The F-117 Nighthawk was the pearl that adorned the innovative will and technological capabilities of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division. The team of stealth technology experts developed the F-117 in response to an urgent national need for a jet fighter able to slip in undetected by enemy radar.
The F-117’s journey started in the summer of 1975 when DARPA held a “pole-off” competition. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works won that competition with a design that had unprecedented low observability and won the contract for Have Blue, the stealth demonstrator that would eventually become the F-117 Nighthawk. Less than a year after Have Blue’s successful first flight in 1977, DARPA awarded the contract for Nighthawk, heralding the beginning of a legendary partnership between Skunk Works and the U.S. Air Force.
Judging from its design, it wasn’t just another conventional F-117. Continuous reflection of the radar wave by the angular panels and the exterior coating of radar-absorbent material renders it almost invisible to radar. Based on a theory by Soviet mathematician Pyotr Ufimtsev, that an object’s radar return is more defined by its shape than its size, the design employed the use of “faceting” to turn smooth surfaces into a series of triangular flat surfaces, designed to bounce 99% of radar emissions away from the aircraft.
The first flight of the F-117 occurred in 1981, only 31 months after the awarding of the contract, with deliveries beginning the next year. The aircraft achieved initial operational capability in 1983 but was kept under tight wraps for many years. It was not until 1988 that the program was publicly acknowledged, and it did not make its first formal public appearance until 1990 at Nellis Air Force Base, where thousands had gathered to see the aircraft that by then had already been in service for seven years.
The F-117 was powered by two non-afterburning General Electric turbofan jet engines; thus it is limited to subsonic speeds, although its infrared emission is significantly reduced. It could straight carry laser-guided bombs or radar-seeking or infrared-seeking missiles. Inertial guidance, infrared sensors, digital maps, and radio commands from satellites or other aircraft permitted the aircraft to fly without releasing telltale radar emissions.
From the incursion into Panama in 1989 to the Persian Gulf War of 1990–91, and on to the Iraq War of 2003–11, the F-117 saw use in a spectrum of combative sceneries. The only combat loss was in 1999 during the Kosovo conflict. The airplane was retired piece by piece between 2006 and 2008, while it opened the way on the ground to further stealth technology.
One of the most challenging aspects of the F-117’s design was that it had to be unstable. It required constant flight corrections from a computerized fly-by-wire flight system. This instability gave it its nickname, “Wobblin’ Gobblin.” But still, the F-117 was 1,000 times less visible than any other aircraft Lockheed had designed up to that point.
The legacy of the F-117 will forever be an inspiration. It was a proof-of-concept milestone in military aviation, stretching the imagination, for stealth technology. Today, the F-117 is displayed at several museums, including the Hill Aerospace Museum, showing something of that innovative spirit that helped to create it.