Air Force’s stealth fighters making final flights
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.
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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.
#20 I thought our water was already poisoned…
#18 JPV –
I was aboard the Kitty Hawk when we collided with the Russian submarine.
It had nothing to do with stealth. Many people believe that ships at sea are 100% on alert at all times, but that is not true. The Kitty Hawk was transitioning (just moving along) at the time from one planned exercise to another, without a full compliment of picket ships. The Carrier itself has no sonar, depending on the picket ships instead. We were at the lowest level of alert possible.
If we had been at a higher level of alert, considering submarines a threat, then it would have been detected far and away, and actively tracked. But we weren’t even concerned about submarines at the time. I can’t say for sure, but I think that we didn’t even have our own subs with us… normally there are two attack submarines attached to a carrier battle group specifically there for anti-submarine purposes.
The Hawk was going in a straight line, at night. The sub crossed our bow at shallow depth, and it got massively slammed. We ended up with one of the prop blades embedded in our hull. It felt to us like crossing railroad tracks in a car… we think that the sub actually rolled over under the ship. Only one sailor on the Hawk actually saw it surface behind us (the stern watch), breaching on it’s side and fading into the darkness. We launched several helos and offered aid, but it was refused.
But the point is that we weren’t looking for subs at the time.
Incidentally, in a totally unrelated incident, years later the nuclear reactor on the same sub blew up while being serviced at it’s dock. There is a semi-circle of highly radioactive land several miles in radius around the remains of that sub.
#22 Nice story Awake. Thanks for sharing
27 years? Cripes…time flies
#24, Especially when you can’t see it.
Stealth doesn’t mean invisible so much as low observable. A Stealth aircraft such as the F117 can be detected by radar but it can get really close before being detected. Combine this with good intel as to radar positions and careful flight planning of routes through radar defenses and a F117 is like a ghost.
My understanding of the F117 downed by the Serbs was that they had not been careful in route selection and were surprised by a repositioned mobile radar/sam battery.
My own opinion is that the F-22 is not a replacement for the F117. The Raptor is the ultimate airsuperiority fighter. It’s job is to secure the airspace above a battlefield and deny it to the enemy. The Raptor is not designed or equiped for taking out high value ground targets.
I would be really surprised if there was not a specifically designed replacement for the F117. Posibly even unmanned. The value of the capability pioneered by the F117 is too high to be without.
By the way Grog, I think before long we will learn there are plenty of Democrats who can also be described as convicts.
The F117 not being a Mach 1+ aircraft (because of its design) can’t outrun or out-maneuver other supersonic aircraft or missiles that might chase it. It’s mainly a recon plane, that got drummed into bomber service. But since cheaper unmanned drones can do what the F117 does, and not risk a pilot’s life. This plane usefulness was swiftly made obsolete. The same way spy satellites made the SR71 planes obsolete. Hopefully someday, war will be made obsolete.