F-117 Developments ??

flateric said:
"At the same time (1986), NASA was also working with the Lockheed Skunk Works® to study the installation of lift
engines in the F-117, in order to identify the technologies needed to build a stealthy STOVL Strike Fighter (SSF).
In the fall of 1986, DARPA expanded the scope of the NASA studies when it awarded the Skunk Works® a 9-
month long exploratory study contract to see if we could devise a supersonic, stealthy SSF for the Marine Corps."

AIAA 2009-1650
Inventing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
Paul M. Bevilaqua
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, Palmdale, California, 93599

Apparently this was NOT that F-117 modified for RCS tests with a hole in the center and dummy compressor to foolish our satellites...those who have Mailes/Miller F-117 book know what I'm talking about...
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Sounds like this pic you posted in http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3368.15.html
 

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no, article clearly separates these as different programs
 
TomS said:
I'm guessing that you've seen this site already, but just in case you haven't:

http://www.f-117a.com/ATA.html

Characteristics of ATA "A" and ATA "B" (February 1978)
ATA "A"ATA "B"
Mission radius400 n mile1000 n mile
Payload5000 lb7500 lb
TOGW43,000 lb90,000 lb
Length64 ft76 ft
Wingspan43 ft47 ft
Crew12
Number of engines22
Engine typeGE F404[br](nonafterburning variant)GE F101[br]("partially" afterburning)
Costx1.5x

That table is apparently based on data in the AIAA book Have Blue and the F-117A: Evolution of the "Stealth Fighter" by David C. Aronstein, Albert C. Piccirillo, which I don't have. Excerpts of that book are in Google Books, but most of the ATA Version A vs Version B discussion is in a section not released online.

http://books.google.com/books?id=rzXdGpkDa7YC

In my searches, I found some suggestions that this picture of the famous Senior Peg ATB design may actually be ATA Version B, but there's no evidence for that, IMO.
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The dimensions given for ATA-B seem to contradict the notion that the Jim Goodall aircraft is ATA-B. The Goodall aircraft has a length-to-wingspan ratio around 5:7, while the ATA-B is ~19:12. The F-117 is ~4:3. My assumption is that ATA-B probably resembled the F-117 but had somewhat more sweep on the planform.
 
Hi Guys,
Was the F-117 ever tested on a aircraft carrier? As there won't be a F-22N, the naval variant seems plusable. The Sea Typhoon looks like a no no. The RAF had the F-117C proposal back in 1995, my sure if the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air Arm flew the Nighthawk a two seater would be built, with possible export orders to follow.
 
No F-117 was ever trialled on a carrier, nor was any naval variant ever built that we know of. There won't be any more as the line has been closed for about 15 years or so.
 
SOC said:
No F-117 was ever trialled on a carrier, nor was any naval variant ever built that we know of. There won't be any more as the line has been closed for about 15 years or so.
Click to expand...

Not to mention that with the F-35 coming, there's no need for such an aircraft anymore.
 
Thanks SOC and F-14D,
Does this mean that the US Navy is only going to have one type of aircraft and its variations?
The F-35 lacks the range, compared to the Hornet.
The F-4 Phantom has been out of production for a longer period than the F-117, but it was still up graded by its users.
Are there any examples lying around the desert boneyards or have they been recycled?
 
The USN will basically be relying on E/F/G Super Hornets and F-35Cs. The F-35C can be inflight refueled from Super Hornets to extend range without needing external tanks, and makes for a far more survivable strike platform than the Super Hornet thanks to all-aspect LO. The F-117s are either going to museums or being obliterated, which makes one wonder if they really did have a nuke role. Retired planes don't typically get sent straight to the scrapper unless they were nuke related, or represent the end of a type in service with nothing to offer in terms of spares or anything else (the latter is why they are likely being cut up, but the former is still more amusing to at least speculate about). "They were secret" doesn't wash either, Lockheed stored the CIA's A-12s for over 20 years, and the D-21s were thrown underneath tarps at the Boneyard.
 
Thanks for clearing that up. Out of interest how much are they second hand? Would I get a discount for cash?
 
Call LockMart and ask ;D There is a security screening process though, they must ensure that your last name does not end in -astro, -havez, -rdari, -ogysin, -edvedev, or -hmadinejad!
 
SOC said:
The USN will basically be relying on E/F/G Super Hornets and F-35Cs. The F-35C can be inflight refueled from Super Hornets to extend range without needing external tanks, and makes for a far more survivable strike platform than the Super Hornet thanks to all-aspect LO. The F-117s are either going to museums or being obliterated, which makes one wonder if they really did have a nuke role. Retired planes don't typically get sent straight to the scrapper unless they were nuke related, or represent the end of a type in service with nothing to offer in terms of spares or anything else (the latter is why they are likely being cut up, but the former is still more amusing to at least speculate about). "They were secret" doesn't wash either, Lockheed stored the CIA's A-12s for over 20 years, and the D-21s were thrown underneath tarps at the Boneyard.
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From my understanding as of 2008 the F-117s were being stored in a state of high readiness for accelerated return to flight status if necessary. It was interesting that a contract was let specifically to perform regular maintenance on them. This is not normal for retired aircraft. They get preserved, and maintenance is limited to insuring that they don't deteriorate further (side note: because of AF hostility to the aircraft, when the SR-71 was first retired in 1990 they didn't even get that).

F-14 is a good example of what SOC is referring to as a plane that was rapidly scrapped.

This next really isn't about the F-117, but since it came up in this post I'll raise it. Maybe it should be moved to another topic.

One thing I'd like to hear more about is something that has been popping up lately, that the F-35C doesn't have the range of the Super Hornet. One of the big differences of the 35C versus the A & B is its larger fuel capacity to give back much of the strike range lost when the A-6 and F-14 were prematurely retired. Now, it may be true that an F-35C on internal fuel only might not have the range of a Super Hornet with five external tanks (you see this kind of thing when the SH's range gets compared with other aircraft), I would be surprised if a SH could go anywhere as far under the same conditions on internal fuel only. It mustn't be forgotten, either, that if a completely stealthy approach isn't necessary, the F-35 can carry external tanks as well, including a special LO design.
 
Back on page 3 there is a photo showing the experiments on how to scrap the jets. They aren't going to be around for much longer.

The F-14 was rapidly obliterated because parts kept showing up on the black market headed for Iran. If you remember, the USN even went so far as to reclaim some Tomcats from museums, and make sure that anything important was yanked out of others.
 
F-14D said:
One thing I'd like to hear more about is something that has been popping up lately, that the F-35C doesn't have the range of the Super Hornet. One of the big differences of the 35C versus the A & B is its larger fuel capacity to give back much of the strike range lost when the A-6 and F-14 were prematurely retired. Now, it may be true that an F-35C on internal fuel only might not have the range of a Super Hornet with five external tanks (you see this kind of thing when the SH's range gets compared with other aircraft), I would be surprised if a SH could go anywhere as far under the same conditions on internal fuel only. It mustn't be forgotten, either, that if a completely stealthy approach isn't necessary, the F-35 can carry external tanks as well, including a special LO design.
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Where's that been said? ??? Everything I've read has been quoting an enormously long range for it and LM was quoting 740+ nautical mile combat radius missions for the F-35A with Norway.
 
F-14D said:
From my understanding as of 2008 the F-117s were being stored in a state of high readiness for accelerated return to flight status if necessary. It was interesting that a contract was let specifically to perform regular maintenance on them. This is not normal for retired aircraft. They get preserved, and maintenance is limited to insuring that they don't deteriorate further (side note: because of AF hostility to the aircraft, when the SR-71 was first retired in 1990 they didn't even get that).
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From my understanding....
1. The money allocated for maintaining them went elsewhere.
2. Pilots and crew are not being kept current in the type, so the readiness of the airframes does not matter much
3. Part of the "readiness" contract was to keep the TTR facilities running. That has been happening, and there is now another unit there.

Again, I'd have to check on some of the specifics, but this is what I remember from when I looked into it some time ago.
 
Hi Guys,
When the Korean company Daewoo first started out they used Opel/Vauxhall surplus to requirement spare cars i.e the cavalier and nova.
SAET the Spanish car company are using old A4 Audi's revamped and selling them.
Even the 1100/1300 model was sold by: Austin, Morris, MG, Wolsey and Vanden Plas. From 1962 to 1974, all the same models built to different spec by five different car companies.
Couldn't the same principal be used on the F-117. Just update it for naval use, give it a different name and a jazzy camouflage paint job. Hey you won't need as many aircraft as the Air Force.
I'm saving the US tax payer money, don't they know there's a recession on?
 
Please note that the original F-117A is hardly an ideal navy plane. It has very sensitive surface, very bad shape of the wing, thin landing gear, structural integrity, that is not able to sustain continuous carrier landings, no hook, etc... The only plane that was optimized for the carrier operations (enough) was the A/F-117X and that was never build nor flown. I think that to rebuild the current airframes to meet those standards should be much expensive, than to build a new planes.
 
Thanks Matej,
If you were to take the wings off the F-117 would make a wicked boat project for some one. Or even a ground effect vehicle.
Best put the "Bring back the F-117" idea to bed.
 
Rosdivan said:
F-14D said:
One thing I'd like to hear more about is something that has been popping up lately, that the F-35C doesn't have the range of the Super Hornet. One of the big differences of the 35C versus the A & B is its larger fuel capacity to give back much of the strike range lost when the A-6 and F-14 were prematurely retired. Now, it may be true that an F-35C on internal fuel only might not have the range of a Super Hornet with five external tanks (you see this kind of thing when the SH's range gets compared with other aircraft), I would be surprised if a SH could go anywhere as far under the same conditions on internal fuel only. It mustn't be forgotten, either, that if a completely stealthy approach isn't necessary, the F-35 can carry external tanks as well, including a special LO design.
Click to expand...

Where's that been said? ??? Everything I've read has been quoting an enormously long range for it and LM was quoting 740+ nautical mile combat radius missions for the F-35A with Norway.
Click to expand...

It's been popping up here and there as casual asides in interviews given by DoD officials. In fact, four posts previous to mine, McColm mentioned it as well. I'm just wondering where it's coming from.
 
SOC said:
Back on page 3 there is a photo showing the experiments on how to scrap the jets. They aren't going to be around for much longer.

The F-14 was rapidly obliterated because parts kept showing up on the black market headed for Iran. If you remember, the USN even went so far as to reclaim some Tomcats from museums, and make sure that anything important was yanked out of others.
Click to expand...


Missed this one. You are, of course, right about the Iranian connection. F-14s at museums have been revisited to make sure that specialized items that could be of use to the Iranians. It got especially embarrassing when it was found that entire F-14 airframes were sold (the TV show "JAG" bought one for $4,000) without being fully and properly 'sanitized'. In another extreme case, F-14 parts were seized still bearing the evidence tags put of them from the last time they were seized and were going to be used as evidence in trials!

When F-14Ds were flown into Castle and McClellan museums, the curators were surprised at how fast the crews came in to demil them and how much they took, especially in the cockpit.. Even control sticks were removed. I do think, though, that your observation, "Retired planes don't typically get sent straight to the scrapper unless they were nuke related, or represent the end of a type in service with nothing to offer in terms of spares or anything else..." is valid, since even the ones in controlled storage are being cut up. In addition to the Iranian question, the second part of your sentence certainly describes the situation with the Tomcats. With the exception of the LANTIRNs and associated equipment that went to the S-3 community and a few other items, it was a pretty unique bird with not that much that can go into other naval types.

So, back to topic, now that they've tested how to scrap one, what's going to happen to the F-117s? Part of the rationale for retiring them was that the extra F-22s that USAF expected to get were going to handle their role. well, those extra Raptors don't look too likely.
 
I think McColm's talking about the RCS model that had a cardboard lift fan stuck on top as a gag.
 
get this book and you will get an answer

PS Yes, I got it. There was fake VTOL F-117 described in this book (with pair of photos) with large 'lift fan' in the mid of fuselage.
Meantime, Lockheed's Paul Bevilaqua mentions that they have really studied VTOL F-117, but it would be definitely differ in configuration (I wish I'd see it one day)
 

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NASA was also working with the Lockheed Skunk Works® to study the installation of lift engines in the F-117, in order to identify the technologies needed to build a stealthy STOVL Strike Fighter (SSF)
Click to expand...

This was purely a theoretical study to investigate the possible stealth implications of lift engines in a stealth design, not a serious design.
 
this one we are talking about http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3368.msg49691.html#msg49691
 
Thanks for the replies.
During the first or second series of "Spooks". The storyline is based around a terrorist group that has stolen the only flying prototype of the V/STOL Nighthawk. Spook agents infiltrate the organisation, posing as F-117 pilots and steal the aircraft back. In one of the scenes the aircraft takes off vertically, there is a lot of smoke to hide the wires of the hoist attached to a crane as CGI hadn't been invented in those days.
 
Hi Guys,
Were there any drawings of a two seater variant for operational use during the F-117's service?
I've seen the proposal for a trainer version.
 
Were there any plans/thoughts penned as the follow-on model or next generation model of the F-117?
 
They considered remaking one of the FSD jets (or maybe an early jet that was damaged in a spontaneous landing, I forget) as a twin-seater if I remember right, but decided it wasn't worth it. And the follow-on is called the F-35!
 
I still haven't figured out the designated numbering system the Americans use.
For example: F-14, F-15, F-16, YF-17, F/A18, F-19 (Spectre?), F-20 (canceled), F-21, F-22, F-23 (Canceled).
Therefore the next numbers to follow should be F-24, F-25.......
My guess is this has been covered before in another topic.
 
F-19 appears to have been skipped despite the long-lasting rumors of a stealth fighter with the designation. The JSF should have been F-24 but supposedly it became the F-35 after some important figure erroneously stated that the fighter would be the F-35, probably since he was thinking of the X-35 prototypes. However, supposedly YF-24 has been/is being used for some classified project.

The F-117 probably should have been given an A (for attack) designation instead of F (for fighter), but for whatever reason this wasn't the case.

The numbers following F-111 in the pre-1962 designation scheme are believed to have been used for several experimental and foreign aircraft being tested. So it is possible that F-117 was just the number following those aircraft. Oddly enough F-117 also aligns with the next designation available if the pre-1962 USAF system been continued.

F-5 : F-112
YF-12 : F-113
F-15 : F-114
F-16 : F-115
YF-17 : F-116
 
Yes it has, but this is typically the kind of thing that will be difficult for you to find through the search engine...

Let's make it short (and preferably not off topic).

  • From 1924 to 1948, the US Army Air Corps (then Air Force) classified all fighters in the P-for Pursuit section (P-1 to P-92).
  • From 1948 to 1962, the US Air Force classified all fighters in the F-for Fighter section which took up where P- left off (F-93 to F-111).
    The P-types or programs still ongoing in 1948 were redesignated as F- (F-51, F-84, F-86 and so forth).
From 1924 to 1962, the US Navy and Marine Corps classified all fighters as "F" followed by the letter of the manufacturer (e.g. F4B, F11C, F7F etc.)
  • In 1962, all services started using a unified system with F- for Fighter beginning again at number 1 (e.g. F-4, F-5, F-14, F-15, F-22 etc.)
  • The JSF program should logically have used the next slot of F-24 and F-25... but they used F-35 because it was the same number as the X-35 prototype (if the Boeing had been procured, it would have been F-32 after the X-32 prototype). I have a theory that this illogical jump is a convenient way to hide some black programs from the inquisitive eye, and this may have in fact been proved correct by the fact that a USAF once listed a "YF-24A" aircraft in his list of test-flown types.
  • To complicate the matter further, the USAF has continued to use the old three-digit series unofficially for secret evaluation of foreign types and a few black programs. Designations such as YF-110 (a MiG-21), YF-113G (a secret US prototype), YF-117A (which became the Nighthawk), YF-117D (a Northrop program, the Tacit Blue I think) for instance have been identified. Apart from the now public F-117, Tacit Blue and Bird of Prey, and the declassified YF-110, none of these has been publicly ackowledged.

Many stories have circulated as to why the F-117 did not carry a regular F- designation. Well, for a start, it is NOT a fighter per se. It would be more accurate to list it in the A- for Attack list. Presumably, as the designation F-117 was already widely used by pilots and crew, it stuck. Other theories refer to the "117" as a mistake that was repeated and finally stuck as an official designation... I even had my OWN theory at some point that if you write "A-17" in capitals, the A can look like F1 depending on how you write it. This however falls short when you place the hyphen, as it would now be F1-17...

I hope this clarifies matters a bit!
 
Northrop asked for F-20. This also made it convenient for USAF officials to completely and truthfully deny the existance of the "F-19" ;D

The best rundown of designation SNAFUs and whatnot is, of course, on Andreas's website:

http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/index.html

Look for the bits on Missing and Non-Standard designations, and most of this will clear up.

And the F-117 was tested with the AIM-9. Ground firings did take place for a speculated anti-AWACS mission, amusingly similar to what Tom Clancy and Larry Bond wrote in Red Storm Rising. The idea wasn't taken any further for various reasons, but the F-117 can at least claim to have some right to the "F-" designator!
 
Sorry Colonial-Marine, I hadn't seen your reply! :-\

As for the F-19, I still believe there MUST have been a separate program carrying that designation at some point, because the F-117 is not a fighter and has never been one. Can you imagine the "Wobbly Goblin", as its pilots once named it, in a dogfight with any Russian fighter? NOT!

Also I have a copy of a page once found on the website of a USAF subcontractor that listed the F-19A as one of the programs they were working on, giving lots of figures on its performances. My intimate belief is that while Lockheed was contracted to work on the attack F-117 with lots of angular shapes, Northrop was similarly commissioned to produce a couple of test aircraft to validate rounded shapes on a fighter type (which may be a development of their THAP project). This may have been designated the YF-19A (the Spectre name came from a novel of the time by Tom Clancy) and if we consider the fact that none of these has ever surfaced, we could assume the aircraft were lost during tests, hence the choice of the USAF not to bother revealing it.

All of this is only a THEORY, okay! ::)
 
As for the F-19, I still believe there MUST have been a separate program carrying that designation at some point, because the F-117 is not a fighter and has never been one. Can you imagine the "Wobby Goblin", as its pilots once named it, in a dogfight with any Russian fighter? NOT!
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I don't follow this reasoning.

I don't see how the fact the F-117 isn't a fighter leads to the conclusion there must have been an F-19 that was a fighter.

I also don't agree with your theory, but at least you clearly labelled it a theory.
 

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