The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk was designed around stealth technology as a ground-attack aircraft.
The F-117 was designed with faceted-angle surfaces to minimise its radar signature. This design is highly unstable and requires fly-by-wire computer control to remain in controlled flight.
The F-117 is a single seat aircraft with a large cockpit although the field of view is obstructed and has a blind spot to the rear.
The twin engines have no afterburner and the exhaust is a ‘slit’ shape to minimise its infrared signature.
The F-117 is subsonic with a maximum speed of 650 mph (1040 km/h), as breaking the sound barrier would create a sonic boom as well as the friction heating up the aircrafts skin increasing its infrared signature.
This ‘lack’ of performance is intentional and whereas it could not match the performance of a pure fighter in a dogfight, this was not an issue and the aircraft was designed to be a bomber.
PRODUCTION
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk was produced from 1982 to 1990, with 64 built.
ENGINES
2 x General Electric F404-GE-F1D2s, producing 21,600 lb st.
Press play to hear the F-117
ARMAMENT
4,000 lb (1,814 kg) Bomb/Missile load.
From 1984 to mid-1992 the F-117A served with 4450th Tactical Group, after which the entire fleet was transferred to Holloman Air Force Base commanded by 49th Fighter Wing.
The 49th Fighter Wing were deployed to Southwest Asia and with the air of in-flight refuelling the aircraft flew non-stop from Holloman to Kuwait, a flight that lasted 18 ˝ hours – a record that still stands today for a single-seat aircraft.
During the Gulf War in 1992, the F-117 flew some 1,300 sorties over Iraq.
On 27 March 1999, a F-117 was downed by an anti-aircraft missile launched by the 250th Air Defence Missile Brigade of the Yugoslavian Army. The pilot was forced to eject and was recovered by the United States Air Force Pararescue team some six hours later.
