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U.S. Air National Guard photo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The US Air Force (USAF) is on track to certify the iconic Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk for aerial refueling on its latest tanker, the Boeing KC-46, by the end of March 2024. Despite the F-117 fleet’s retirement from active service, the USAF is moving forward with plans to integrate it into the KC-46’s refueling capabilities. Andrew Hunter, the USAF’s acquisition boss, disclosed the inclusion of the F-117 as a receiver for aerial refueling during a testimony to the House armed services projection forces subcommittee on March 12, 2024, as first reported by Aviation Week. The...

For the last year, we’ve noted a series of reports (read: here & here) of (supposedly retired) Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft conducting combat training missions over the skies of California. The latest sighting of the world’s first stealth aircraft, which first debuted in the early 1980s and retired in 2008, after the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft was first fielded, was in mid-September at the Fresno Air National Guard Base, California. The US Air Force released a statement at the time stating “two F-117 Nighthawk aircraft” would be conducting “air combat training missions.” This is the...

The base is known to be the shadowy home of aircraft that move from a developmental state at Area 51 and into an operational, but still secretive one. Tonopah Test Range Airport, located along the northern edge of the sprawling Nevada Test and Training Range, may not get all the pop culture attention that nearby Area 51 gets, but in many ways, it is just as fascinating. It was born out of a program that saw American fighter pilots secretly flying captured MiGs against their fellow aviators. Not long after that program spun-up, the remote installation was greatly expanded to...

Dubbed “Project Moonblower,” during the height of the F-117 Nighthawk’s secrecy in the mid 1980s, the Reagan administration, and even the Gipper himself, offered an invite to the UK Ministry of Defense to join the highly classified program. In newly unsealed UK National Archives files obtained by The Guardian, Reagan’s offer to his good friend and Prime Minister of the UK Margaret Thatcher was casual as can be, with Reagan penning a diplomatic cable that stated in part: “Dear Margaret, I am delighted to hear that you will be able to see Cap (Caspar Weinberger, the US defence secretary at...

The F-117 Nighthawk [3] made a definite impression on both Iraqi air defenses and the American public when it demonstrated the capabilities of stealth technology in the 1991 Gulf War [4]. Yet the iconic jet-black attack plane was ultimately left behind by improvements in technology and retired in 2008 in favor of the new F-22 stealth fighter [5]. But what if the Nighthawk design had been evolved into a carrier-based multi-role fighter capable of flying longer distances at higher speed with a greater weapon load? In fact, Lockheed proposed exactly such a “Seahawk” in the early 90s. The original F-117’s...

America’s F-117 stealth fighter has been in a state of limbo. In 2008, the U.S. Air Force officially retired the black, angular warplanes but they never entirely went away. For eight years, the radar-evading aircraft have rested in climate-controlled hangars at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada. Here’s why — when the F-117s retired, Congress required the Air Force to maintain some of the planes in case they were ever needed in a future war. The flying branch even kept flying a handful, most likely as guinea pigs for stealth-penetrating sensors … or some other mysterious hardware. Well, that shouldn’t continue for...

... Easter had a top-secret job offer. If Moseley accepted, he would have to commit for four years, he couldn't tell anyone about the job and he would have to accept the job before knowing what it was. "And he said, 'You've got 30 seconds and if you don't say yes, this conversation never happened.' Well, that was just too intriguing to turn down," Moseley says. "So I said, 'Absolutely.' And he'd given me a telephone number and an intersection." ...

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...

Pentagon officials said Tuesday that they were unsure if some of the technology in China’s prototype stealth fighter jet had come from the wreckage of a first-generation American stealth fighter shot down over Serbia in 1999, but they expressed doubt that much could have been gleaned from the debris of a plane developed in the 1970s. Pentagon officials did say they believe that the Chinese picked up pieces of the plane, an F-117 Nighthawk, which had been strewn over a wide area of farmland some 30 miles west of Belgrade, in the NATO bombing campaign during the Kosovo war. “But...

China Tuesday denied that its stealth fighter J-20 was developed with stolen US technology, claiming that it was a “masterpiece” of its technological innovation, shortly after an Indian-American was jailed for 32 years by an American court for leaking military secrets to Beijing. Chinese defence officials and military analysts insisted that the country's J-20 stealth fighter jet, which was test flown this month, is a result of the country's own efforts, state-run Global Times reported. "It's not the first time foreign media has smeared newly unveiled Chinese military technologies. It's meaningless to respond to such a speculation," an unnamed official...

March 27, 1999: it was the fourth night of Operation Allied Force, the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia. The effort's initial phase had gone remarkably well; U.S. and allied aircraft had inflicted heavy damaged on Serb air defenses and other critical targets, without the loss of a single NATO aircraft. When the Serbs tried to fight back, they generally paid a high price; three of their MiG-29 Fulcrums had been shot down in the early hours of the conflict, and a number of surface-to-air missile (SAM) batterys had been knocked out of action as well. But the Serbs would soon...

China was able to build its first stealth bomber using technology gleaned from a downed U.S. fighter, it has been claimed. Beijing unveiled its state-of-the-art jet – the Chengdu J-20 – earlier this month. Military officials say it is likely the Chinese were able to develop the stealth technology from parts of an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349906/Chengdu-J-20-China-used-downed-US-fighter-develop-stealth-jet.html#ixzz1C1BocfJz

A US plane shot down during the Kosovo war could have gifted the Chinese the technology behind its military’s new stealth fighter. The F-117 stealth jet, called the Nighthawk, grounded by Serbian forces in 1999 during NATO’s bombing of the country. Until now, the US military has been the sole owner of a stealth fighter, the Nighthawk being the first. Given the title because of their elusive nature, stealth jets are difficult for radar to detect. The Nighthawk’s creation was a highly classified project, and after it was shot down, other nations clamored to get a piece of the...

China may have bought parts of US F-117 Nighthawk shot down over Serbia in 1999, say experts A Chinese stealth fighter jet that could pose a significant threat to American air superiority may borrow from US technology, it has been claimed. Balkan military officials and other experts said China may have gleaned knowledge from a US F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999. "At the time, our intelligence reports told of Chinese agents crisscrossing the region where the F-117 disintegrated, buying up parts of the plane from local farmers," said Admiral Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia's military chief of...

China's new stealth fighter may use US technology SLOBODAN LEKIC and DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press BRUSSELS – Chinese officials recently unveiled a new, high-tech stealth fighter that could pose a significant threat to American air superiority — and some of its technology, it turns out, may well have come from the U.S. itself. Balkan military officials and other experts have told The Associated Press that in all probability the Chinese gleaned some of their technological know-how from an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999. Nighthawks were the world's first stealth fighters, planes that were very...

The Air Force and Lockheed Martin are giving a secret retirement send-off to the world's first radar-evading fighter.They were born shrouded in mystery in a windowless building in Burbank. They flew combat missions over Serbia and Iraq virtually invisible to enemy radar. And today, the black, bat-like F-117A Night Hawks will fly quietly into the night as stealthily as they came. The last four of the world's first stealth fighters will make their final flights from Palmdale to a secret desert base in Nevada, where they will be locked up indefinitely in a secure concrete hangar. But unlike the passing...

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, Ohio, 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. The last F-117s scheduled to fly will leave Holloman on April 21, stop in Palmdale,...

1. Four F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighters fly in formation during a sortie over Antelope Valley, California, USA. Photographer: Bobbi Zapka, Chief of Aerial Photo Department, Edwards AFB. Image ID: 070328-F-9126Z-504Link: http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/070328-F-9126Z-504.jpg 2. During Operation Desert Storm (1991) F-16A Fighting Falcon, F-15E Strike Eagle, and F-15C Eagle fighter jets fly over Kuwait's burning oil fields. Photographer: Tech. Sgt. Fernando Serna, USAF. Image ID: 071009-F-2911S-013. Link: http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20060914.htm (photo 4)

/begin my translation The Deployment of 'F-117 Stealth Fighters' in S. Korea Completed U.S. Air Force in S. Korea announced that a squadron of F-117 Stealth Fighters and 300 personnel from 49th Fighter Wing have arrived in Kunsan airbase today(Jan. 11) The squadron, which came to S. Korea according to rotated deployment schedule of U.S. Air Force, will conduct exercises jointly with F-16's of U.S. Air Force under various weather conditions for next four months, U.S. Air Force in S. Korea explained. /end my translation

Holloman squadron bound for Korea Last Update: 01/08/2007 1:26:04 PM By: Associated Press ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (AP) - About 300 airmen with Holloman Air Force Base’s 49th Fighter Wing and a squadron of F-117-A Stealth fighters are preparing for a four-month deployment to Korea. Base spokesman Tom Fuller said that the airmen and stealth fighters would leave Monday. He says the regularly scheduled deployment isn’t related to any particular situation or event in Korea. He says it’s an opportunity to keep the pilots and crews on their toes as they practice moving men and equipment over a long distance.