The US Air Force Wants Help to Keep Flying Retired F-117 Stealth Jets

• The US Air Drive unveiled its new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, in December.
• The B-21 is predicted to reach 40 years after the US’s first stealth plane, the F-117 Nighthawk.
• The F-117 was formally retired in 2008, however the Air Drive remains to be placing the stealth jet to make use of.

The fuss concerning the unveiling of the brand new B-21 stealth bomber has drawn the aviation world’s consideration, however the B-21’s grandfather remains to be in motion.

When it first flew within the early Nineteen Eighties, the F-117 Nighthawk was the primary operational stealth plane. The F-117 has been formally retired for about 15 years, however its retirement has been removed from sedentary. The Nighthawk remains to be getting used to coach US pilots to counter enemy stealth planes and cruise missiles.

The US Air Drive is now planning to maintain a few of its Nighthawks flying till not less than 2034. A US Air Drive Request for Info printed this previous fall sought corporations excited by a possible 10-year contract to offer upkeep for the F-117, starting in 2024.

The RFI says the contractor might want to present three companies.

First, upkeep and logistics for F-117As performing “restricted flying operations” at Tonopah Check Vary in Nevada.

Tonopah — additionally designated Space 52 — is a extremely categorized website about 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Among the many extra fascinating actions there are checks of nuclear weapon programs and experiments with Russian MiGs, anti-aircraft missiles, and different overseas tools.

Tonopah was additionally the unique dwelling of the F-117 and its operators, the previous 4450th Tactical Group.

The Air Drive can also be searching for corporations to keep up F-117s in prolonged storage and to demilitarize and declassify surplus F-117s for consumers resembling museums. “Anticipated demilitarization/declassification charge anticipated is a 2-3 plane per 12 months,” the RFI says.

Extra particular necessities embody sustaining the F-117’s stealth — technically “low observable,” or LO — options, together with “composite and structural restore help.” The RFI additionally asks whether or not contractors have expertise utilizing ground-based diagnostic imaging radar to identify defects in an plane’s stealth parts.

The Air Drive at present has about 45 F-117s, greater than 10 of which have been accepted for switch to museums, Air Drive spokeswoman Ann Stefanek instructed Insider.

“As we demilitarize the plane, they are going to be made obtainable to museums, if requested, or be disposed of,” Stefanek mentioned.

Out of service, however nonetheless in flight

The F-117 was developed throughout the Nineteen Seventies as an answer to more and more deadly air defenses. Designed by Lockheed Martin’s famed and extremely secretive “Skunk Works,” the Nighthawk used an angled form and particular coatings to reduce its radar signature.

Because the world’s first stealth warplane, the F-117 has all the time had an air of fable round it.

Seen solely as a subsonic bomber that would carry simply two 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs in an inner bomb bay, its efficiency was not significantly spectacular. However whereas stealth is nearly taken as a right these days, it was a giant deal when the F-117 made its first flight in 1981.

The plane achieved a form of cult standing, together with studies that it was linked to the well-known — and completely fictional — F-19 stealth fighter.

The F-117 flew within the Gulf Conflict in 1991, the place its secrecy and mystique generated but extra buzz. In 1999, the Nighthawk achieved one other milestone: It grew to become the primary stealth plane shot down in fight.

Intelligent Serbian gunners took benefit of a peculiarity of the F-117 — its bomb-bay doorways mirrored radar once they had been open — to hit a Nighthawk with a surface-to-air-missile. The US pilot ejected from the burning F-117 and spent eight hours on the bottom earlier than being rescued.

Solely 59 F-117s had been constructed, plus 5 prototypes. As a result of it was an early stealth design with stiff upkeep necessities, the Air Drive determined to retire the aircraft as a brand new era of stealth plane — the F-22 and F-35 fighters and the B-2 bomber — emerged. However there may be nonetheless life within the outdated Nighthawk.

It has often been seen coaching with newer plane, together with with Marine Corps F-35Bs off the California coast in April and with fourth- and fifth-generation jets over Georgia in Could.

Much more intriguing are studies that the F-117 is getting used to simulate cruise missiles for missile-defense coaching. It is unusual for the world’s first stealth plane to finish up as a faux missile, however for an plane with such a colourful historical past, it appears acceptable.

Michael Peck is a protection author whose work has appeared in Forbes, Protection Information, International Coverage journal, and different publications. He holds a grasp’s in political science. Observe him on Twitter and LinkedIn.