The F-117 Stealth Fighter

The story of the Lockheed Stealth Fighter is so shrouded in mystery that it has been compared to the project that produced the atomic bomb in WW2.

The story of the F-117 begins in 1978 when the Lockheed Advanced Development Co. was awarded the contract. This is the same division that produced the SR-71 and the U2 planes. Time from development to test flight was 31 months. This was achieved by using advanced systems from other planes in the U.S inventory, i.e the fly by wire system is from the F-16 Fighting Falcon

Weapons

The F-117 has a single internal weapon bay. The reason for this is that the weapons it carries are extreamly unstealthy. It obviously occured to someone that surrounding the wings of a stealth fighter with what amount to signs saying HERE I AM SHOOT ME SHOOT ME was a bad idea!!

The F-117 can carry a large range of weapons ranging from dumb iron bombs to nuclear weapons. The advanced weapon system is the most important part of the F-117, after the stealth system that is , it is reported that the F-117 can hit a target with one bomb that would have required thousands of bombs in WW2.

Stealth

Very little is known about the stealth system employed aboard the F-117. We do know that the weird shape is instrumental in deflecting radar energy away from it's source and that the materials used to build the plane absord radar energy.

Combat

The F-117 saw combat for the first time in the 1990 gulf war. It was one of the first planes to attack and it was the only plane allowed to bomb targets in Baghdad. This is for 2 reasons

1)Because it was invisible to the radars around the most heavily defended city on earth

2) Because it was believed that it was the only plane capible of the accuracy needed to avoid killing innocent civilians

The F-117 was later joined by the Tomahawk missile over baghdad. During the Gulf war the F-117 fleet of 59 fighters dropped 2,000 tonnes of munitions on Baghdad. Not 1 of them were ever hit by AAA or SAM fire.