Tag Archives: USAF

34 Years Ago The Nighthawk Stealth Fighter Was Revealed

Almost three and a half decades ago, a mysterious and strikingly beautiful aircraft touched down on a dusty airfield in the Nevada desert.


The F-117 Nighthawk


Since its public reveal decades ago (consider that development started in the 1970’s on this amazing machine), the Nighthawk served with quiet distinction through the latter half of the Cold War, the first Gulf War, a kerfuffle in Yugoslavia, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Despite and official ‘retirement’ in 2008, the F-117 still gets spotted in the skies over Nevada where it is rumored to serve as an ‘agressor aircraft’, helping to train pilots.


What’s the F-117 about?


With it’s cyberpunk like profile and stunning angles, the F-117 Nighthawk instantly captured the public’s imagination and birthed a lot of UFO /UAP stories, especially in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when it’s unusual shape confused expectations of what an aircraft could and should look like.
A radical departure from the retro-aerodynamic curves of traditional aircraft design, the F-117’s odd shape serves a singular purpose.


Stealth.


The Nighthawk was conceived by Lockheed’s Skunk Works, a secretive development team responsible for some of the most capable aircraft of the 20th century.
Designed to slip through deep Soviet territory, the Nighthawk incorporated radical new technology to achieve an incredibly small radar and thermal signature. Hard edges, radar-absorbing coatings, a unique twin-tail, and special endinge cowlings reduced the aircraft to the size of a sparrow on Soviet radar.
The Nighthawk was deemed fully operational in the early 1980’s and nearly a decade her pilots and crew flight night sorties in complete secrecy.
Seven years later, the USAF and the Department of Defense decided the Nighthawk would work better as a deterrent if the world knew about it and it’s capabilities.


Plans were made to reveal the aircraft to the world at Nellis AFB on April 21, 1990. Those of us who saw this event live on television will always remember the shock and awe inspiring gasp it created- nothing like it had ever been seen before and it surely looked like something from a science fiction novel or movie.
On a hot spring day, a flight of two F-117s landed in front of thousands of cheering spectators, kicking off one of the most memorable air shows in US history. After opening the show, the F-117s sat quietly on the tarmac surrounded by an entourage of armed airmen and curious onlookers.
Although little was said about the new “stealth fighters”- blimps, fighter jets, and mock dog fights continued the day’s entertainment in style.


Even with talks of ‘spending prioritization’ and ‘doctrinal appropriateness’, the Nighthawk has endured, in it’s own special way, for nearly 40 years. Everything about the F-117 that made it great in the 1980’s still captivates us today. It’s razor-sharp edges, futuristic technology, and it’s family tree of stealthy cousins (foreign and domestic). Here is hoping many more years of this little black triangle up in the sky… via our friends at kommandostore.com

Aviation Books From Quarto Include Original SR-71 Pilot Handbook

It’s late September as I write this and with winter slowly creeping in (Sorry but true!) and holiday shopping season around the corner, I would like to tell you all about some amazing books to add to your shopping list and help pass the cold months. If you are an aviation lover, you are in for a very special treat courtesy of Quarto Publishing.

The Blackbird first flew in Dec 1964!

They took the ORIGINAL flight manual and republished it… all 1,040 pages and 8 pounds!!!! The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was a long-range, Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft developed by Lockheed’s top-secret Skunk Works. One of the first aircraft designed to have a low radar signature, the SR-71 could map 100,000 square miles from an altitude of 80,000 feet. Operational from 1964 to 1998, it is still the fastest jet-powered aircraft – a Blackbird once completed a Los Angeles-to-Washington, D.C. flight in 64 minutes. Naturally, reigning in all that technology and performance required some know-how on the parts of the pilots and ground crews
spyplanes
For as long as there has been sustained heavier-than-air human flight, airplanes have been used to gather information about our adversaries. Less than a decade after the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, Italian pilots were keeping tabs on Turkish foes in Libya. Today, aircraft with specialized designs and sensory equipment still cruise the skies, spying out secrets in the never-ending quest for an upper hand.
 skunkworks
Hatched in June 1943 after a special request of the US Army Air Forces to develop a turbojet-powered fighter to counter growing German threats, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has gone on to develop remarkable aeronautical and space technologies, including stealth. Some have made it into production, while others never quite made it off drafting boards and computer screens, but proved fascinating nonetheless.
fighter killer planes ww2

There’s no shortage of fantastic archival aviation photography from World War II. But photos from the period fall short in three major categories: the vast majority are black and white, most were composed under duress, and very few capture moments that have since entered the written record of aerial conflict.

Award-winning artist Jim Laurier rectifies the situation in this stunning, large-format, hardcover book celebrating World War II’s top fighter aircraft.

arado ar234
For the Silo, Nichole Schiele.

Supplemental-  Clint Eastwood’s under-rated movie “Firefox”