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No, the stealth fighter was not in operation for 20 years before the public knew about it. The F-117 was delivered in 1982 and operational in 1983. It was 'decl

No, the stealth fighter was not in operation for 20 years before the public knew about it. The F-117 was delivered in 1982 and operational in 1983. It was 'declassified' in 1988 and displayed in 1990. And it wasn't even a fighter. It was for ground attack. https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f-117.htm https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f-117.htm

djsumdog 7y ago
I thought maybe the poster was talking about the SR-71, but it too didn't stay classified for very long.
- gpderetta 7y ago
  A-12 did stay classified for a while.
  - CalChris 7y ago
    There were actually two A-12s. The Lockheed A12 was introduced in 1967 and retired in 1968. The McDonnell Douglass A12 was never built and finally cancelled in 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_A-12_Avenger_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_A-12_Avenger... The SR71 succeeded the Lockheed A12. It was hard to keep secret. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/keeping-the-sr-71-blackbird-the-worlds-first-stealth-plane-17936 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/keeping-the-sr-71...
    - baybal2 7y ago
      > There were actually two A-12s. The Lockheed A12 I bet this was made on purpose. USA has learned some tricks from Soviets with their "fake patterns" F-117 wasn't a fighter, and A-12 was not a CAS aircraft. Pretty much like Kirov was not really an "auxiliary craft," and Tu-22 M-1-2-3 were all nearly completely different aircraft
      - toomanybeersies 7y ago
        The F117 is also the USAF designation for an aircraft engine (Pratt & Whitney PW2000), used on the C-17. Someone suggested to me a few years ago that might be the reason why the F-117 was designated that way.
      - catalogia 7y ago
        Tanks are so named because during WWI, the British decided to conceal their true purpose by calling them 'water carriers.' 'W.C.' was deemed an inappropriate initialism though, so the name was changed to 'tank' as in "a tank of water."
- bathtub365 7y ago
  It also wasn’t stealth, or an attack aircraft.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    > The second operational aircraft[38] designed around a stealth aircraft shape and materials, after the Lockheed A-12,[38] the SR-71 had several features designed to reduce its radar signature. The SR-71 had a radar cross-section (RCS) around 110 sq ft (10 m2).[39] Drawing on early studies in radar stealth technology, which indicated that a shape with flattened, tapering sides would reflect most energy away from a radar beam's place of origin, engineers added chines and canted the vertical control surfaces inward. Special radar-absorbing materials were incorporated into sawtooth-shaped sections of the aircraft's skin. Cesium-based fuel additives were used to somewhat reduce exhaust plumes visibility to radar, although exhaust streams remained quite apparent. Kelly Johnson later conceded that Soviet radar technology advanced faster than the stealth technology employed against it.[40] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird To be clear, a 10m^2 radar cross section is enormous compared to the F-117 (0.001 m^2) The F-117 was in a completely different league than the SR-71, but the SR-71 was in fact designed to be stealthy.
catalogia 7y ago
Besides the SR-71/A-12, there were other stealth aircraft that preceded the F-117. The immediate predecessor was Lockheed's Have Blue[0] which was flying in the 70s. Related to Have Blue, there was also Senior Prom[1], which was apparently a scaled down unmanned "cruise missile" variant of Have Blue. And beyond airplanes, the first stealth helicopters were developed in the late 60s to early 70s and saw limited service during Vietnam. Called The Quiet Ones[2], these helicopters were painted with radar absorbing paint and had several novel mechanisms to reduce their noise, making them stealthy not only to radar but also to ground observers. They were tested over Area 51 and apparently near LA as well, so it seems likely they may have spooked some civilians at one point or another. The infamous "black helicopter" conspiracies/stories started popping up in the 70s, which doesn't seem particularly coincidental when you consider that we now know the The Quiet Ones existed. The original Quiet Ones are long gone, but it's evident they were replaced by newer stealth helicopters that we don't yet know the names of. We can be pretty sure of this because famously one crashed during the raid on bin Laden[3]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Have_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Have_Blue [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Senior_Prom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Senior_Prom [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vinh_wiretap#Planning_and_training https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vinh_wiretap#Planning_and_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Helicopter_stealth_technology_revelations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Helic...
- bouchard 7y ago
  Have Blue was the POC for the F-117, it wasn't used in actual operations. It was a test platform to demonstrate the concept's stealth capabilities and its ability to fly despite its non-conventional shape.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Yeah but it's a discussion about the public seeing spooky strange aircraft and calling in UFO reports, so considering pre-production aircraft seems obvious.
Spooky23 7y ago
I think the gp confused the stealth fighter with cruise missiles. In the northeast, the Tomahawk missile’s terrain navigation was tested out of a few air bases in the region, for example.

djsumdog 7y ago

I thought maybe the poster was talking about the SR-71, but it too didn't stay classified for very long.

gpderetta 7y ago
A-12 did stay classified for a while.
- CalChris 7y ago
  There were actually two A-12s. The Lockheed A12 was introduced in 1967 and retired in 1968. The McDonnell Douglass A12 was never built and finally cancelled in 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_A-12_Avenger_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_A-12_Avenger... The SR71 succeeded the Lockheed A12. It was hard to keep secret. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/keeping-the-sr-71-blackbird-the-worlds-first-stealth-plane-17936 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/keeping-the-sr-71...
  - baybal2 7y ago
    > There were actually two A-12s. The Lockheed A12 I bet this was made on purpose. USA has learned some tricks from Soviets with their "fake patterns" F-117 wasn't a fighter, and A-12 was not a CAS aircraft. Pretty much like Kirov was not really an "auxiliary craft," and Tu-22 M-1-2-3 were all nearly completely different aircraft
    - toomanybeersies 7y ago
      The F117 is also the USAF designation for an aircraft engine (Pratt & Whitney PW2000), used on the C-17. Someone suggested to me a few years ago that might be the reason why the F-117 was designated that way.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Tanks are so named because during WWI, the British decided to conceal their true purpose by calling them 'water carriers.' 'W.C.' was deemed an inappropriate initialism though, so the name was changed to 'tank' as in "a tank of water."
bathtub365 7y ago
It also wasn’t stealth, or an attack aircraft.
- catalogia 7y ago
  > The second operational aircraft[38] designed around a stealth aircraft shape and materials, after the Lockheed A-12,[38] the SR-71 had several features designed to reduce its radar signature. The SR-71 had a radar cross-section (RCS) around 110 sq ft (10 m2).[39] Drawing on early studies in radar stealth technology, which indicated that a shape with flattened, tapering sides would reflect most energy away from a radar beam's place of origin, engineers added chines and canted the vertical control surfaces inward. Special radar-absorbing materials were incorporated into sawtooth-shaped sections of the aircraft's skin. Cesium-based fuel additives were used to somewhat reduce exhaust plumes visibility to radar, although exhaust streams remained quite apparent. Kelly Johnson later conceded that Soviet radar technology advanced faster than the stealth technology employed against it.[40] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird To be clear, a 10m^2 radar cross section is enormous compared to the F-117 (0.001 m^2) The F-117 was in a completely different league than the SR-71, but the SR-71 was in fact designed to be stealthy.

catalogia 7y ago

Besides the SR-71/A-12, there were other stealth aircraft that preceded the F-117. The immediate predecessor was Lockheed's Have Blue[0] which was flying in the 70s. Related to Have Blue, there was also Senior Prom[1], which was apparently a scaled down unmanned "cruise missile" variant of Have Blue. And beyond airplanes, the first stealth helicopters were developed in the late 60s to early 70s and saw limited service during Vietnam. Called The Quiet Ones[2], these helicopters were painted with radar absorbing paint and had several novel mechanisms to reduce their noise, making them stealthy not only to radar but also to ground observers. They were tested over Area 51 and apparently near LA as well, so it seems likely they may have spooked some civilians at one point or another. The infamous "black helicopter" conspiracies/stories started popping up in the 70s, which doesn't seem particularly coincidental when you consider that we now know the The Quiet Ones existed. The original Quiet Ones are long gone, but it's evident they were replaced by newer stealth helicopters that we don't yet know the names of. We can be pretty sure of this because famously one crashed during the raid on bin Laden[3]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Have_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Have_Blue [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Senior_Prom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Senior_Prom [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vinh_wiretap#Planning_and_training https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vinh_wiretap#Planning_and_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Helicopter_stealth_technology_revelations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Helic...

bouchard 7y ago
Have Blue was the POC for the F-117, it wasn't used in actual operations. It was a test platform to demonstrate the concept's stealth capabilities and its ability to fly despite its non-conventional shape.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Yeah but it's a discussion about the public seeing spooky strange aircraft and calling in UFO reports, so considering pre-production aircraft seems obvious.

Spooky23 7y ago

I think the gp confused the stealth fighter with cruise missiles. In the northeast, the Tomahawk missile’s terrain navigation was tested out of a few air bases in the region, for example.