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The F-117 Nighthawk The F-117 is the world’s first operational stealth aircraft. The Nighthawk is a single-seat, twin-engine stealth attack aircraft. Only 64 were ever built and first flew in 1981. The US Air Force (USAF) “Retired” the aircraft in 2008. Although officially retired, many F-117s remain airworthy and are used to support limited research and training missions based on overall cost effectiveness and their ability to offer unique capabilities. Moreover, as we have already reported, the remaining F-117s conduct dissimilar air combat training (DACT) missions with other USAF air assets.

How Lockheed’s Skunk Works Got into the Stealth Fighter Business How Lockheed’s Skunk Works Got into the Stealth Fighter Business How do you hide an airplane behind a bird? Very skillfully. Lt. Col. William B. O'Connor (ret.) flew the F-117 Nighthawk during the Bosnia Conflict, and in Stealth Fighter, he explains the history, operation, and soul America's most advanced stealth jet. While the United States had never embraced a defensive mindset and had only fielded one strategic SAM system to that point, the Nike-Hercules dating from the 1950s, and one real medium-range tactical system, the HAWK (homing all the way...

PALMDALE - The latest, high-tech military aircraft - the city's biggest claim to fame - would fall under the gaze of the world if an Antelope Valley float can be prepared in time for the 2005 Rose Parade. The float would be at least the second to represent the high desert in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. The first was entered in January 1949, according to Valley Press archives. The 1949 float was built around a children's poem titled "Wynken, Blynken and Nod," by Eugene Field. It was built in the shape of a shoe because the...