The Stealth Plane is facing retirement.
mca47
Posts: 13,308
I've always had a facination with planes and aircraft...
I remember reading about "The Stealth" back in the day thinking that was the coolest thing ever! Hard to believe it's been around since 1981 and now facing retirement.
I know there are other stealth planes out there that are 1000x better then the F117...like the F22 Raptor. It's just amazing the technology that goes into these planes!!
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- The world's first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology is slipping quietly into history.
Technicians service an F-117 stealth fighter after it arrived at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, on Monday.
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.
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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.
I remember reading about "The Stealth" back in the day thinking that was the coolest thing ever! Hard to believe it's been around since 1981 and now facing retirement.
I know there are other stealth planes out there that are 1000x better then the F117...like the F22 Raptor. It's just amazing the technology that goes into these planes!!
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- The world's first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology is slipping quietly into history.
Technicians service an F-117 stealth fighter after it arrived at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, on Monday.
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.
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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.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Thrust vectoring is freaking redonkulous.
I always wanted to be a pilot.
I think it's amazing that when a plane finally "goes public" it's usually been in production and tested for years and years beforehand. The F22 is simply incredible and is very much "top of the line" right now. You gotta figure they have been working on that for 6-8+ years before it was public. Imagine the crazy shit they are working on now!
Yeah, I'm sure at some point they will fly again (outside of airshows) in combat.
Hell, even the ancient F-15 which was retired, then officially pulled because of mechanical issues, is still in limited use.
It's just hard to imagine a multi-million dollar jet (times how many they actually have) just sitting around and collecting dust.
It flew over all right, but at like 30,000 feet, but that still didn't stop everyone, including my mom, from taking dozens of pictures of the little black speck.
Yeah, I remember an airshow as a kid. The secret, or special plane was a stealth.
The announcer is like "look to the west, a special plane is on the way".
It literally flew by at like 500 mph!! It was 1/10 the sound of F-14s (or similar) but it was like a black streak in the sky...did you pass and it was gone.
Hahaha!
hmmmm?
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
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( o.O)
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Yes.
I remember articles about the F22 being in prototype and specific discussion in the pieces about what type of vector thrust system it would actually use.
Those articles were from the mid-late 90's.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Aren't there certain areas that they can "open up" at? I know they just can't bust the barrier anywhere.
That had to suck growing up underneath that! Yikes!
It definitely doesn't look as cool as the SR-71. I still love the way those things look. If I were Bill Gates, I'd buy one.
not scrapped, grounded, mothballed. They can be used again if need be. They just sit out in the desert wing tip to wing tip dormant for years.
The problem with this is of course the Military Industrial Complex. They aren't being mothballed for efficiency so much as they are being mothballed to make more room for new contracted stuff to be used in a never ending cycle of buildup.
who was gonna stop them? the plane didn't exist, remember?
Hahaha!