which costed me many an hour back before the real one was even seen in its first official use in Panama.
Posted on 04/29/2016 7:38:41 AM PDT by Yo-Yo
America’s F-117 stealth fighter has been in a state of limbo. In 2008, the U.S. Air Force officially retired the black, angular warplanes but they never entirely went away. For eight years, the radar-evading aircraft have rested in climate-controlled hangars at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.
Here’s why — when the F-117s retired, Congress required the Air Force to maintain some of the planes in case they were ever needed in a future war. The flying branch even kept flying a handful, most likely as guinea pigs for stealth-penetrating sensors … or some other mysterious hardware.
Well, that shouldn’t continue for much longer. This week, the House Armed Services Committee voted to remove the requirement that certain F-117s “be maintained in a condition that would allow recall of those aircraft to future service.”
That would allow the Air Force to finally send the Nighthawks to the sprawling Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, according to Flight Global, and will likely permanently end the F-117 as an airplane capable of operations. In other words, scrapped.
Although the dry desert conditions in Arizona are ideal for keeping aircraft viable, Flight Global reports the Nighthawks will “probably be torn apart or less likely, scavenged for hard-to-find parts.” Due to the sensitive nature of the Nighthawk’s stealth technology, it would not be surprising for the Air Force to dismantle and bury them. A few will surely make attractive museum pieces.
So ends the world’s first operational stealth aircraft.
Although dubbed a fighter with the “F” designation, the Nighthawk was exclusively a ground-attack aircraft designed to slip past radars and anti-aircraft missile systems.
The development and combat history is a major story in itself, as the F-117 took a mere 30 months to design — lightning fast for an at-the-time cutting-edge military aircraft. It would later see action over Panama, Iraq and Serbia. Sixty-four were built including five prototypes — and one was shot down over Serbia in 1999.
Because of its mark on history, the F-117 is iconic, although considerably less practical today. Knowing nothing about the warplane and just going by its still futuristic looks, it’d be hard to guess it’s more than 30 years old.
F-22s and B-2s — both stealth warplanes — fill in for the Nighthawks today. And the United States plans to produce thousands of stealthy F-35 multi-role fighters in the coming years plus a new hard-to-detect bomber … the B-21.
Yes, it’s sad to see the F-117 go. But keeping them flyable and in climate-controlled hangars is asking a bit much.
Then along came 1988 and the USAF announced that the F-19 did exist, and it was called the F-117A. It was then used to oust Noriega from Panama, and to serve extemporarily in the first Gulf war.
I drove past the F-117 hangers daily for years while working on the Tonopah Test Range.
Meh.
On a scale of 1 - 10 for secret, the -117 was, at best, a 4 to 5. The prototypes were deeply black - but it’s hard to hide an aircraft you regularly fly even in twilight...
Nowadays, the Chinese would have the plans before the prototypes fly.....
The F-117 was retired in 2008?
Jeez, I need to keep up a little better.
That was back in the days before our government and industrial design and development structure was totally infiltrated by agents of our enemies that we educated in our own universities. Now our enemies know about our developments before we do.
Scrap them? What a waste of good aircraft.
Convert to pilotless
But there was a public leak backed by none other than Jimmy Carter to show that he wasn’t soft on defense in the 1980 election. If Carter didn’t reveal the stealth’s existence to make political points it’s been theorized that it could have remained a secret until the late 80s, possibly into the 1st Gulf War. Remember this well but not much about it is on the web. Here’s some on it;
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/secret_projects2/project317.htm
I was wondering why I got a grammar error on that...
A historic aircraft. Hopefully at least one example is kept for display at either of the Smithsonian Air & Space museums. The combination of stealth and “smart” munitions may not have been as revolutionary as the development of the strategic bomber, the carrier based aircraft, or the pilotless drone, but it was certainly a major evolution in aerial strategy and tactics.
There were a lot of leaks in the 117 program, including intentional exposures of the airframe in places which were known to be photographed.
Shoot, even in 1986, in the brand new public lobby of an aerospace company, there was a nearly mural sized high quality photograph of the aircraft on the wall.
It was a different era, the intended consumer of the leaks was Russia, and they blew a tremendous amount of resources in deploying systems to counter this threat, far more than we spent building those planes.
Falcon 3.0 by Spectrum Holobyte was very recommended once. The sequel had better graphics but the game play went down. Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat was also a big waste of my time back then.
Sell them to Israel! They would upgrade them to uber strike aircraft. It would be a good sale and smart.
“Scrap them? What a waste of good aircraft.”
It’s a beautiful plane but very old stealth technology. From the days before computers could calculate rounded stealth shapes (hence all the flat panels)
Maintenance of the flat panels was absurd as they had to be re-aligned perfectly and the joints resealed for each mission. The longer you flew the aircraft without maintenance, the less stealth it became.
It’s also basically a multi-faceted brick with wings and not a “native” aerodynamic shape. Even the best pilot cannot fly it manually. Computers compensate for this but they can do even better on a “native” shape.
We are capable of building a MUCH better unmanned aircraft today than the F-117 frame. And I would bet many are already flying at Area 51
No no, the F-19 was kind of a flying disc, totally different from the F-117
(See Red Storm Rising, the chapter about the attack of the flying saucers)
Looked more like a teardrop.
I spend LOTS of time flying this puppy too.
I read ‘Red Storm Rising’ and the F-19 in his book was nicknamed ‘Frisbee’ because it was supposed be mostly round to help it evade radar. The best part of the story was when they flew one right down a Russian rod to bomb a bridge! Clancy wrote some very good books and the new guy (Greany?) doesn’t do justice to those stories.
Holloman AFB near Alamogordo, NM already has a Wobblin’ Goblin on display at their Freedom Park. Last time I was there parts of the skin were starting to de-laminate. Still it’s nice to be able to walk around the bird up close.
I’d still like to see Red Storm Rising turned into a mini series.
I re-read Red Storm Rising last year as well. That would have been a great movie.
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