Why is the F-117 'Nighthawk' Stealth Fighter flying again?
November 7, 2020
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9:25Now PlayingWhy is the F-117 'Nighthawk' Stealth Fighter flying again?
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as posted by the channelThe United States Air Force “officially” retired the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk in April 2008, but what retired actually means is debatable as two of the Cold War stealth aircraft were seen last week in the skies near Miramar Naval Base, outside of San Diego. The Nighthawk, which was the first operational warplane to be designed around stealth technology, was designed to be virtually invisible to radar, and difficult to spot with the naked eye.
While five were placed in museums, most of the F-117s were actually placed in Type 1000 storage, which means the aircraft are maintained in a condition where they can be recalled to duty and fly again. This “inviolate” storage also means that no parts are pulled from the aircraft without the express permission of the type’s system program office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, which technically “owns” the aircraft.
There have been unsubstantiated reports that four F-117s were secretly deployed to the Middle East in 2016, while there have been multiple confirmed flights of the aircraft in California prior to this week’s air sortie.
A photo from an aviation enthusiast circulated on the social media platform Instagram in March that showed an F-117 flying in the “Star Wars Canyon” (aka Rainbow Canyon) in California, where Air Force pilots train.
There are several other reasons why the F-117 is occasionally seen flying high. For one it could be that the planes are taken out of Type 1000 storage to determine an aircraft’s airworthiness but also to prove the efficacy of the storage procedures.
Additionally, some F-117s could be used to test stealth-detection abilities of the AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems), and that could be cheaper than using the far more modern but also far more expensive F-22s or F-35s as test aircraft.
Perhaps the Nighthawk just can’t be kept on the ground!
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