United States Department of Defense - F-117 Nighthawk

The Lockheed F-117 Night Hawk is a stealth ground attack aircraft operated solely by the United States Air Force. The F-117A's first flight was in 1981, and it achieved Initial Operational Capability status in October 1983. The F-117A came out of secrecy and was revealed to the world in November 1988.

As a product of the Skunk Works and a development of the Have Blue prototype, it became the first operational aircraft initially designed around stealth technology. The F-117A was widely publicized during the Gulf War.

The Air Force will retire the F-117 on 21 April 2008, primarily due to the purchasing and eventual deployment of the more effective F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II.

About the size of an F-15C Eagle, the single-seat F-117A is powered by two non-afterburning General Electric F404 turbofan engines, and has quadruple-redundant fly-by-wire flight controls. It is air refuelable. In order to lower development costs, the avionics, fly-by-wire systems, and other parts are derived from the F-16 Fighting Falcon, F/A-18 Hornet and F-15E Strike Eagle. The parts were originally described as spares on budgets for these aircraft, to keep the F-117 project secret.

Among the penalties for stealth are lower engine power thrust, due to losses in the inlet and outlet, a very low wing aspect ratio, and a high sweep angle (50°) needed to deflect incoming radar waves to the sides.

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, or two Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), a GPS/INS guided stand-off bomb.