As someone who was around…and following the news/rumors back then…let me add my views.
…
Testors launched a plastic model of ithe plane based in large part of Sweetman’s (and others) guesses.,
It was huge seller. I even built one.
I too had my eyes ears open at the time – and also purchased and built the Testors kit… as well, there was the Monogram F-19 kit released which did infact look like the Loral concept. http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/misc/scifi/eggersf19.htm
Still stashed away here in my ‘files’ are a couple newspaper articles from the time… including an interesting piece on the models by Bill Richards of the Wall Street Journal (1986)…. Testor’s competitors are not quite so complimentary.
“Educated guesswork.” sniffs a spokesman for Monogram Models Inc., the largest military model maker. Says Thomas West, marketing director, “I don’t think what Testor did was acurate.”
all that aside, Testors did keep their project completely secret at the time (having refered to the project as ‘Super Tomcat’) and stunned the hobby industry with their release… they were even visited by the FBI.
I didn’t put too much faith in either model design, but they both did look interesting and made some coin for both manufacturers.
As for the F-117, well, EVERYBODY got their confirmation in Early 1990…
I lucked out and and got see it ‘live’ and in person in 1991.
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