"F117" redirects here. For the F117-PW-100 turbofan engine, see Pratt & Whitney PW2000.
| F-117 Nighthawk | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Role | Stealth attack aircraft[1] |
| National origin | United States |
| Manufacturer | Lockheed Corporation Lockheed Martin |
| First flight | 18 June 1981 |
| Introduction | 15 October 1983 |
| Retired | 22 April 2008[2] |
| Primary user | United States Air Force |
| Number built | 64 (5 YF-117As, 59 F-117As) |
| Unit cost | US$42.6 million (flyaway cost) US$111.2 million (total program)[3] |
| Developed from | Lockheed Have Blue |
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk was a single-seat, twin-engine stealth ground-attack aircraft formerly operated by theUnited States Air Force (USAF). The F-117A's first flight was in 1981, and it achieved initial operating capability status in October 1983.[1] The F-117A was "acknowledged" and revealed to the world in November 1988.[4]
A product of Lockheed Skunk Works and a development of the Have Blue technology demonstrator, it became the first operational aircraft initially designed around stealth technology. The F-117A was widely publicized during the Persian Gulf War of 1991. It was commonly called the "Stealth Fighter" although it was a ground-attack aircraft, making its F-designation misleading.
The Air Force retired the F-117 on 22 April 2008,[2] primarily because of the fielding of the F-22 Raptor[5] and the impending introduction of the F-35 Lightning II.[6] Sixty-four F-117s were built, 59 of which were production versions with five demonstrators/prototypes.
Background and Have Blue
Main article: Lockheed Have Blue
In 1964, Pyotr Ufimtsev, a Soviet mathematician, published a seminal paper titled Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction in the journal of the Moscow Institute for Radio Engineering, in which he showed that the strength of a radar return is related to the edge configuration of an object, not its size.[7] Ufimtsev was extending theoretical work published by the German physicist Arnold Sommerfeld.[8][9][10] Ufimtsev demonstrated that he could calculate the radar cross-section across a wing's surface and along its edge. The obvious and logical conclusion was that even a large aircraft could be made stealthy by exploiting this principle. However, the airplane's design would make it aerodynamically unstable, and the state of computer technology in the early 1960s could not provide the kinds of flight computers which allow aircraft such as the F-117, and B-2 Spirit to stay airborne. However, by the 1970s, when Lockheed analyst Denys Overholser found Ufimtsev's paper, computers and software had advanced significantly, and the stage was set for the development of a stealthy airplane.[11]
The F-117 was born after combat experience in the Vietnam War when increasingly sophisticated Soviet surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) downed heavy bombers.[12] It was a black project, an ultra-secret program for much of its life, until the late 1980s.[13] The project began in 1975 with a model called the "Hopeless Diamond"[14][15] (a wordplay on the Hope Diamond because of its appearance). The following year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency issued Lockheed Skunk Works a contract to build and test two Stealth Strike Fighters, under the code name "Have Blue".[16] These subscale aircraft incorporated jet engines of the Northrop T-38A, fly-by-wiresystems of the F-16, landing gear of the A-10, and environmental systems of the C-130.[16] By bringing together existing technology and components, Lockheed built two demonstrators under budget, at $35 million for both aircraft, and in record time.[16]
The maiden flight of the demonstrators occurred on 1 December 1977.[17] Although both aircraft were lost during the demonstration program, test data proved positive. The success of Have Blue led the government to increase funding for stealth technology. Much of that increase was allocated towards the production of an operational stealth aircraft, the Lockheed F-117A, under the program code name "Senior Trend".[18][19]
[edit]Senior Trend
The decision to produce the F-117A was made on 1 November 1978, and a contract was awarded to Lockheed Advanced Development Projects, popularly known as the Skunk Works, in Burbank, California.[20] The program was led by Ben Rich, who called on Bill Schroeder, a Lockheed mathematician, and Denys Overholser, a computer scientist, to exploit Ufimtsev's work. The three designed a computer program called "Echo", which made it possible to design an airplane with flat panels, called facets, which were arranged so as to scatter over 99% of a radar's signal energy "painting" the aircraft.[11][21][22]
The first YF-117A, serial number 79-0780, made its maiden flight from Groom Lake, Nevada on 18 June 1981,[23] only 31 months after the full-scale development decision. The first production F-117A was delivered in 1982, and operational capability was achieved in October 1983.[8][24] The Air Force denied the existence of the aircraft until 1988, when a grainy photograph was released to the public. In April 1990 two were flown into Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, arriving during daylight and publicly displayed to a crowd of tens of thousands. Quote: "Shortly after I arrived in Las Vegas to work at the Dunes, the USAF announced a static display of two aircraft for a one day open house at Nellis AFB."[25] Five Full Scale Development (FSD) aircraft were built, designated "YF-117A".[26] The last of 59 production F-117s were delivered on 3 July 1990.[24][27]
As the Air Force has stated, "Streamlined management by Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, combined breakthrough stealth technology with concurrent development and production to rapidly field the aircraft... The F-117A program demonstrates that a stealth aircraft can be designed for reliability and maintainability."[1] The aircraft maintenance statistics are comparable to other tactical fighters of similar complexity. Logistically supported by Sacramento Air Logistics Center, McClellan AFB, California, the F-117A was kept at the forefront of technology through a planned weapon system improvement program located at USAFPlant 42 at Palmdale, California.[citation needed]
[edit]Designation
The operational aircraft had the official designation of "F-117A".[28] Most modern U.S. military aircraft use post-1962 designations in which the designation "F" is usually an air-to-air fighter, "B" is usually a bomber, "A" is usually a ground-attack aircraft, etc. (Examples include the F-15, the B-2, and the A-6.) The F-117 is primarily a ground-attack aircraft so its "F" designation is inconsistent with the DoDsystem, but it is an inconsistency that has been repeatedly employed by the U.S. Air Force with several of its ground attack aircraft since the late 1950s, including the Republic F-105 Thunderchief and General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark.
The designation "F-117" seems to indicate that it was given an official designation prior to the 1962 U.S. Tri-Service Aircraft Designation System and could be considered numerically to be a part of the earlier "Century series" of fighters. The assumption prior to the revealing of the aircraft to the public was that it would likely receive the designation F-19 as that number had not been used. However there were no other aircraft to receive a "100" series number following the F-111. Soviet fighters obtained by the United States via various means under the Constant Peg program[29] were given F-series numbers for their evaluation by U.S. pilots, and with the advent of the Teen Series fighters, most often Century Series designations.
As with other exotic military aircraft types flying in the southern Nevada area, such as captured fighters, an arbitrary radio call of "117" was assigned. This same radio call had been used by the enigmatic 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, also known as the "Red Hats" or "Red Eagles", that often had flown expatriated MiGs in the area, but there was no relationship to the call and the formal F-19 designation then being considered by the Air Force. Apparently, use of the "117" radio call became commonplace and when Lockheed released its first flight manual (i.e., the Air Force "dash one" manual for the aircraft), F-117A was the designation printed on the cover.[30]
A televised documentary quoted a senior member of the F-117A development team as saying that the top-notch USAF fighter pilots required to fly the new aircraft were more easily attracted to an aircraft with an "F" designation for fighter, as opposed to a bomber ("B") or attack ("A") designation.[31]
[edit]Design
The F-117 is shaped to deflect radar signals and is about the size of an F-15 Eagle. The single-seat Nighthawk is powered by two non-afterburning General Electric F404 turbofan engines, and has quadruple-redundant fly-by-wire flight controls. It is air refuelable. To lower development costs, the avionics, fly-by-wire systems, and other parts are derived from the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon,McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet and McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle. The parts were originally described as spares on budgets for these aircraft, to keep the F-117 project secret.
The F-117 Nighthawk has a radar signature of about 0.025 m2 (0.269 sq ft).[32] Among the penalties for stealth are lower engine power thrust, due to losses in the inlet and outlet, a very low wing aspect ratio, and a high sweep angle (50°) needed to deflect incoming radar waves to the sides.[33] With these design considerations and no afterburner, the F-117 is limited to subsonic speeds. It also has serrated edges in places to scatter as much radar signal as possible.[citation needed]
The F-117A is equipped with sophisticated navigation and attack systems integrated into a digital avionics suite. It carries no radar, which lowers emissions and cross-section. It navigates primarily by GPS and high-accuracy inertial navigation. Missions are coordinated by an automated planning system that can automatically perform all aspects of an attack mission, including weapons release. Targets are acquired by a thermal imaging infrared system, slaved to a laser that finds the range and designates targets for laser-guided bombs. The F-117A's split internal bay can carry 5,000 lb (2,300 kg) of ordnance. Typical weapons are a pair of GBU-10, GBU-12, or GBU-27 laser-guided bombs, two BLU-109 penetration bombs, or two Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), a GPS/INS guided stand-off bomb.
The F-117A's faceted shape (made from 2-dimensional flat surfaces) resulted from the limitations of the 1970s-era computer technology used to calculate its radar cross-section. Later supercomputers made it possible for subsequent planes like the B-2 bomber to use curved surfaces while staying stealthy, through the use of far more computational resources to do the additional calculations needed.[34]
[edit]Operational history
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During the program's early years, from 1984 to mid-1992, the F-117A fleet was based at Tonopah Test Range Airport, Nevada where it served under the 4450th Tactical Group. Because the F-117 was classified during this time, the 4450th Tactical Group was "officially" located at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada and equipped with A-7 Corsair II aircraft. The 4450th was absorbed by the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing in 1989. In 1992, the entire fleet was transferred to Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, where it was placed under the command of the 49th Fighter Wing. This move also eliminated the Key Air and American Trans Air contract flights to Tonopah, which flew 22,000 passenger trips on 300 flights from Nellis to Tonopah per month.
F-117 pilots called themselves "Bandits". Each of the 558 Air Force pilots who have flown the F-117 have a Bandit number, such as "Bandit 52", that indicates the sequential order of their first flight in the F-117.[35]
The F-117 has been used several times in war. Its first mission was during the United States invasion of Panama in 1989.[36] During that invasion two F-117A Nighthawks dropped two bombs on Rio Hato airfield.
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