Happy Trails to F-117 (The Bandit)

[shetuck]

AP: AF Stealth fighters making final flights

Farewell (for now) to another of our native WPAFB sons. You made us all very proud. A well-deserved rest...

Air Force's stealth fighters making final flights

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- The world's first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology is slipping quietly into history.

The inky black, angular, radar-evading F-117, which spent 27 years in the Air Force arsenal secretly patrolling hostile skies from Serbia to Iraq, will be put in mothballs next month in Nevada.

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, which manages the F-117 program, will have an informal, private retirement ceremony Tuesday with military leaders, base employees and representatives from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

The last F-117s scheduled to fly will leave Holloman on April 21, stop in Palmdale, California, for another retirement ceremony, then arrive on April 22 at their final destination: Tonopah Test Range Airfield in Nevada, where the jet made its first flight in 1981.

The government has no plans to bring the fighter out of retirement, but could do so if necessary.

cont'd...

 

[BUCKYLE]

TTIWWOP...

 

[Dryden]

So, the government and Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works team are finally rolling out the next line of aircraft built by reversing engineering UFOs from Zeta Reticuli they've been recovering since the 1950s?

Of course, the new wave of aircraft will be fully funded by selling these F117s to some Middle East dictator for pennies on the dollar and few barrels of oil! We'll just shoot 'em down later.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

Dryden may have been joking, but it does make you wonder that if we're retiring the world's stealthiest known -- key word is "known" -- aircraft, then just what do we have waiting in the wings and on the drawing board?

 

[martinss01]

few weapons can say they changed the way wars are waged. the f117 is one of those weapons. a fond farewell to the hopeless diamond.

 

[Dryden]

Dryden may have been joking, but it does make you wonder that if we're retiring the world's stealthiest known -- key word is "known" -- aircraft, then just what do we have waiting in the wings and on the drawing board?

The government says F-22 Raptors.

The government says ... :tongue2:

 

[shetuck]

Honest question here: Wasn't the "hopeless diamond" the Bandit's predecessor?

 

[OCBuckWife]

TTIWWOP...

Man, I feel old. I remember when they were testing these in the night skies of Nevada, back when they were still classified and didn't officially exist. We could sit out in the hills above Reno and watch a piece of the sky suddenly be blotted out in a that very distinctive shape every once in awhile.

The Air Force denied the existence of the aircraft until 1988, when a grainy photograph was released to the public. In April 1990 two were flown into Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada arriving during daylight and visible to a crowd of tens of thousands.
F-117 taxiing.


During the program's early years, from 1984 to mid-1992, the F-117A fleet was based at Tonopah Test Range, Nevada where it served under the 4450th Tactical Group.

 

[shetuck]

Dryden may have been joking, but it does make you wonder that if we're retiring the world's stealthiest known -- key word is "known" -- aircraft, then just what do we have waiting in the wings and on the drawing board?

Interesting... My thoughts exactly when I read the article.

Idea for a thought-exercise... It would be mind-blowing if we took cutting-edge technology that was commercially available (around the same time the F-117 was only a bunch graphite lines on a drafting board in Dayton) in the late 60's / early 70's and project out where that technology has gone.

Then, in parallel, take the technology deployed on the F-117 and project it out over the same thirty-year period so we can start to grasp what the US Military is developing right now.

IOW, what would happen if we applied Moore's Law to other things... What would today's cutting-edge weaponry look like if if follows the same trajectory as the following examples?

*I'm just doing these off the top of my head (mostly) so be gentle. Not all the buzz-word descriptors apply directly to the picture that follows them.

Televisions:
1970's... Vacuum tube / solid state technology. Analog signal. No signal processing or fuzzy logic circuitry.

2000's:

Automobiles:

1970's... Carburated engine, stainless steel welded/riveted construction, solid state electronics, less than 10 mpg, questionable crash worthiness.

2000's: hybrid gas/electric energy technology; on-board computer controlled engine, catalyst, steering, tire pressure; composite unibody frame; polymer body panels; aluminum engine...

Computers:

1970's... no such thing as a "personal computer"; tape drives; punch cards; cathode ray tube monitors; solid state technology driving thousands of op amps, resistors, capacitors, inductors, etc.; no such thing as "multi-tasking"; $1,100 per flop taking about 20 seconds.; no resident magnetic-drive storage capacity.

2000's... true multitasking; graphical user interface; pocket-sized; $0.00000000002 per flop taking less than 0.00000000001 seconds.

What are some other interesting ones? Air travel? Communications? Surveillance? Food prep? Banking and personal finance?

 

[sandgk]

60's/70's - Lava Lamp

2000's - eh, Lava Lamp :)

 

[Dryden]

1960s

2000s

 

[SanAntonioBuck]

That aircraft was one of the best ever made. It was always a big hit at the airshows.

 

[BUCKYLE]

1970's

2000's

 

[shetuck]

1960s

2000s

a little dab'll do ya!

 

[sandgk]

60-70's

2000+

iPod - Bikini optional :)