held his uncle in high esteem for his work with the famous aviation company.

Bill worked for the company as its YF-17 prototype competed with General Dynamics' YF-16 for the LWF contract. Kevin recalls Bill saying "If they want to see which one's the better plane, let's have each one turn off one engine in flight and see which one comes back." The single-engine YF-16 would, of course, lose to the twin-engined YF-17 in such a competition.

Thanks to his uncle's commentary, Kevin gained a unique insight into the life of the YF-17 and it's evolution into the F/A-18. According to Uncle Bill, "The Navy does business with McDonnell Douglas, not Northrop, so if we wanted to sell the plane to the Navy, we had to subcontract to MD." Certainly the official histories of the aircraft have a more complex explanation, but Kevin admired the simplicity of the summation.

When Bill died in 1991, his wife, Kathy, asked if there were anything Kevin wanted of Bill's. Kevin's only request was a desk model of a T-38 Talon he had played with as a child in Bill’s Torrance, CA home. Alas, it had been lost in Bill and Kathy's move from Torrance to Fountain Valley, CA a decade before. Trying to fulfill the spirit of Kevin's wish, Kathy gave him Bill's desk model of the F-18 Hornet instead. Bill had received it when Northrop and McDonnell Douglas had one the Navy competition.