Nighthawk Airplane - The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a retired American single-seat, two-seat stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). It was the first operational aircraft designed with stealth technology.
The F-117 is based on the Have Blue technology demonstrator. The Nighthawk was first flown in 1981 at Groom Lake, Nevada, and the aircraft reached initial operational status in 1983. The plane was shrouded in secrecy until it was unveiled to the public in 1988. Of the 64 F-117s built, 59 were production versions, the other five were prototypes.
Nighthawk Airplane
The F-117 became widely known for its role in the 1991 Gulf War. Although it was commonly called the Stealth Fighter, it was strictly an attack aircraft. F-117s participated in the conflict in Yugoslavia, where one was shot down by a surface-to-air missile (SAM) in 1999. The US Air Force withdrew the F-117 in April 2008, mainly due to the crash of the F. -22 Raptor.
Air Force F 117 Stealth Jet Seen In Rare Flight Over California
Despite the official retirement of the type, a portion of the fleet has remained in flying condition, and Nighthawks have been seen flying since 2009.
In 1964, Soviet mathematician Pyotr Ufimtsev published a seminal article in the Journal of the Moscow Institute of Radio Engineering entitled "The Edge Wave Method in the Physical Theory of Diffraction", in which he showed that radar power bounces back from an object. it has to do with the rim configuration, not the size.
Ufimtsev showed that he could calculate the radar cross section along the wing surface and at its edge. The obvious and logical conclusion was that a large aircraft could reduce its radar signature using this principle. However, the resulting design would have made the aircraft aerodynamically unstable, and the state of computer technology in the early 1960s could not provide the kind of flight computers that would later allow aircraft such as the F-117 and B-2 Spirit to remain airborne. air. By the time Ufimtsev's work was discovered by Lockheed analyst Dis Overholser in the 1970s, computers and software had made great strides, and the stage was set for the development of stealth aircraft.
The F-117 was born after the Vietnam War, where increasingly sophisticated Soviet surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) took down heavy bombers.
Lockheed F 117 Nighthawk: An Illustrated History Of The Stealth Fighter By Bill Holder & Mike Wallace
The heavy losses inflicted by the Soviet SAF on the Israeli Air Force in the 1973 Yom Kippur War also contributed to the 1974 Yom Kippur War. The Defse Scice Board concluded that in the event of a conflict in Central Europe, air defenses would likely prevent NATO airstrikes against targets in Eastern Europe.
It was a black project, a top secret project for most of its life; Very few people at Ptagon knew the ev program existed.
(a pun on Hope Diamond because of her appearance). The following year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded Lockheed Skunk Works a contract to build and test two Stealth Strike Fighters, codenamed Have Blue.
These sub-ground aircraft included Northrop T-38A jet engines, F-16 fly-by-wire systems, A-10 landing gear, and C-130 virus systems.
The F 117 Nighthawk: The First Modern Stealth Plane
By combining existing technology and components, Lockheed produced two demonstrators under a budget of $35 million for the two aircraft and in record time.
Although both aircraft crashed during the demonstration program, the test data was positive. The success of Have Blue led the government to increase funding for the stealth technology. A significant portion of this increase was allocated to production of the operational stealth aircraft, the Lockheed F-117A, codenamed Sior Trd.
The decision to build the F-117A was made on November 1, 1978, and the contract was awarded to Lockheed Advanced Developmt Projects, known as the Skunk Works, in Burbank, California.
Rich called on Lockheed mathematician Bill Schroeder and computer scientist Overholser to use Ufimtsev. The three designed a computer program called Echo that made it possible to design an aircraft with flat panels, called fairings, arranged to dissipate more than 99% of the radar signal energy that "colors" the aircraft.
F 117 Nighthawk Stealth Jets Remain In Inventory, None Destroyed Since 2008 (updated)
The first YF-117A, serial number 79-10780, made its service flight from Groom Lake, Nevada ("Area 51") on June 18, 1981.
Just 31 months after deciding on full development. The first production F-117A was delivered in 1982, and operational capability was achieved in October 1983.
The 4450th Fighter Wing at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada was tasked with operational development of the early F-117s and used the LTV A-7 Corsair II from 1981 (before the first models arrived) until 1989. training to transfer all pilots to a common flight training base and later as a fighter for F-117A testing.
The F-117 was secret for most of the 1980s. Many newspaper articles discussed what they called the "F-19" stealth fighter, and the Testor Corporation produced a very inaccurate scale model. When an F-117 crashed in the Sequoia National Forest in July 1986, killing the pilot and catching fire, the Air Force established restricted airspace. Armed guards, including firefighters, banned the rehearsals and a military helicopter circled the site. All F-117 wreckage was replaced with F-101A Voodoo crash debris stored at Area 51. When another fatal accident occurred in Nellis in 1987. In October, the military again released little information to the press.
Metal Earth F 117 Nighthawk
The Air Force was dead-set on the plane's existence until November 10, 1988, when Assistant Secretary of Defense J. Daniel Howard showed off a grainy photo at a Ptagon press conference that debunked many of the inaccurate rumors about the F-19's shape. After the announcement, pilots could fly the F-117 during daylight hours and no longer needed to link up with the A-7, instead flying the T-38 supersonic trainer for travel and training.
In April 1990, two F-117s flew to Nellis, arriving in broad daylight and for a public display before a crowd of thousands.
As stated by the Air Force. "Simplified management of Ohio State Aviation Systems Cter, Wright-Patterson AFB combined breakthrough stealth technology with simultaneous development and manufacturing to rapidly deploy the aircraft... The F-117A program demonstrates that a stealth aircraft can be designed for reliability and for preservation".
Most modern US military aircraft use post-1962 designations, with the designation "F" usually being an air-to-air fighter, "B" usually being a bomber, "A" usually being a ground attack aircraft, and so on. (Examples include the F-15, B-2, and A-6.) The F-117 is primarily a strike aircraft.
Lockheed F 117 Nighthawk For Fsx
So its "F" designation is incompatible with the DoD system. This is a mismatch that the US Air Force has used repeatedly on several of its attack aircraft since the late 1950s, including the Republic F-105 Thunderchief and the Geral Dynamics F-111 Aardvark. The television documentary quoted project manager Alan Brown as saying that Robert J. Dixon, a four-star Air Force general who served as the head of the Air Force Tactical Command, believed that the top fighter pilots the USAF needed to fly the new aircraft were easier to attract. . an aircraft with an "F" designation for fighter, as opposed to a bomber ("B") or attack ("A") designation.
The designation "F-117" appears to indicate that it was the official designation prior to the 1962 US tri-service aircraft designation system and may numerically be considered part of the earlier "Ctura" series of fighters. Before the plane was revealed to the public, it was assumed that it would probably be designated the F-19, since that number was not used. However, after the F-111, there was no other aircraft to receive the serial number "100". Soviet fighter jets acquired by the US through various means under the Constant Peg program
Supported by American pilots and Te series fighters, with most Ctury Series designations, they were given F series numbers to evaluate.
As with other exotic types of military aircraft flying over southern Nevada, such as captured fighters, an arbitrary radio call of "117" was assigned. The same radio call was used by the Igmatic 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, also known as the Red Caps or Red Eagles, which often flew MiG fighters over the area, but there was no connection to the call. and the Air Force are debating the official designation F-19. The use of the "117" call sign apparently became common, and when Lockheed issued its first flight manual (ie the aircraft's "dash one" manual for the aircraft), F-117A was the designation printed on the cover.
Lockheed F 117 Nighthawk, Airplane, Painting Art
When the Air Force first approached Lockheed with a stealth concept, Skunk Works director Kelly Johnson proposed a rounded design. He believed that flat shapes offered the best combination of speed and stealth. However, his assistant B Rich showed that the beveled corner surfaces would provide a significant reduction in radar signature, and the necessary aerodynamic control could be provided by computer units. A May 1975 Skunk Works report, Progress Report No. 2, Top Secret Concept Studies, showed a rounded concept that was rejected in favor of a flat approach.
The resulting unusual design surprised and confused experienced pilots. A Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot who flew with him as an exchange officer said he saw the photo for the first time.
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