Posted on 07/21/2025 4:40:42 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, the world’s first operational stealth aircraft, was a revolutionary bomber deceptively designated as a “fighter” to attract the Air Force’s best pilots. Born from the top-secret “Have Blue” program, the “Wobblin’ Goblin” proved its worth during the 1991 Gulf War, where it struck heavily defended targets in Baghdad with impunity on the opening night of the air campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalsecurityjournal.org ...
First use was bombing Rio Hato during the Operation Just Cause invasion of Panama. Very effective.
SOAP was hilarious.
Burt being abducted by aliens was just as funny as him thinking he could be invisible.
WOW, a reusable space shuttle with a cargo bay would be incredible.
Would Laz hit it
The most incredible part of your story is that the military did something intelligent with respect to maintenance of the F1D2 engines by going to an already active center of expertise.
“The first Stealth fighter” are the four words buried most of the way into the article.
Yeah, the DoD actually has it’s act together occasionally.
Of course, for every common sense decision I saw, there were a half a dozen that made no damned sense at all.
It’s the reason they originally wanted a rotating bomb bay
Citation needed. Research shows:
By 20:00 local time, Zelko’s F-117 Nighthawk was cruising through Dani’s airspace at a leisurely speed of just about 600 miles per hour, shielded from attack by its angular design and a layer of radar-absorbant paint.
Twenty seconds clicked by, as the black jet zoomed across the sky above them… but the dated SA-3 system saw nothing. Dejected, he ordered the system shut down. But he wasn’t giving up yet.
As his F-117 screamed over Serbia, he opened the bomb bay doors and dropped two laser-guided bombs at his target… at precisely the same time Dani’s troops powered their SA-3 up for a regulation-defying third burn. Had the weapon doors not been open, the SA-3 would have seen nothing but empty sky, but the doors’ hard angles compromised the Nighthawk’s sleek exterior for just a moment, giving Dani a split-second opportunity. - https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/04/how-an-obsolete-1950s-russian-made-missile-took-out-a-f-117-stealth-fighter/
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