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 ...
The way the f117 is stealthy is the REDIRECTION of the reflection.
Yes, it reflects sound, and it reflects radar, but just not back to the source.
That’s why it has all those funky angular planes on it. In the book “Skunkworks”, they said it was ironic that the math/geometry behind this approach has been around for a LONG time, and was discovered by a Russian mathematician.
There’s not much space needed - the F22 should have replaced all of the aging and brittle F-15 - now that there isn’t enough funds to even buy a third of what is needed...
and the F-35 - who knows if and when...
I remember buying a model of it on September 26, 1985 in Harold Fuchs Hobby Shop while we were still denying their existence. What does the F-117 and an Ovation Guitar have in common.
I remember when Jimmie Carter revealed the existence of stealth aircraft. (Stupid POS!)
I doubt they reflect much sound back to the source. Propagation is propagation.
The F-117 was flying a decade before we ever saw it. There are things in development we won’t see for another decade.
Yeppers.
The sonar bounced, but not “back”, effectively fooling the bat into assuming there was nothing there to reflect off.
I'm not sure how successful they were in keeping manufacturing costs down. Most of the cost is research so building many of them would drop the unit price significantly.
My best friend’s wife has an American flag that was in the cockpit during the first public flight of this airplane. The late BG Tony Tolin was both the vice commander and commander, 4450th Tactical Group, 37th Tactical Fighter Wing, Tonopah Test Range, Nev. July 1987 - August 1990 and made the flight and gave it to the couple out of friendship.
Wow, now the “sick” side of me wants to see that on video. Quite concisely states the problem with over reliance on one system, wouldn’t you say?
>>What does the F-117 and an Ovation Guitar have in common.<<
Got me. What?
Neither can fly straight w/out a lot of help.
Kelly Johnson and those guys were awesome engineers and “out of the box” thinkers. Going to be hard if not impossible to replace them as the retire and/or pass.
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.
Most programs are generally in the open, with certain aspects kept secret. e.g. the B-2 and F-22. Only a very few become operational without general knowledge, e.g. the U-2 and the F-117.
But its fun to speculate. Perhaps we captured a Klingon cloaking device ;-)
Well that is just confusing. Radar doesn’t bounce off a piece of paper but sound does. And if you hang a piece of paper or steel in the air at a 45 degree to a bat’s travel, he will still “see” it.
A thing can absorb radar but not sound, just as a thing can stop light but not x-rays.
People would never believe how far that airplane was flown under the cover of darkness.
Hmmmm.....something like these, maybe?
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