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F-117 Stealth Fighter to Be Retired
AP ^ | March 11, 2008 | JAMES HANNAH

Posted on 03/11/2008 8:17:16 AM PDT by Joiseydude

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) - 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.

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at wtop.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aerospace
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To: ArrogantBustard

They disagree. My student evals are amongst the highest if not the highest.

I feel sorry for folks who do not do their research homework before pontificating about stuff they know little about . . . especially in such critical areas as national security, globalism and END TIMES prophecy.

But I think you knew that already.


61 posted on 03/11/2008 9:31:19 AM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
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To: papasmurf

What absolute sadness last year when my boss and I went by George AFB. Many buildings were boarded up, tumble weeds all over many of the streets. Such a sad ending to such a great facility that gave so much to the outstanding organizations and personnel that had passed through there.


62 posted on 03/11/2008 9:32:17 AM PDT by Portcall24
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To: ArrogantBustard

You could look up the speech of the retiring head of

Lockeed SkunkWorks.

Naw. Don’t bother. I don’t think anything would influence the thinking of such a . . . perspective.


63 posted on 03/11/2008 9:32:40 AM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
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To: MrB

One of the funny things was finding dead bats in the F-117 hanger - guess why

Same reason as the B-2 ramps at Edwards AFB every morning. The bats radar couldn’t warn them. They flew into them and died.

That’s the story I got from a contractor there. Maybe someone else can confirm it.


64 posted on 03/11/2008 9:35:04 AM PDT by hdstmf
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To: Quix
I don’t think

I agree.

65 posted on 03/11/2008 9:37:36 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: ArrogantBustard

It’s quite thoughtful of you to so tenaciously affirm your Screenname.


66 posted on 03/11/2008 9:39:26 AM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
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To: Quix

Flattery will get you nowhere ...


67 posted on 03/11/2008 9:44:33 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: hdstmf

Bats use echolocation/sonar, ~20-120 KHz, to navigate, not radar.


68 posted on 03/11/2008 9:46:20 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
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To: Joiseydude

Bye-Bye Bump!


69 posted on 03/11/2008 10:18:19 AM PDT by Bender2 ("I've got a twisted sense of humor, and everything amuses me." RAH Beyond this Horizon)
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To: SampleMan

The F-117 is being retired because it is old, expensive to maintain, and inferior to the JSF. It never had any air-air capability, which was a drawback.
***Seems like this would be a good platform to supplement the Close Air Support guys in their Warthogs and/or reconfiguring the plane as an unmanned aerial vehicle to supplement the Global Hawks.


70 posted on 03/11/2008 10:23:53 AM PDT by Kevmo (SURFRINAGWIASS : Shut Up RINOs. Free Republic is not a GOP Website. It’s a SOCON Site.)
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To: ArrogantBustard

I wasn’t aware that your perceptiveness concluded that I wanted to go anywhere with you.

But then I already understood about your perceptiveness. I guess I wasn’t thinking yet again.


71 posted on 03/11/2008 10:27:17 AM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
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To: A.A. Cunningham

The difference in only in the spectrum used.

The coating used, and the angles of the surfaces are designed to absorb and redirect incoming radio waves anywhere but back to the source.

Like the design of a anechoic chamber.

If you were in one, in total darkness, the echo of your voice wouldn’t help you avoid running into a wall.


Anyway, you are technically correct.

Bats guidance system is more kin to a submarine, than an airplane.


72 posted on 03/11/2008 10:31:20 AM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Just saying what 'they' won't.)
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To: CougarGA7

The -117 was designed to evade I-J (India-Juliet) band radar. I-J band is a common SovBlock SAM search/track radar band.

The -117 sticks out like a very big, sore thumb at x-band and with OTH-B (think - Jindalee - a multistatic radar owned/operated by the fine folks in Oz) systems - which is why it was never a Naval attack system.

EF-111 Raven, don’t leave home without one - if you are a -117 driver.


73 posted on 03/11/2008 10:36:48 AM PDT by ASOC (.)
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To: Quix

Your understanding of my perceptiveness would make a neutrino seem enormous by comparison.


74 posted on 03/11/2008 10:40:47 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: ASOC
The -117 sticks out like a very big, sore thumb at x-band and with OTH-B (think - Jindalee - a multistatic radar owned/operated by the fine folks in Oz) systems - which is why it was never a Naval attack system.

Can you source this please? Why would X band radar reflect back to the detector?

75 posted on 03/11/2008 10:40:52 AM PDT by Shryke
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To: Joiseydude

“Because the F-117’s were even invisible to the bats.”

Actually, a friend of my sister’s bosses wife’ friend, told her the real story.

The F-117’s flew many a night mission, and the bats would follow the craft as it taxied back to the hangars, because they thought it was one of their own.

It was warm, and when they ‘pinged’ it, it reflected back only an image the size and shape of a large bat.

They would try and ‘mate’ with it, and since the craft had not adequately cooled down, it would burn their little privates off, and they would die.


76 posted on 03/11/2008 10:42:08 AM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Just saying what 'they' won't.)
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To: Portcall24

Are you from the area?

Long story made short. I was involved in trying to save George and then, keep it away from Victorville.

Long story short, George was in the City limits of Adelanto. Adelanto had an awesome plan for George. No gov’t funds or taxes needed, it would have generated half a billion in revenue in the first 2 years.

Victorville went to court and fought for it, on the basis that it should really be Victorville, as it was in their “sphere of influence”, and financially, Victorville had a larger stake in the success of it and was hurt the most by it’s closing. Of course, Victorville was run by a bunch of libs, and Adelanto was run by Republicans with real world business experience.

Victorville finally won. Their “plan” was a social services mecca, and you see the results.

Thank you Rep. Jerry Lewis (R) for sticking it in our backsides. You Clinton butt sucking biatch.


77 posted on 03/11/2008 10:42:22 AM PDT by papasmurf (I'm not worried anymore. I read Obama's "Blueprint for Change".)
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To: UCANSEE2

“They would try and ‘mate’ with it, and since the craft had not adequately cooled down, it would burn their little privates off, and they would die.”

Can you imagine the dialogue at the bat’s men’s club back in the cave?:

“Man, that girl is HOT!”


78 posted on 03/11/2008 10:45:49 AM PDT by exit82 (People get the government they deserve. And they are about to get it--in spades.)
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To: ArrogantBustard

I keep forgetting that

you

did

NOT

have a close relative working around such craft.

My error.

Besides, why would I want to hinder the comfort of ignorance! I’m keenly interested in comfort—love my Laz-Y-Boy!


79 posted on 03/11/2008 10:47:27 AM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
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To: Quix

ROFL!!!!


80 posted on 03/11/2008 10:48:49 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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