Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk

The Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk is the world's first operational aircraft completely designed around stealth technology. Flown solely by the United States Air Force, it is a direct descendant of the Have Blue stealth prototype program. The Air Force is planning to retire the F-117 from October 2006 to 2008 and no new pilots will be trained to fly the plane.The "F-" designation for this aircraft has not been officially explained;F-117A can carry air-to-air missiles, giving it air-to-air combat capability in addition to its primary air-to-ground mission. While that may be technically true, the aircraft is of unknown capability in air-combat. It is likely a poor dogfighter, but there is no expert opinion on its other abilities.The F-117A is equipped with sophisticated navigation and attack systems integrated into a digital avionics suite. It carries no radar, which lowers emissions and cross-section. It navigates primarily by GPS and high-accuracy inertial navigation. Missions are coordinated by an automated planning system that can automatically perform all aspects of a strike mission, including weapons release. Targets are acquired by a thermal imaging infrared system, slaved to a laser that finds the range and designates targets for laser-guided bombs. The F-117A's split internal bay can carry 5,000 lb (2,300 kg) of ordnance. Typical weapons are a pair of GBU-10, GBU-12, or GBU-27 laser-guided bombs, two BLU-109 penetration bombs, two Wind- Corrected Munition Dispensers (WCMD), or two Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), a GPS/INS guided stand-off bomb. It can theoretically carry two examples of nearly any weapon in the USAF inventory, including the B61 nuclear bomb. There are a number of bombs that it cannot carry, either because they are too large to fit in its bomb bay, or are incompatible with the F-117's carry system.In 1964, Pyotr Ya. Ufimtsev, a Russian mathematician, published a seminal paper, "Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction," in the Journal of the Moscow Institute for Radio Engineering, in which he showed that the strength of a radar return is proportional to the edge configuration of an object, not its size. Ufimtsev was extending theoretical work published by the German physicist Arnold Sommerfeld.Ufimtsev demonstrated that he could calculate the radar cross-section across a wing's surface and along its edge. The obvious conclusion was that even a large airplane could be made stealthy by exploiting this principle. However, the airplane's design would make it aerodynamically unstable, and the state of computer science in the early 1960s could not provide the kinds of flight computers which allow aircraft such as the F-117, F-22 Raptor and B-2 Spirit stay airborne. However, by the the 1970s, when a Lockheed analyst reviewing foreign literature found Ufimtsev's paper, computers and software had advanced significantly, and the stage was set for the development of a stealthy airplane.The decision to produce the F-117A was made in 1973, and a contract awarded to Lockheed Advanced Development Projects, popularly known as the "Skunk Works," in Burbank, California. The program was led by Ben Rich. Rich called on Bill Schroeder, a Lockheed mathematician, and Denys Overholser, a computer scientist, to exploit Ufimtsev's work; they designed a computer program called Echo. Echo made it possible to design an airplane with flat panels, called facets, which were arranged so as to scatter over 99% of a radar's signal energy "painting" the airplane.The F-117 has been used several times in war. Its first mission was during the United States invasion of Panama in 1989. During that invasion two F-117A Nighthawks dropped two bombs on Rio Hato airfield. Later, during the Gulf War, it performed well by dropping smart bombs on Iraqi military targets. It has since been used in the Kosovo War in 1999, the Operation Enduring Freedom and in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.One F-117 has been lost in combat, to Serbian forces. On March 27, 1999, during the Kosovo War, the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Missile Brigade equipped with the Isayev S-125 'Neva-M' (NATO designation SA-3 'Goa'), downed F-117A serial number 82-806 with a Neva-M missile.

Channel: Autos & Vehicles
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: zeoul001

Length: 01:09
Rating: 4.30
Views: 95635

Tags: A380  Airbus  aircraft  attack  aviation  Boeing  bomber  F-22  F117  fighter  jet  Lockheed  military  multirole  nighthawk  

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