Military Aviation > Military Aircraft

F117 Nighthawk scrapped??

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wwj6392:
Well the F-117's are big, expensive, hard to control, and requires alot of time to train pilots, and have no Air to Air capability what so ever. Go F-22 and JSF

Webmaster:
Some more news regarding the plans...


--- Quote ---The House Armed Services Committee rejected a Pentagon bid to begin retiring the U-2 reconnaissance planes in 2007, but did agree to allow the retirement of up to 10 F-117A stealth fighters.
[...]
The committee bill includes language to allow the Pentagon to retire up to 10 of the 52 F-117A stealth fighters in 2007. The bill requires the Pentagon to keep the aircraft in storage in a condition that would allow them to be re-activated if needed.
[...]
Congress has blocked the retirement of any of the fighters during the past two years.
[...]
The Pentagon wants to retire the F-117A, stating that missiles and other aircraft - including the B-2 bomber and the new F-22 - can provide stealthly, precision strike capability.
[...]

--- End quote ---


source: LA Daily News
full article: http://www.dailynews.com/antelopevalley/ci_3799369

Viggen:
As long US is having its war against terrorism, they will not scrapp the F-117. But they should of not have produced it in the first place, stayed with using it as a prototype and development for stealthtechnologi.

Webmaster:
I'm not sure I agree.  ;D Time for discussion  ;D

It was expensive yes, but remember it was developed during the high points of the Cold War. Russia had a sophisticated network of radar and SAM installations. And even when not considering the Cold War, the thing came in very handy in the first gulf war.....just saw a documentary recently, F-117s flew 2% of the sorties of Desert Storm, destroying 40% of the designated targets...with no losses. And again in 1999, the F-117 proved worthwhile, another high tech SAM network. Okay, they didn't turn it on, and would have received a bad beating if they would have done that, and one F-117 was shot down. But without the F-117 proving stealth technology in the Gulf War, would the B-2 have been mature enough for the Yugoslavia battle...and Afghanistan and Iraq post 2001... or do you think that one shouldn't have been produced either?

Viggen:
Aoooch!  ;)

You do have a point, but the cold war era was mostly about nuclear weapons. So the F117 would not have been a sucsessful bomber during that period, because a nuclearwar would have been fought at a distance, missiles with nuclear warheads deployed by subs and so on. Smaller tactical warheads would of been deployed by artillery, using the F117 to deliver a nuclear payload on enemy troops or Moscow would not be costeffective.

I just think they could of used that technologi better. Yes, it did kick ass during Desert Storm. But where was the Iraqi airforce? If US would of meet a country with equal technologi, i dont think it would of been that easy to sneak in a couple of F117´s. And sooner or later some genius will come up with an idea how to track stealthbombers or figthters.  :)

About the B2, well...US had really no reason to get involved in Yugoslavia, thou im not defending the warcrimes that took part, and Afghanistan did not go all that well. Bin Laden is still not captured. So in my eyes that is more a unsuccesfull mission the the other way around. Dosent matter how many bombs the B2 dropped,they never had an enemy that was a real threat to the bombers, and thats not because of the stealthtechnologi.  8)

What i have learnd about stealthtechnologi is that the aircraft is not really invisible on radar, but the radar has a much harder time to aquire a lock on the target. Combined with flying at low altitude its easier for the pilot to fool the radar, this way a surpriseattack is achived. The F111 did this also, but flew at a more extreme lower altitude.

If you think im wrong on any or all that i have said. Let me know, i can handel it.  :)

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