F-117夜鷹戰鬥機

One F-117 has been lost in combat, to Serbian/Yugoslav forces. On March 27, 1999, during the Kosovo War, the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Missile Brigade under the command of Colonel Zoltán Dani, 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. According to Wesley Clark and other NATO generals, Yugoslav air defenses found that they could detect F-117s with their "obsolete" Soviet radars operating on long wavelengths. This, combined with the loss of stealth when the jets got wet or opened their bomb bays, made them visible on radar screens. The pilot survived and was later rescued by NATO forces. However, the wreckage of the F-117 was not promptly bombed, and the Serbs are believed to have invited Russian personnel to inspect the remains, inevitably compromising the US stealth technology.^[2]

The SAMs were most likely guided manually with the help of thermal imagers and laser rangefinders included in the Pechora-M variant of the SA-3s believed to have been used. It is unlikely that the radar could have gotten a solid track on the F-117 for more than a very short time, which would have not be enough to launch and guide an SA-3 to the target. Reportedly several SA-3s were launched, one of which must have exploded close enough to the F-117A to force the pilot to eject. According to an interview, Zoltán Dani was able to keep most of his missile sites intact and had a number of spotters spread out looking for F-117s and other aircraft. Zoltán and his missile crews guessed the flight paths of earlier F-117As from occasional visual and radar spottings and judging from this information and what target had just been bombed, Zoltan and his missile battery determined the probable flight path of F-117A #82-806. His missile crews and spotters were then able to locate it and fire their missiles. Zoltán also claims to have modified his radars to better detect the F-117A, but he has not disclosed what was changed. Parts of the shot-down aircraft are now presented to the public in the Aviation museum in Belgrade.

Some sources claim a second F-117A was also damaged during a raid in the Kosovo War, and although it made it back to its base, it never flew again.^[3]

With its successes in the Kosovo and Iraq Wars and its extraordinarily high mission-capable rate, the F-117 has secured its place as the aerospace "tip of the spear" during the first few nights of military operations when the goal is to blind the enemy by destroying command, control and radar. Yet despite this, the F-117 is still very much an aircraft designed with technologies that were state of the art in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and as such, there has been a preliminary decision to retire the fleet in 2008. Most notably its stealth technology and faceting, while still more advanced than that of any other aircraft but the B-2 Spirit and F-22A, is maintenance heavy. Furthermore, the faceting technology (which limits its aerodynamics) represents an old counter-radar technique that has since been greatly refined.

The increase of production of the F-22A by four planes and its entry as an operational aircraft into the US Air Force has created debate about retiring the fleet. A draft version of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and the 2007 Defense Budget that were leaked proposed retiring the entire fleet to make room for buying more F-22As.^[4] This plan was removed from both the final 2007 Budget and the final QDR.^[5]

Critics say that removing the F-117, an attack plane by nature, from service is another sign of the machinations of the largely former-fighter pilots that populate the highest ranks of the Air Force, who, by reputation, have been willing to sacrifice nearly any program in order to preserve the F-22A, the "ultimate fighter." Furthermore, critics contend that the F-117A Nighthawk is able to carry five thousand pounds of missiles in its internal bay (even including a B61 nuclear bomb) and remain stealthy, whereas the F-22A is only able to carry two thousand pounds of missiles in its internal bays and can only carry larger bombs on its external pylons, thereby compromising its vaunted stealth and maneuverability.

Supporters of the proposal, however, argue that the high maintenance costs and older stealth technology that is vulnerable to long-wavelength radar, combined with a subsonic speed limit, makes the F-117 more dangerous to fly. They contend that the F-22A is the logical successor considering that:

• Its stealth is nearly as advanced as the B-2's, and reportedly more effective than the F-117's.
• It can fly at supersonic speeds without using afterburners and thus can reach targets more quickly.
• Its radar-absorbing material requires far less maintenance than that of the F-117.
• The new 250 lb small diameter bomb entering service and designed specifically to fit in the F-22A's internal munitions bays have the same penetrating power as the larger 2000 lb BLU-109 bomb.

With the removal of the proposal of the retirement of the F-117 fleet, it is likely that the aircraft will remain in service for some years to come until their previously scheduled retirement between 2017 and 2025. In fact, 2004 and 2005 saw several mid-life improvement programs being implemented on the F-117, including an avionics upgrade.

• A Sprint commercial in the 1990s featured a large schematic drawing of the F-117, which was then subsequently identified incorrectly by Candice Bergen, their speaker, as a B-2.

• 绰号:
  • Before it was given an official name, the engineers and test pilots referred to the ungainly aircraft, which went into hiding during daylight to avoid detection by Soviet satellites, as "Cockroaches", a name that is still sometimes used.
  • Another sometimes used nickname is "Wobblin Goblin" due to the aircraft's alleged instability at low speeds, although F-117 pilots report this is incorrect.^[6]
  • Due to its shape, which prioritized stealth over aerodynamics, the first model of what would become the F-117 was nicknamed "The Hopeless Diamond".^[7]

• During the 1999 bombing of Serbia, after an F-117 was shot down by Serbian troops, a Serbian performing group Indexovo radio pozorište composed a satirical song "El kondor pada" about its pilot.

• In the 1980s, the Jane's Information Group misidentified the F-117 as the F-19, and featured fictitious artwork in All the World's Aircraft. Modelmakers Testors and Monogram both released hypothetical "F-19 Stealth" models; neither bore any resemblance to the real F-117.

• In 2006, a flight of two performed a flyover at the Sony HD 500 at the California Speedway