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Well, mostly the process of stripping their low-RCS paint. http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4729/the-toxic-death-paint-scheme-was-the-f-117-nighthawks-most
by packetized 8y ago
Well, mostly the process of stripping their low-RCS paint.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4729/the-toxic-death-paint-scheme-was-the-f-117-nighthawks-most-outrageous http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4729/the-toxic-death-pa...
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoSoda blasting? That's a ubiquitous process being performed literally all the time. Yeah, blasting, grinding, cutting, forging, and dozens of other industrial processes are nasty and messy, but that isn't the hassle. The problem here is secrecy and finding shops with a large enough blasting bay (there are thousands of auto body shops with bays for blasting full size trucks and other large vehicles - literally 15 on Google Maps within half an hour of me) and having laborers with top-secret clearance to do the work. All so 1970s tech can stay a secret.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- packetized 8y agoI would say all of that is part of the process of stripping low-RCS paint.
- stonemetal 8y agoI didn't realize full size trucks had gotten over 60 feet long and 40 feet wide.
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoSorry, wasn't very clear - the booths are usually 24x12 or so, sized to fit cars and trucks, not F117 size. That's part of the problem.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThey're not but the point was that the size isn't all that special. A shop that blasts and paints bulldozers could do it.
- arprocter 8y agoInteresting how that stuff was apparently known to cause health problems by the people stripping the plane, but it also apparently wasn't to blame for folks getting sick at Groom Lake https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/area-51-burning-revealed/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/area-51-burning-revealed/
- h4b4n3r0 8y agoDoesn't seem likely that they even need to remove it. An F-117 was shot down over Yugoslavia using a modified microwave oven as a lure, and an antiquated Soviet-era anti-aircraft system. Its remains were handed over to the Russians _and_ the Chinese. TL/DR: the nations that we're worried about having the low-RCS paint already have the paint, and whatever was secret about it is secret no longer.
- donaltroddyn 8y agoThe article supposes that the paints were adapted and improved over time, so the paint on the airframes at retirement could be a decade more advanced, and that on current airframes could be two decades ahead, of that on the aircraft shot down.
- h4b4n3r0 8y agoPaint, maybe, though unlikely, but the airframe is almost certainly identical to the one that was shot down. The last F-117 was delivered to USAF in 1990. The aforementioned shoot-down was in 1999.