Stealth Fighter that was shot down over Serbia in 1999?

07/07/2003 | TMMT

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Ever wanted to know what happened to that Stealth Fighter that was shot down over Serbia in 1999?

Well, here ya go...

http://airliners.net/open.file?id=378442

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Plane was shot down on the 27th not the 29th.

F-117s have always been susceptible to detection by low band search radar from day one as the British demonstrated during Desert Storm. Most likely brought down by an SA-3 with a lot of help from Air Force tactics and arrogance.

[Steely Tom]

was this DEBKA or rense.com?

Ha. I can't fault you for thinking this; the idea sounded a little whacked to me too. I heard it from my acedemic advisor, who is a radar guy. We were talking about passive radar, and I mentioned that I had heard on the internet about the microwave ovens pointed at the sky (I read about it here on Free Republic; I don't think it was Debka, but I'm not sure; I don't trust Debka any more than you do). My advisor's responded by saying "that is how you would do it."

Anyway, I never said I had proof. It's just a theory, but a fairly well-informed theory.

It also explains not one but two things that have puzzled me: why did we lose the F-117, and why did we "accidentally" bomb an embassy of a major power.

(steely) (steely)

[ko_kyi]

I hope the military lessons of Kosovo have been learned - that surgical strikes from 10,000+ feet against moving targets is wishful thinking, and fixed-target raids are only as effective as the underlying intelligence is accurate.

When Clinton took a ground attack off of the table the Serbs could completely disperse and dedicate themselves to decoys and concealment. It removed the basic principle of combined arms where you try to make the enemy vulnerable to one kind of attack by making him defend against another kind.

Had the Serbs been deployed and digging in against a mechanized ground force, they would have been chewed up from the air.

[fourdeuce82d]

It also explains not one but two things that have puzzled me: why did we lose the F-117, and why did we "accidentally" bomb an embassy of a major power.

True, but I think simple explanations are best- see Smed. B post 21.

I've heard the USMC has a motto- "Never ascribe to Maleficence what can be explained by stupidity." *grin*

[Hoplite]

It's just a theory, but a fairly well-informed theory.

Uh, no.

It was cell phones, not microwave ovens, and Serbia didn't possess the infrastructure to support the system as envisioned (an alternate version has the turbulence in the wakes of the aircraft showing up against the background white noise, much like a ship's wake when viewed from above).

The microwave oven theory was that they would spoof our HARM's, but upon closer inspection the idea is simply fodder for the simpleminded, who are looking for anything to make Kosovo look like a victory for the losers.