Stealth Fighters Getting Mothballed
DAYTON, Ohio– The world’s first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology is slipping quietly into history.
The inky black, angular, radar-evading F-117, which spent 27 years in the Air Force arsenal secretly patrolling hostile skies from Serbia to Iraq, will be put in mothballs next month in Nevada.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, which manages the F-117 program, will have an informal, private retirement ceremony Tuesday with military leaders, base employees and representatives from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
The last F-117s scheduled to fly will leave Holloman on April 21, stop in Palmdale, California, for another retirement ceremony, then arrive on April 22 at their final destination: Tonopah Test Range Airfield in Nevada, where the jet made its first flight in 1981.
The government has no plans to bring the fighter out of retirement, but could do so if necessary.
“I’m happy to hear they are putting it in a place where they could bring it back if they ever needed it,” said Brig. Gen. Gregory Feest, the first person to fly an F-117 in combat, during the 1989 invasion of Panama that led to the capture of dictator Manuel Noriega.
The Air Force decided to accelerate the retirement of the F-117s to free up money to modernize the rest of the fleet. The F-117 is being replaced by the F-22 Raptor, which also has stealth technology.
Fifty-nine F-117s were made; 10 were retired in December 2006 and 27 since then, the Air Force said. Seven of the planes have crashed, one in Serbia in 1999.
Stealth technology used on the F-117 was developed in the 1970s to help evade enemy radar. While not invisible to radar, the F-117’s shape and coating greatly reduced its detection.
The F-117, a single-seat aircraft, was designed to fly into heavily defended areas undetected and drop its payloads with surgical precision.
A total of 558 pilots have flown the F-117 since it went operational. They dub themselves “bandits,” with each given a “bandit number” after their first flight.
Feest, who is Bandit 261, also led the first stealth fighter mission into Iraq during Desert Storm in 1991. He said the fire from surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns was so intense that he stopped looking at it to try to ease his fears.
“We knew stealth worked and it would take a lucky shot to hit us, but we knew a lucky shot could hit us at any time,” he said.
Incredibly, not one stealth was hit during those missions, he said.
(CNN)
Nods to LftBhndAgn.
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say it isnt so. the F-117s are the greatest. one of my favorites of all time.
Well its about time to say hello to next generation i guess. Mr Raptor.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:58 amThere was talk of Israel taking some of them off our hands but the upkeep costs on those things are through the roof and when you combine that with all the crap we’d take for doing the deal at all, I guess it just wasn’t worth it.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:05 am____________________________
Yes it was. Its called progress. If it wasn’t for the F-117 length of success, we wouldn’t have the F-22.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:14 amhe was talking about giving them to israel, not that the 117 wasn’t worth it at all.
With f-35 and f-22, the 117 is too expensive and limited in capability to justify keeping it. Very important airplane that has seen its day come and go.
If we could just get enough 22’s to replace the 30 year old 15’s, we’d be in good shape.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:27 amMore F-22’s would be nice. Too bad I never got to refuel (i’m a boom operator) the F-117 or the F-14, two of the coolest jets ever.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:42 amhe was talking about giving them to Israel, not that the 117 wasn’t worth it at all.
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My apology’s.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:57 pmF-22 are taking over … The F-117 was just a test bed.
March 11th, 2008 at 2:11 pm