The least visible shape produced at the Skunk Works was a thousand times more visible than the F-117A Nighthawk shape
The first operational aircraft in the world built to take advantage of low-observable stealth technology is the F-117A Nighthawk. This precision-strike aircraft employs laser-guided weapons against critical targets while infiltrating areas of high risk.
The decision to produce the F-117A was made in 1978, and Lockheed Advanced Development Projects, also known as the “Skunk Works,” in Burbank, California, was given the contract. Just thirty-one months following the full-scale development decision, on June 18, 1981, came the first flight over the Nevada test ranges.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio’s Aeronautical Systems Center used streamlined management to quickly field the aircraft by combining advanced stealth technology with concurrent development and manufacture.
Deliveries of the F-117A began in 1982 and ended in the summer of 1990. October 1983 saw the 4450th Tactical Group—now the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico—achieve operational capability as the only F-117A unit under Air Combat Command.
As the following story from Ben Rich’s book “Skunk Works” demonstrates, the F-117A program proved that stealth aircraft could be conceived, designed, and developed.
As small as an eagle’s eyeball.
Rich, who served Kelly Johnson as the second vice president of Lockheed’s Skunk Works, remembers talking to Denys Overholser, an engineer and radar specialist, about the F-117, the company’s first completely stealthy airframe.
“Boss,” he said, handing me the diamond-shaped sketch, “Meet the Hopeless Diamond.”
“How good are your radar-cross-section numbers on this one?” I asked.
“Pretty good.” Denys Overholser grinned impishly. “Ask me, ‘How good?’”
I asked him and he told me. “This shape is one thousand times less visible than the least visible shape previously produced at the Skunk Works.”
“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “Are you telling me that this shape is a thousand times less visible than the D-21 drone?”
“You’ve got it!” Denys exclaimed.
“If we made this shape into a full-size tactical fighter, what would be its equivalent radar signature… as big as what—a Piper Cub, a T-38 trainer… what?”
Denys shook his head vigorously. “Ben, understand, we are talking about a major, major, big-time revolution here. We are talking infinitesimal.”
“Well,” I persisted, “what does that mean? On a radar screen, it would appear as a… what? As big as a condor, an eagle, an owl, a what?”
“Ben,” he replied with a loud guffaw, “try as big as an eagle’s eyeball.”
The F-117 has been in the news as a newly refurbished airframe is on display at the Palm Springs Air Museum in California. Frank Martinez was kind enough to let us share the photo below that he took at Palm Beach.
Despite being officially retired, a large number of F-117s are still in service and are employed for specific research and training missions (like conducting different air combat training sorties with USAF and US Navy aircraft) because of their overall cost-effectiveness and ability to provide special capabilities.
Maybe Ben Rich is smiling down from heaven, knowing that his baby is still active.
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Photo by Lockheed Martin and Frank Martinez
