The famous American stealth aircraft F-117 Nighthawk, which are easily recognizable by their characteristic "angular" fuselage, have been officially withdrawn from service today. Nevertheless, eyewitnesses living near the US Air Force military bases see the black legend 117 rise again and again into the skies from the runway. What is the catch?
Almost 10 years have passed since the day the Pentagon officially removed the famous F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft from service. At one time, this subsonic vehicle with a low degree of visibility was intended to penetrate enemy airspace bypassing an air defense system. It was assumed that the 117th would covertly strike at military and civilian infrastructure, as well as troop concentrations, after which they would also quietly leave the airspace.
The F-117 Nighthawk made its maiden flight back in 1981. A total of 64 such machines were created in America. The last sample of the "triangular" aircraft entered service with the US Army in 1990, after which aircraft with a fairly high degree of success were used in several armed conflicts up to 2008 of the year. However, later they began to be replaced by the more advanced F-22 Raptor, which, even without the characteristic design of the fuselage, had the same properties of low visibility.
At the same time, the abandonment of the F-117 may seem illogical, since only one such aircraft was shot down during the entire time. It happened during the war in Yugoslavia. And yet the cars of the new generation turned out to be much better than the veterans of the end of the Cold War. In 2018, eyewitnesses repeatedly recorded flights of the famous Nighthawk in Nevada. Presumably, the vehicles were launched from the Tonopah airbase. Why the legendary "stealth" was never sent to the landfill is a mystery. However, the simplest explanation boils down to two things. First, the decommissioned Nighthawk can still be used for pilot training. Secondly, there are serious reasons to believe that tests are being carried out in Tonopah to improve the old F-117 and in fact the flights are operated by new generation aircraft.
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Continuing the topic, read about IL-496 aircraft: what is known about the future flagship of Russian aviation.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/190721/59829/
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