The “Project Moonflower” program intended to sell the F-117 stealth fighter to the United Kingdom when it was still a top-secret aircraft
According to recently declassified documents made available by the British National Archives, Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States, had given Margaret Thatcher the opportunity to work on advanced military projects throughout the 1980s. Among them were the Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter and the Space Transportation System (STS), as the Space Shuttle program was formally known.
Thatcher concurred that the Space Shuttle program was more cost-effective for Britain than the European Ariane expendable launch vehicle, according to Theguardian.com. As the shuttle launch cost £58 million, which was £23 million less than Ariane, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) actually planned to launch two Skynet 4 military satellites to provide communications throughout Europe and the Atlantic.
The Challenger disaster, along with a letter from the French prime minister asking Thatcher to rethink her choice, worked against the Space Shuttle program. Furthermore, according to Theguardian.com, Ronald Reagan sought to transfer highly sensible U.S. military technology to the United Kingdom in 1986.
Thatcher “met privately” with Casapar (Cap) Weinberger, the then-U.S. defense secretary, to discuss this peculiar idea. Thatcher then sent a top-secret personal communication to the U.S. President, on which someone had faintly written “Stealth” where she stated: “Dear Ron, I was immensely impressed by your splendid achievement: three cheers for America! I was also very touched by the generosity of the offer of participation which [Cap] brought. It brings home once again who our real friends are.”
The “Project Moonflower” initiative, which was still classified, attempted to sell the F-117 to the UK.
The Lockheed F-117A was created in response to a request from the United States Air Force (USAF) for an aircraft that could attack valuable targets without being seen by enemy radar. By the 1970s, engineers were able to create an airplane with radar-evading or “stealth” characteristics because of new materials and techniques.
The end result was the F-117A, the first stealth aircraft in use in the world, which made its maiden flight on June 18, 1981.
The MoD ultimately turned down the opportunity to purchase the Nighthawk to outfit Royal Air Force (RAF) Squadrons since the F-117 was still a black program. In fact, the MoD wrote to Charles Powell, the prime minister’s foreign affairs advisor, in December 1986, informing him that “Mr. Weinberger has offered us a chance to purchase the current US aircraft but we have replied that we would not wish to actually buy hardware while the program remains strictly black [secret].”
Photo by Senior Master Sgt. Kim Frey / U.S. Air Force