F-117 Stealth Fighter retired from service - March 11, 2008

They certainly kept me busy in the past and the mystique surrounding them at the time was pretty entertaining.

"Yesterday (11/03/08) an official announcement confirmed what has been on the cards for a while in stating that the US’s entire fleet of F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Bombers* have now been informally retired from service.


The news is hardly a shock announcement as it’s well known that the F-117A is an extremely and somewhat notoriously expensive aircraft to maintain and, with military expenditure at a premium, the money saved will purportedly be used for procurement of F-22 Raptors and F-35 Lightning IIs.

Discussed the impending retirement of the F117A with one of the pilots. He had a noticeable tear in his eye.

The F-117A was the first true ‘stealth’ aircraft to see full active service (arguably the SR-71 – also a ‘Skunk Works’ design and long since retired – was ‘stealthy’ but was not a true low-observable stealth) and, during its top secret development at Area 51 was blamed for a spate of UFO sightings on account of its highly distinctive shape (a shape that serves to reflect radar waves away from the aircraft whilst returning only the equivalent radar cross section of an insect to radar stations). Interestingly its angled shape was the result of computers, at the time of the F-117A’s design, not being powerful enough to calculate more fluid forms with stealthy characteristics – such as seen on the B-2 Spirit).

Incorrectly designated as a fighter (hence the ‘F’ designation) the F-117A was a light, precision bomber – and certainly not a fighter - and has seen active service in numerous war zones in the world (not least of which the Gulf War)."

http://nexus404.com/Blog/2008/03/12/lockheed-f-117a-nighthawk-stealth-bomber-informally-retired/


http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2008/03/10/daily10.html?ana=from_rss

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f-117.htm
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How much for a mil surp F-117?
Talk about a warbird! Id like to park one with the Confederate Airforce guys at the airshow.

 

Final ceremony flyby...
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What plane replaces it?

 

F-22 and F-35.

 

Publically they're saying the F-22 and F-35, plus some of the RPVs can do the job as well. Who knows what's at Groom Lake right now

Although written way back in 1985 this report is still on target.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1985/HMD.htm

"The utility of the RPV is effectively summarized in an old maxim attributed to Sam Colt, 19th century inventor and firearms expert, "Never send a man where you can send a bullet." However, the development of this new "bullet" must not compromise the weapon's inherent advantages if it is to enjoy further success on the modern battlefield."

 

That is still so f***n' cool looking... What a great design.

 

Interesting!!

 

Hell of a thing.

And they are still using B-52s and say they may use them until they are 100 years old.

I wonder if old sportscars will be found to be more functional and cheaper/easier to maintain than the latest and greatest as well.

 

You guys remember this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E21byPXR1ek

ouch!

 

Never saw that version before... still saddens and upsets me as to how that crash came about. It clearly wasn't the airplanes' fault nor should it be inferred as such (not saying that you're saying...)

 

The F-117 will for certain always be one of my favorite planes, it's a shame to see it go

 

Doesn't seem that old to me........

I could see retiring it because cost.

 

Unlike other retired planes (very recently the F-14), these are not going to the Davis-Monthan boneyard. They are going to be retired at Tonopah, which should fuel some conspiracy theories that they are not really going to be scrapped.

 

"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."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/03/11/stealth.fighter.ap/index.html

 

AHA!!! I found the real reason for the retirement:

(from http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f-117.htm)

In December 2001, TRW and Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Company completed a series of success F-117 flight tests evaluating the ability for commerical off the shelf (COTS) technology combined with COTS emulation technology to execute the existing F-117 Operational Flight Plan (OFP). TRW's Reconfigurable Processor for Legacy Applications Code Execution (RePLACE) emulates legacy hardware on more modern hardware, allowing that modern hardware to run legacy applications without changes. This technology offers the potential for low-cost, low-risk, incremental upgrades to aircraft processing power. In the F-117 demonstrations, the technology performed flawlessly, requiring no updates, generating no anomalies, and surprising the evaluators.

BSOD or "stack overflow line:0" errors!!

Cool plane. Wonder when they will retire the B2 bomber, can't be too far off.

 

i think its one of the coolest looking air craft ever.

my top 5 list would be

1) SR72
2) F35
3) F117
4) F14
5) Su-37

 

Absolutely, unquestionably the coolest plane ever built (and requiring the biggest balls to fly).

North American X15

57,000 pounds of thrust

Single pilot (see Neil Armstrong below)

Dropped from a B-52

Reached a maximum speed of 4520 miles per hour

Attained an altitude of 67 miles

All before the computer age.
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The X15 was more a rocket than a real plane...

Mmmh, my take for the coolest would be the Valkyrie (XB-70)...
http://www.labiker.org/xb70.html

That thing had a MTOW of > 500'000 lbs, a range of 7500 Nm and mach 3 cruise speed...

Everytime I look at the pics, I think it's a 60s scifi movie...So unreal...

 

The F117 kind of strikes me as the Testarossa of warbirds. Looked amazingly cool and futuristic when it first came out, but the design now looks dated.

 

You have a point there; it does date back to about the same time frame...but, then you cannot really say that about the SR-71 from some twenty years plus before that.

As long as we are mentioning the lost great ones, I still miss the B-58 Hustler and all the great records it set.

 

What's not to like about something that's big, fast and knocks stuff off the shelves when it flies over.

I still remember the "sonic booms" when I was a kid.
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The plane is really obsolete, that's why it's retiring. The 22 can easily do what the 117 did. So there's no point in keeping it anymore. The 117 also loses a ton of altitude during a banked turn. Watch one in an airshow.
It's a cool looking aircraft, but it's too one dimensional.

Jim

 

Will there be any surplus for sale on E-bay any time soon?

That would definitely be a great pic for the Garage Pic thread...