F-117A retiring. A world mourns.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Elok
How would you know? You live in Canada. CANADA, for crying out loud.

Yeah, a country that tries to prevent wars rather than starting them.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Asher
Yeah, a country that tries to prevent wars rather than starting them.

That's because it isn't a good idea for a country whose military projects get shelved to start wars

[snoopy369]

F4s are noisy suckers, lived near Holloman AFB (Alamogordo) for several years and they'd overfly quite often. Had a bunch of German pilots train there (I got to tutor their 5 year olds ... quite fun). I think they were training on the F117A, not sure.

I wonder what'll be based at Holloman now?

[Sava]

How ridiculous is it that they called the F117A a fighter even though it is just a bomber?

[Drake Tungsten]

Avro Arrow

The greatest engineering feat in the history of mankind...

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Sava
How ridiculous is it that they called the F117A a fighter even though it is just a bomber?

The "F-" designation for this aircraft has not been officially explained; however, it seemed to use the pre-1962 USAF fighter sequence like the F-111. Other modern aircraft also have old pre-1962 numbers (such as the B-52, C-130, and a number of lesser known aircraft), but the F-117 seems to be the only later aircraft to not use the new system. Most modern U.S. military aircraft use post-1962 designations which follow (somewhat) predictable pattern whereby "F-" was usually an air-to-air fighter, "B-" was usually a bomber, and "A-" was usually a ground-attack aircraft. Examples of the foregoing include the F-15 Eagle, the B-52 Stratofortress and the A-6 Intruder. Still, since the Stealth Fighter is actually primarily a ground-attack plane, the fact that it retains an "F-" designation is one of the reasons there are several other theories. The USAF has always been more proud of its fighters than its ground-attack aircraft, which are sometimes denigrated as "mud movers."[8] Officials may have felt that they could more easily generate political and military support for the radical new aircraft if it were called a "fighter" rather than a bomber or attack plane. Or, the "F-" designation may have been part of the attempt to keep the Nighthawk secret (the program was classified until the late 1980s). This misdirection could have also served to keep the Nighthawk from violating treaties or angering other countries. During development the term 'LT', for Logistics Trainer, was often used.

Also a recent televised documentary quoted a senior member of the F-117A development team as saying that the top-notch fighter pilots required to fly the new aircraft were more easily attracted to an F- plane, as opposed to a B- or A- aircraft. There has been something of a class distinction between fighter and bomber crews, particularly in the days of the Strategic Air Command (1945-1991), and flying one type often limited a pilot's prospects for flying the other.

[snoopy369]

I suspect "F" was indeed because of the public - after all, there's the "stealth bomber" (B-2) and "stealth fighter". If they called the F117A the "stealth attack aircraft" I don't think it would get as much public support ...

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by BeBro
Of course, to build it they used stolen UFO technology.

You have no proof of that.











They may have paid for the technology.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I live in Tuscon Arizona home of Davis Monthan Airforce Base and the A-10 Warthog

SCREW STEALTH!! BIG HUGE GUNS IN WARE ITS AT!!

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Elok
Wow, you managed to be ten years or more ahead of the curve on "rape our aesthetic sense" trends. Did you get disco in 1958?

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns


You have no proof of that.











They may have paid for the technology.

That may be true. Those who built the Arrow on the other hand.....

[Richelieu]

The UN Bomber!

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by Asher
British planes sucked post 1945, I sure am glad we didn't use your technology.

You really don't know much about military aviation then.

Hunter, Canberra, Lightning, Jaguar (even if it was half French), Harrier, Vulcan.

If that list isn't enough for you there is one aircraft that would have been better than even the Arrow if the project had been completed and was likewise killed off by American pressure, the TSR2.

[Asher]

All of the above sucked for different reasons.

The Harrier was innovative but ultimately pretty useless. The innovation it has was the VTOL which was more or less a way to get around the fact that the British haven't built a good ship post 1945 either.

[Cort Haus]

The Harrier wasn't useless in 1982.