F-117A Stealth Fighter Retired

zonker writes "Nearly 30 years ago Lockheed Martin's elite Skunk Works team developed what would become the F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter. A few of their earlier projects include the SR-71 Blackbird and U2 Dragon Lady spy planes. Today is the last for the Stealth Fighter, which is being replaced by the F-22 Raptor (another Skunk Works project)."

Comments

A good plane

[Protonk]

The F-117 has a great history and it will be interesting to see it go. I'm not normally the military tech-fetishist type, but this was a supremely odd creature that got to fly. Embodied in this plane are so many examples of ingenuity and hubris, it makes a good vessel for late 20th century american history.

We developed this plane in secret, with borrowed theories from the russians. The plane itself came out of a corporate Manhattan project, built by a combination of old salts who could wave their hands and make grumpy generalizations about engine configuration that hours of calculations would bear out and younger engineers employing technology that wasn't readily available outside the united states.

It was kept secret until we felt the need to unveil it as the epitome of american superiority in Panama and the gulf war. We spent a decade lauding the precision strike capability, ignoring reports that smart bombs were only so smart. Only in the past 5 years have we grudgingly come to accept that there were limitations to the strategy of aerial bombardment, limitations that hampered our ability to fight and killed civilians on the ground. But that doesn't make this plane or its pilots evil or murderous. We just became caught up in the technology, the gritty night vision cameras resulting in static filled screens where buildings used to be.

In a lot of ways, that is similar to our love affair with this plane. Ugly, but elegant. Unflyable without computer aided control but possessing strangely beautiful lines. Born of american ingenuity and sullied by hubris. It is a wonderful aircraft, and a great story. Thanks to the men (and women) who built it and flew it throughout the years.

Re:Fuel leaking SR-71's

[Frosty Piss]

But speaking of engines, how did they keep the fuel from igniting from the engine while it was leaking?

I was stationed at Beale and spent many nights on standby while they fueled the Blackbird. Its fuel is almost impossible to ignite without the catalyst tetraethylborane (TEB), which ignites on contact with air. There where often pools of fuel under the plane when they sat in the hangars for a few days.

The thing that I always thought amazing at the time I worked with them was that the avionics seemed so outdated in an age where most older airframes where being fitted with glass. Lot's of round gages and such.

Re:Fuel leaking SR-71's

[sootman]

And AFAIK, that was by design. They knew it would expand, so they took advantage of that and optimized the plane for flight, rather than sitting on the ground, which makes sense to me. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71#Fuselage

To allow for thermal expansion at the high operational temperatures the fuselage panels were manufactured to fit only loosely on the ground. Proper alignment was only achieved when the airframe warmed up due to air resistance at high speeds, causing the airframe to expand several inches. Because of this, and the lack of a fuel sealing system that could handle the extreme temperatures, the aircraft would leak JP-7 jet fuel onto the runway before it took off. The aircraft would quickly make a short sprint, meant to warm up the airframe, and was then refueled in the air before departing on its mission... On landing after a mission the canopy temperature was over 300 C, too hot to approach.

I could read about the SR-71 all day long. That thing was a freaking marvel in every sense of the word and there are a million neat details about it, and it's amazing to consider that it was built in the early 60s. One little tidbit you'll often hear (so it must be true ;-) ) -- "if a surface-to-air missile launch were detected, standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and climb." The freaking thing officially flew across the country in 68 minutes.

Re:Deprecated Warfighting

[Darth_brooks]

Your generalizations don't quite fit here.

True, the B-52 and C-130 are 1950's vintage *designs*, the actual airframes that are still in service are very late runs off the line. The current B-52's were built between 1960 and 1961, and the C-130's should all be post-1965 (or later). They also don't share any of the tactical missions that the F-117 performs. For example, the B-52 is a heavy bomber. It's going to drop a whole hell of a lot of metal on a target, or carry 1.5 imperial assloads of cruise missiles near a target, unload them, then head back home in time for "Lost". The C-130 has perfected the art of flying rubber dog poop out of Hong Kong.

Now, the F-117's job is to take the first steps towards making the C-130 or the B-52's job possible. Strike missions on heavily defended targets. Given the high tolerances the skin of the airframe must meet in order to stay stealthy, normal wear and tear on the airframe (say, a wing tip that is now an inch or two higher than before thanks to a high-G turn) could negate most of the aircraft's advantage. Comparing the F-117 to anything is is comparing oranges to briefcases.

The statement always comes up "what're they working on now? I bet they're using them thar captured UFO's and roswell alien stuff now!!!" Ummm, yeah, I doubt it. Instead of shrinking the airframe's radar signature in order to protect the pilot, they've just gone ahead and shrunk the airframe *and* the radar signature. Tomahawks, Predator drones, better satellites, and better communications between all three. That's what has retired the SR-71 and the F-117.

I think we're finally beginning to see the retirement of some of the meat in the seat for the really, really, really dangerous stuff. You can have a $120 million dollar fighter with $3-5 million dollars worth of pilot take out a target, or $3 million dollar drone hit the same target. Even the government can do that math.

Re:I still want to know...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

why are they called "stealth fighters"? They're actually a tactical bomber, ...

When the Continental Congress put together the country's very first army, they named it the "Second Army".

The military is about hurting people and breaking things until the other side knuckles under. As Patton pointed out this works better if few of your own guys die for their country while getting the other poor saps to die for their own. A good military operation grabs every opportunity to improve their odds, both of success and survival.

If calling a bomber a fighter both confuses the spys and gets the best pilots to enjoy flying its exceptionally high-value missions (with support and sensor technology limited to preserve stealth), why not do it?

Re:Fuel leaking SR-71's

[ahabswhale]

I used to be in the Air Force and had the pleasure to watch these things launch. They took off with full afterburners and the entire base would shake from the roar of the engines. Blue flame rings would shoot many feet out the back of the engines. Watching the SR-71 take off was the most amazing thing I've ever seen and I would always stop to watch it. Others who had been in the AF over a dozen years would stop too even though they've seen it launch hundreds of times. Just an incredible and inspiring plane.

You always knew when they were going to launch one because they would start sending out tankers (3 to 4) a good hour or so before they launched the Blackbird.

Re:Fuel leaking SR-71's

[DynaSoar]

Also the SR-71 would have only just enough fuel to take off and revendevous with a jet tanker as soon as possible. A loaded B-52 certainly had to, but the SR-71 didn't necessarily have this profile. The only one I ever saw up close took off from our SAC base without a tanker going along. That's not to say there wasn't a tanker up there (there was another SAC base with tankers only 200 miles away).

More curious to me was the fact that the one we refueled had two LOX tanks, contrary to the manual's statement of only one. It had the normal one under the cockpit, and a second one in the airframe between the wings/engines. I surmise the second was a propulsion system oxidizer. The JP-7 fuel being a kerosene, the combination with LOX would have given it the propulsion profile of rocket motors being used from 1945 on. As a constantly afterburning ramjet at speed, the engines could have easily been adapted to do this.

And frankly I don't recall the one we loaded as having leaked, from hoses-on to taxi-out.

The F-22 is impressive to see

[The Second Horseman]

Saw one at the air show in Rhode Island last year. The first thing you notice is how damn loud the thing is. Compared to an F-15, F-16 or F/A-18's I've seen at shows, it was just painful, not uncomfortable. Even good earplugs didn't really help - you really need substantial ear protection, and even then you're likely to feel it in your skull. Aside from that, the big thing I noticed was how rapidly it could change speed and its maneuverability. Compared to the older aircraft it's like watching a superball bounce around. If you had no idea that the plane existed and you saw it at night in the sky at a distance, you'd never believe it was an aircraft. The thrust vectoring looked really effective. You don't have to know a lot about aircraft to see the difference, either - you can watch an F-22 after seeing another demonstration and the difference is obvious.

Re:Fuel leaking SR-71's

[myth_of_sisyphus]

A good SR-71 anecdote. From "Sled Driver"

        "One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. 'Ninety knots,' ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. 'One-twenty on the ground,' was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was. 'Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,' ATC responded.

        The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, 'Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.' We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast."

Re:Fuel leaking SR-71's

[DynaSoar]

You know that plane is still classified and may or may not be in use or ready for use. I'm not sure details regarding the quantity and location of lox tanks are supposed to be well known. I've no doubt it's still classified, as are many much older and now irrelevant things; I know for a fact its true top speed and ceiling still are. I also have no doubt the plane is no longer in service, having been retired 10 years ago. NASA retains two of the original trainers, the only models still living, mostly for high altitude astronomy. All the others are accounted for and in museums. Maintaining and operating an otherwise barely supported craft would be very expensive. One can now get the better results from existing orbital observation craft than the SR-71 could ever produce.

Its reported speed of Mach 3.2 was based on an average speed over a course; that wasn't necessarily the top. A Major Brian Shul reports having sustained Mach 3.5 at 80k ft. And an ex-USAF security police enlisted reports having guarded on in Thailand, and the pilot wore astronaut's wings (USAF astronaut standard is 50 miles, or 264k ft.). The former wouldn't require the mod I described, but the latter would have. The pressure suit used would have allowed flight to this altitude. In fact it does and then some -- it is the suit worn during ascent of the Space Shuttle.

I spoke with a colleague at another SAC base, and he "wouldn't deny" having seen one or more with this mod, but wouldn't say more.

The Blackbird had no effective stealth capability, so if one were still flying it'd be easily seen on today's modern radar and IR devices. Space program/satellite fans would have reported seeing something fitting the profile. Although I can only surmise what the second LOX tank was for, I have no doubt that if I saw it again, and the second fill port weren't removed, I could ID it.