“For years, the plane’s very existence remained one of the Pentagon’s most closely guarded secrets.”
ON AUG. 1, 2008, the United States Air Force decommissioned the last of America’s F-117 Nighthawks. The move marked the end of a 25-year service life for the legendary radar-evading warplane.
Designed to penetrate enemy airspace undetected and deliver munitions with pin-point precision, the angular “Stealth Fighter” saw action in every major U.S. military operation from Panama to Afghanistan.
Although for a number of years, the plane’s very existence remained one of the Pentagon’s most closely guarded secrets, from the moment it was later revealed to the world, the Stealth captured the public’s imagination like no other aircraft in recent memory.
Here are nine facts about America’s most famous ‘invisible’ warplane.
1. It was inspired by the Vietnam War
While the pursuit of undetectable aircraft dates back as far as the First World War, the F-117 can trace its origins to America’s eight-year air-war over Southeast Asia. Between 1964 and 1972, the United States saw nearly 2,500 of its warplanes destroyed by North Vietnamese interceptors, surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. War planners feared that if America ever found itself in a fight with the Soviets in Western Europe, the U.S. could expect even heavier losses at the hands of Warsaw Pact air defences. So in 1975 the Pentagon initiated a top secret program to develop an aircraft that would be virtually undetectable by radar. The project was codenamed Have Blue.
By the end of 1977, Lockheed’s legendary Advanced Development Projects Lab, also known as the “Skunk Works,” had delivered two $35-million stealth technology demonstrators to the military. Although both would be destroyed in accidents, the Defense Department was encouraged enough by these early test platforms to order a fleet of stealth warplanes. Eventually, 64 were of what would be known as the F-117 would be delivered. The first made its debut flight on June 18, 1981. By late 1983, the Nighthawk was operational with the 4450th Tactical Group at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Amazingly, it would be years before the public would even learn of the existence of the multi-million dollar aircraft.
2. It was like a black hole in the sky
A number of cutting-edge design features helped make the F-117 difficult and sometimes virtually impossible to detect. The aircraft’s unique angled shape was engineered to scatter 99 per cent of radar emissions away from the source, while its wings and fuselage panels were coated with secret radar absorbing materials, further enhancing the plane’s ‘invisibility.’ In fact, the 65-foot-long, 29,000-pound Nighthawk had a radar cross-section (RCS) of just 0.003 square meters, about the size of a golf-ball. By way of comparison, the similar sized F-15 Eagle’s RCS is more than 25 square meters. In addition, special horizontal exhaust vents defused the heat from the Nighthawk’s engines, reducing its infrared signature considerably. Its inability to break the speed of sound (the plane topped out at only 615 mph or Mach .92) made it difficult to detect acoustically. And with no on-board radar of any kind, the F-117 emitted virtually zero electronic noise. Even the plane’s matte black paint scheme concealed it in the dark.
3. It was not a pleasure to fly
The F-117’s remarkable radar-defeating design features came at a price, however – the aircraft was aerodynamically unstable. In fact, many pilots reported that the Nighthawk was a surprisingly difficult plane to keep in the air. It took a quadruple-redundant computerized fly-by-wire system just to get it off the ground. No wonder pilots called it the “Wobblin’ Goblin.”
4. Even its name had something to hide
Despite being called the F-117 (“F” is the designation “fighter”) it was actually a precision bomber. In fact, the Nighthawk was entirely incapable of air-to-air combat – it carried no air-to-air missiles and had no guns. So why the misleading nomenclature? According to some sources, the aircraft was called the “Stealth Fighter” in order to attract the air force’s most elite pilots. Supposedly, few fighter-jocks would volunteer for something called the B-117. Yet it’s more likely that the misleading name was chosen to conceal the aircraft’s true nature from the Soviets.
5. The F-117 remained a mystery for years
Throughout much of the 1980s, the public speculated that the Pentagon might be hiding a secret, space-aged warplane. Many assumed that the USAF’s rumoured ‘stealth fighter’ must be called the F-19, since the Defense Department had already adopted both the F/A-18 Hornet and the F-20 Tigershark. This hypothetical F-19 even appeared in Hollywood movies and featured prominently in the 1986 best-selling Cold War Tom Clancy novel Red Storm Rising. Software developer Microprose even released a popular combat flight simulator game based on the make-believe plane in 1988.
6. It would go on to grab headlines
On Nov. 10, 1988 the public finally got its first glimpse of the F-117. The big reveal came during a Pentagon press briefing in which photos of the plane, along with some basic specs, were released. In April 1990, four months after the Stealth’s combat debut in the U.S. invasion of Panama, aka Operation Just Cause, the Air Force staged the first public flight demonstration of the Nighthawk at Nellis AFB. Thousands were on hand to see a pair of Nighthawks take to the air. Nine months later, the entire world would watch the F-117 in action in the skies over Iraq. During Operation Desert Storm, the Stealths chalked up an impressive 6,900 mission hours, flying 1,300 sorties, destroying 1,600 targets. After the war, the Nighthawk was a big draw on the civilian air show circuit. For more than a decade following its combat debut, the F-117 represented the cutting-edge of American warplane technology. It would go on to serve in the campaigns in the Balkans, Afghanistan and again in Iraq in 2003, where it mounted the first strike of the United States’ second Gulf War – an air raid on a Baghdad suburb that targeted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
7. A number of variants were proposed
Shortly after its initial introduction, Lockheed pitched a version of the F-117 to the Pentagon as a carrier-based attack aircraft. U.S. Navy officials were more interested in multi-role warplanes like the F/A-18 and declined. The idea of the F-117N “Seahawk” was revived in the early 1990s, with Lockheed proposing a series of special modifications for carrier-based operations. While the mounting of external hardpoints would increase the plane’s radar signature, they would enable the F-117 to carry a more diverse array of weaponry, including both air-to-surface and even air-to-air missiles. Modifications to the tail assembly were also proposed along with a bubble canopy to increase the pilot’s ability to eyeball threats [CLICK HERE FOR AN ILLUSTRATION]. Again, the idea fizzled.
In 2003, the Air Force experimented with a daylight variant of the Nighthawk. Sporting a two-tone camouflage pattern, the F-117 “Gray Dragon,” as it became known, would be less visible to enemy observers during daytime missions than the aircraft’s jet-black colour scheme. Only one was tested.
8. Only one Stealth has ever supposedly been shot down
The only F-117 known to have been lost in combat was shot down over Serbia on March 27, 1999 during NATO’s Kosovo campaign. The unlucky aircraft was detected on enemy radar when it opened its bomb bay doors to drop its payload. A SAM missile battery locked onto the anomalous signal and launched a Russian-built SA-13. The pilot ejected safely and was rescued, but the plane was lost. Recovered wreckage provided a treasure trove of aerospace secrets for Russian intelligence. The doomed Nighthawk’s canopy, along with the pilot’s helmet and ejection seat are now on display at a Belgrade military museum.
9. Despite being retired, you can still see F-117s today
Initially scheduled to be retired in 2011, the Pentagon moved forward with plans to phase out the aging F-117 in 2008. After more than two decades in service, the fleet was costing the air force more than $1 billion per year in maintenance. A handful of Nighthawks were donated to museums — the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio has one in its collection; Holloman, Nellis and Edwards air force bases each have one too. According to the Pentagon, the bulk of the surviving aircraft are being stored in climate-controlled hangars at Nevada’s Tonopah Test Range Airport awaiting their eventual final disassembly. In recent years, a few have reportedly been seen in the air over their original home field at Nellis, but eventually, the remainders are destined for the scrap heap.
(Originally published on June 3, 2018)
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_aircraft_losses_to_missiles_during_the_Vietnam_War
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-117-action.htm
i love night hawks