F-117 Nighthawk - into Service

As the F-117s trickled into Tonopah, operations evolved into a schedule. Flight crews were shuttled there each Monday afternoon on a chartered airliner from Nellis Air Force Base, after spending the weekend home with their families. On arriving at Tonopah, they would be given a briefing on the night's mission.

Hangar doors were not opened until an hour after dark. For the first year of operations, flight operations were restricted to the Nellis range. Permission to perform off-range operations had to be given by the President himself. Flight routes were defined to avoid populated areas, and some routes were not used if the Moon was more than 50% full. Pilot communications and transponder signals were defined so that the aircraft mimicked an A-7.

Training flights were conducted in two waves, one early and one late in the night. The missions simulated precision strikes on local targets, such as the crossroads of two dirt roads or a shanty in the wilderness. The missions ended before sunrise, since it was found that a pilot found it hard to go to sleep if he went to bed after sunrise.

A pilot might fly up to a dozen missions each month in the F-117, along with a half-dozen A-7D flights. Each week was grueling, and by the time the pilots were shuttled back to Nellis on Friday afternoon, to be forced back into a day-night cycle for the weekend, they were wrecks, a factor that would have lethal consequences. The week-long absence from home and the fact that the crews could not tell their families anything about what they were doing contributed to the stress.

In compensation, the pilots found it challenging and exciting to break new ground in air combat tactics. As air defenses had improved over the decades, strike aircraft had learned to hug the terrain, but the F-117 could fly into enemy airspace at altitude and drop its LGBs in a relatively leisurely and highly accurate fashion.

The enthusiasm for the F-117 grew to the point where the Air Force wanted more of them. The original plan had been for a single squadron of 18 aircraft, organized for special operations, but the plan was expanded to an entire wing, with three 18-aircraft squadrons. Lockheed would build a total of 59 production F-117s, with the second squadron activated in July 1983, and the third going into operation in October 1985. A total of over $6 billion USD would be spent building the F-117s.

The pilots doubted that an entire wing of F-117s was practical unless the secrecy was ended. As long as the aircraft was a secret, it could not be used in major training exercises, and the logistics of maintaining secrecy for an entire wing would be expensive.

Despite this, the F-117 remained "black", helped by the fact that it was kept out of action. A handful of F-117s were apparently committed to a strike on terrorist targets in southern Lebanon in response to the devastating car-bomb attack on the US Marines barracks in Beruit on 23 October 1983, but the mission was called off at the last moment.

Similarly, the F-117 was considered for use in OPERATION EL DORADO CANYON, the air strike on Libya in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin discotheque on 5 April 1986. Once again, the use of the F-117 was called off at the last moment, and the raid was performed by conventional Air Force and Navy strike aircraft on 15 April 1986, which hit five targets with the loss of one F-111 bomber.

Despite the security around the F-117, there were leaks. Articles on the rumored stealth aircraft appeared in the aerospace press, and by 1983 mostly inaccurate artist's concepts of the aircraft, referred to as the "F-19", were published. These reports had little public impact until 1986, when Testors Corporation released a model kit of the F-19. While Testors had no specific information on the F-117, their model design was based on company research on RCS, and in fact Testors performed RCS tests on their models. The kit was very popular, and was even featured in Congressional hearings that were convened to discuss security leaks.

A speculative model based on no specific details didn't really constitute solid evidence of a secret program. Then, not long after the release of the model, undeniable evidence of the existence of a secret aircraft program was provided by accident.

The F-117 pilots had so far tolerated the stressful conditions under which they flew the secret aircraft, but over time the probability of a mishap crept upwards. In the early hours of 11 July 1986, Major Ross Mulhare took off from TTR on a training mission to California. A family group at a rest stop near Bakersfield observed an unusual-looking aircraft flying in the dark at low altitude. They took pictures of it until it disappeared over a hill, and then heard two violent explosions.

The Air Force quickly sealed off the area and confiscated the pictures. Mulhare's F-117 had been almost entirely destroyed and Mulhare had been killed instantly. Investigators determined that the probable cause of the accident had been what the military calls "Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT)". In simpler terms, the fatigued Mulhare had flown straight into the ground.

Simple weariness had now become a deadly problem, and pilots were increasingly monitored for signs of fatigue. Unfortunately, the night-shift operations of the 4450th were inherently tiring, and on the night of 14 October 1987, another F-117 pilot, Major Michael C. Stewart, was lost in an F-117. Major Stewart crashed into the desert on the Nellis range, creating a crater in the dirt. He never attempted to eject, and his death was also attributed to CFIT.

The press got word of the accident, and interest increased when a week later an A-7D piloted by a 4450th officer crashed into the lobby of a hotel near Indianapolis, Indiana. The pilot ejected, but nine people were killed in the hotel. The press speculated that the stealth fighter was a modified A-7D, or that A-7Ds were being used as adversaries in stealth fighter training operations. The pressure to take the F-117 program out of the black was increasing. Daylight operations would greatly reduce pilot fatigue and slow down the accident rate, and besides, the aircraft would be much more useful if it could participate in training exercises with conventional military forces.

In the meantime, leaks accelerated. Rumors about faceting began to surface in 1986, and in September 1987, Testors released a model kit of a hypothetical Soviet stealth aircraft, the "MiG-37B", that featured faceting. In early 1988, a military journal correctly revealed that the American stealth aircraft was designated the F-117 Nighthawk.

Finally, on 10 November 1988, the Pentagon formally issued a press release that outlined the history of the F-117, providing a very ambiguous photograph of the aircraft along with the release. No technical details were announced. The aircraft would not be put on public display until April 1990, when a pair of F-117s put on a show for the press. After that time, F-117s began to appear at airshows. When operating in civilian airspace, the aircraft is fitted with a radar reflector to allow commercial air-control radars to spot it!

The F-117s began flying daylight missions and were observed on several instances by the public. With no need to maintain a cover story, the A-7Ds, which were expensive to operate, were retired, and replaced by T-38 Talon trainers to act as chase planes and to allow the pilots to keep up their flight hours. The 4450th Tactical Fighter Group was renamed the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing in October 1989. Now the only thing left to do was put the black aircraft to use.

Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter In Action

The F-117 saw its first combat in December 1989, in OPERATION JUST CAUSE, the American invasion of Panama. Antagonism between the Americans and Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega had led US President George Bush to order that Noriega be removed from power by force. F-117s were assigned to perform pinpoint bombing strikes as diversions to ground operations. Since the Panamanians had no serious air defenses, the selection of the F-117 for the mission was based on its precision bombing capability, not stealth. The primary mission was for two F-117s to drop laser-guided bombs near Panamanian Defense Forces barracks in order to stun and confuse the defenders. Two others were to be on hand to back up an attempt to capture General Noriega, and two more came along as spares.

The six aircraft left Tonopah on the evening of 19 December and flew to Panama with the help of mid-air refueling. The attempt to capture Noriega didn't come off, and in the end only the two F-117s assigned to the primary target actually performed strikes. There was some confusion at the last moment and the aircraft missed their aim points, though the effect was as desired. In any case, US military forces proved well-organized and efficient, and by the next day Panama was in American hands.

The use of the F-117 in the operation seemed to many as overkill, and public criticism of what appeared to be a Pentagon publicity stunt was loud and strident. It was not a very impressive combat introduction. Something more challenging was needed.

In the early morning hours of 2 August 1990, three Iraqi armored divisions invaded the neighboring country of Kuwait. Kuwait fell quickly, and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was then in a position to move into Saudi Arabia and assert control over the world's oil supplies. He stayed where he was, however, and within days American forces began to flow into Saudi Arabia.

On 20 August, F-117s left Tonopah to fly across the Atlantic to King Khaled Air Base in Saudi Arabia, arriving the next day. Their new home was at the southern tip of Saudi Arabia, well out of range of Iraqi Scud tactical ballistic missiles, and was well-equipped with hardened shelters. It became known as "Tonopah East", with the similarities in environment possibly being a factor in the selection of the name. The F-117 pilots soon began an intensive training program, since few of the pilots had combat experience in any sort of aircraft.

In the meantime, the confrontation with the Iraqis settled into a sitting war, with both sides trading propaganda and jockeying for political position. On 12 January 1991, the US Congress voted to allow the use of force to remove the Iraqis from Kuwait, in support of a UN resolution demanding that Saddam pull out of the country. On 15 January, the deadline specified by the UN resolution expired. The next day, F-117 pilots were briefed for their strikes. They would be among the leading elements in the air war, knocking out air-defense centers and other vital elements in the Iraqi war machine to allow conventional strike aircraft to make further raids unharmed. Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, was a prime target, and was defended by about 4,000 anti-aircraft guns and SAM launchers. The targets were at long range for the F-117, and the pilots would have to perform several inflight refuelings for each mission.

At 2:35 AM that following morning, Iraqi flak guns began firing into the skies over Baghdad, despite the fact that the air attacks hadn't begun yet. At 2:39 AM, US Army Apache helicopter gunships fired the first shots in the air war by knocking out early warning radars near the Iraqi border. By this time, eight F-117s were moving into Iraqi airspace, along with F-15E Strike Eagles that were assigned to destroy Scud missile launch sites in Iraq. At 2:51 AM, one of the F-117s dropped a laser-guided bomb on a bunker that contained an air-defense control center. The hardened bomb blew off the bunker's doors.

At 2:56 AM, the aimless firing from Baghdad went silent. There had been nothing to shoot at, though ironically the stealth fighters were just approaching the city, completely undetected. Moments later they hit communications centers; Iraqi Air Force Headquarters; an air-defense center; and one of Saddam Hussein's palaces. The Baghdad air defenses opened up again, while F-117s that still had bombs went on to hit secondary objectives. Minutes later, starting at 3:06 AM, a wave of Tomahawk cruise missiles began to hit leadership targets, such as the Iraqi Baath Party headquarters. Tomahawks armed with warheads that spewed out spools of conductive fibers shorted out power stations, knocking out the power grid.

At 3:30 AM, Iraqi air defenses picked up a huge attack force heading toward Baghdad. In reality it was a fleet of decoy drones, backed up by conventional strike aircraft carrying high-speed antiradiation missiles, or HARMs. As the air-defense radars locked onto the drones, the HARMs knocked out the radars.

At 4:00 AM, the second wave of F-117s hit Baghdad. Approach to the city was a fearsome experience. From 150 kilometers (95 miles) away, one pilot described it as looking like "a charcoal grill on the fourth of July", glowing with the fire of massed anti-aircraft guns. The Nighthawks hit some of the same targets bombed in the first wave, as well as air bases and command-and-control sites all over Iraq. The first two waves dropped 33 LGBs and scored 23 hits. A third and final wave came in just before dawn to hit chemical and biological weapons bunkers. It was felt that sunlight would help kill anthrax spores scattered from the bioweapons sites. Unfortunately, cloudy weather made targeting difficult, and of 16 LGBs dropped, only five scored hits.

The F-117s returned to their Saudi Arabian base, their pilots feeling washed out and exhausted, glad to be alive. Much to their surprise, all of them came back. Despite worries, stealth worked. The F-117s had attacked one of the most heavily defended target areas on the planet with complete impunity.

Over the next few days the F-117s returned to Iraq with confident pilots. The Iraqis poured anti-aircraft fire into the night sky over Baghdad, almost at random and without effect. One pilot simply lowered his seat so he couldn't be distracted by the fireworks, allowing him to concentrate on his target run.

A daylight attempt to attack Baghdad with conventional strike aircraft on 19 January failed, causing little damage to the target and the loss of two F-16s. From that point on, only F-117s or Tomahawks were used to attack the city. The F-117s continued the assaults on command-and-control centers, chemical-biological weapons dumps, and other targets. On 21 January, the Nighthawks hit and crippled a nuclear research facility in Baghdad, putting it out of operation. The Iraqis didn't know an attack was in progress until the bombs detonated.

The next night, F-117s followed up daylight raids by F-111 strike aircraft to hit Iraqi Air Force hardened aircraft shelters. The strikes were made with conventional LGBs, however, and failed to dent the shelters. The Iraqis began to hide more of their aircraft away in the shelters. The night after that, the F-117s destroyed a set of Iraqi bombers that intelligence indicated were being loaded for a chemical attack, but the aircraft in the shelters remained safe for the moment.

The USAF realized the error and re-armed the F-117s with hardened penetrator bombs. On the night of 24 January, they struck the shelters again, scoring 20 hits that punched into the shelters and gutted them. Two days later, the Iraqi Air Force began to flee to Iran, where the aircraft were interned and repainted with Iranian markings. F-117 strikes on the shelters were stepped up to destroy as many Iraqi aircraft as possible before they could fly out of reach.

On 27 January, General Norman Schwarzkopf, head of Coalition forces, shifted most of the air assets from attacks on Iraq to strikes on Iraqi forces in Kuwait. Only the F-117s and F-111s continued attacks on Iraq itself. On 5 February, the F-111s were shifted to attacks on Kuwait, leaving Iraq to the F-117s. For the following weeks, the F-117s continued their strikes, while the Iraqis poured antiaircraft fire into the sky in a vain hope of hitting one of them. They never scratched them, justifying the nickname the Saudis had given the aircraft: "shaba", Arabic for "ghost".

Then, in the early morning hours of 13 February two F-117s hit a command bunker in Baghdad. This bunker happened to also be housing a number of the families of the Iraqi elite, and the Iraqi press loudly denounced the slaughter, claiming that the bunker was really an "air-raid shelter" and had been deliberately targeted to kill civilians. The result was that General Schwarzkopf declared leadership targets off-limits and halted strikes on Baghdad.

The F-117s kept busy anyway, hitting Iraqi chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare centers in the rest of the country. Bad weather dogged the strikes, reducing visibility and bombing effectiveness, though when the skies were clear the results of the attacks were devastating. The Nighthawks were also assigned to other well-defended targets as opportunities arose.

It was not until the night of 27 February 1991 that the F-117s returned to Baghdad, going "downtown" with two waves of strikes that did particular damage to the Baath Party Headquarters. A third wave was called off, and a short time later a cease-fire was announced. The Gulf War was over. The 40 F-117s assigned to the conflict had flown more than 1,270 missions and had dropped 30% of all the precision-guided munitions used in the war.

Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter after The Gulf War

The F-117s began to return to Tonopah on 1 April and began to relocate to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, where the pilots did not have to be separated from their families, nor shuttled at expense to and from the desert. The transfer required the setup of new facilities at Holloman, including a RAM spray facility. By early July, the Black Jets had a new home and a new name, the 49th Tactical Fighter Wing.

The F-117 crews now performed their training flights in a more comfortable environment, although one aircraft was lost on 4 August 1991, when it caught on fire after takeoff. The pilot ejected safely, but the aircraft was completely destroyed.

A detachment of F-117s had remained in Saudi Arabia at Tonopah East after the end of the Gulf War to help enforce sanctions against Iraq. After numerous violations of the cease-fire agreement, on 13 January 1991, six of the Nighthawks performed strikes on air-defense targets in southern Iraq. Results were mixed, due to bad weather, but overall the strikes achieved their goals.

The F-117 was also used to some unknown extent during the occasional confrontations between the USAF and Iraqi air-defense systems during the 1990s. In some cases, F-117s were armed with AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles. F-16Cs would fly at a standoff distance from the area where air-defense sites were believed to be operating, while F-117s flew over the area. When an air-defense radar lit up, an F-117 would hit it with a HARM.

F-117s played a role in the opening phases of the American invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003. They were used on quick-reaction strikes in attempts to kill Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leadership by bombing bunkers with deep-penetration bombs. However, Saddam Hussein was always careful to move around a lot in an unpredictable fashion. He would be captured by occupation forces later and his two sons killed in a firefight.

Three more F-117s have been lost. One crashed into the Zuni Tribal Reservation on 5 April 1995. It was apparently another case of CFIT, and the pilot was killed.

Another F-117 broke up during an airshow near Baltimore, Maryland, on 14 September 1997, with the pilot ejecting safely. The crash was partly caught on video and occurred during a series of other accidents involving Air Force planes, giving it a high public profile. The 53 surviving F-117s were grounded while the problem was investigated. It turned out to be due to the failure of a control surface.

The third loss was the first combat casualty for the F-117. The Nighthawk returned to active combat in the spring of 1999, when it participated in air attacks on Serbia and Kosovo as part of OPERATION ALLIED FORCE, the NATO response to Serbian aggressions in Kosovo. In the early morning hours of 28 March 1999, an F-117 was shot down by Serbian air defenses. US defense experts eventually concluded the shoot-down was the result of poor mission planning, which plotted the same flight path over enemy territory four times in a row, and left the stealth aircraft unprotected by electronic countermeasures aircraft. The Serbs figured out the pattern and shot it down more or less by "Mark 1 Eyeball". The pilot was quickly rescued. However, in another embarrassment, the wreckage of the F-117 was not promptly bombed, and the Serbs invited their Russian allies to inspect the remains.

The USAF has an ambivalent attitude towards the F-117. After the Gulf War, the US Congress opposed the Air Force's effort to buy 72 new F-16 fighters, citing claims that the F-117 was "eight times more effective" than the F-16, and so the service could buy a much smaller number of F-117s to obtain the same effect.

This was not a story that USAF brass liked to hear. The F-117 was designed as a specialized aircraft, more or less a covert operations weapon, and for the majority of missions an F-16 could do the job much better and more cheaply. The F-117 lacked range, munitions capacity, flexibility, and was relatively expensive to operate. The service strongly opposed restarting production of the F-117, and no more Nighthawks were built.

However, for the missions for which the F-117 was designed, nothing else can touch it, and it remains one of the USAF's most valuable combat aircraft. Flight duty in the type is regarded as an elite job, and pilots tend to be very experienced in other types of combat aircraft.

The aircraft poses challenges. Visibility from the faceted cockpit is poor, and is believed to have contributed to the CFIT accidents. F-117s tend to fly together in a tandem configuration because of the the limited visibility, rather than wingtip-to-wingtip as in, say, an F-16.

The fact that the pilot must both fly and perform attacks by himself is another test of skill. The pilot must juggle multiple roles, allowing the autopilot system to direct him on final attack run to the target while he drops the bomb and guides it to its target.

Despite, or maybe because of, such challenges, one pilot calls it "a marvel to fly" and "more cerebral" than other fighters. Its pilots praise ability to perform extremely accurate strikes. They often simulate bombing "a guy's toolshed in his backyard, or something that small, just for practice."

Author: Greg Goebel