Stealth Unveiled
In 1990, a mysterious and strikingly beautiful aircraft touched down on a dusty airfield in the Nevada desert.
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk.
Every year, we celebrate the public debut of it, it's our favorite airframe by a country mile. And the merch they made for it's public unveiling is HOT.
These days, 'low observable' technology is the talk of the town. But even the newest kids on the block owe something to the Nighthawk, and that incredible legacy is well worth celebrating.
Our airshow tee is a painstaking replica of the exact shirt sold at Nellis Airforce Base, down to the blank it used, the Hanes Beefy-T.
To get the striking vintage design just right we actually worked backwards from original examples to perfectly match every detail. From the intricate speckles and halftones to the 1970s era Apple II fonts featured, we nailed it.
Since the public reveal of the Nighthawk, it served with quiet distinction throughout he latter half of the Cold War, the first Gulf War, a kerfuffle in Yugoslavia, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
despite an "official retirement" in 2008, the F-117 still gets spotted in the skies over Nevada where it's rumored to serve as an 'Aggressor aircraft' helping to train pilots fight against newer, stealthier enemies.
But that doesn't fully answer why we love this flying black triangle of death so much.
What's the F-117?
With it's cyberpunk-y profile and stunning angles, the F-117 "Nighthawk" instantly captured the public's imagination (and probably birthed a lot of UFO stories).
A radical departure from the retro-aerodynamic curves of traditional aircraft design, the F-117's odd shape serves a singular, hyper-focused purpose.
Absolute Stealth.
The Nighthawk weas concieved by Lockheed's famous "Skunk Works"; a top-secret development think tank responsible for some of the most capable (and insane) aircraft of the 20th century.
But being designed for stealth first and flying second, she was already quite the beast to tame in the skies — a particular "Have Blue HB1001" prototype would spawn one of our favorite quotes ever from Chief Aerodynamist Dick Cantrell, "I don't care what the hell it looks like, I'll get that ugly son of a b**ch to fly!"
And so she would.
Poised to slip deep into soviet territory, the Nighthawk incorporated radical new technologies to achieve an incredibly small radar and thermal signature.
During the prototyping phase, there was an incident where when blasted with all kinds of aircraft-detecting radar, the team noticed an object the size of a bird on the radar. Confused, they went out and checked the model they had placed as a test dummy, only to find out it was not the plane itself, but rather the bird sitting on top of it that they had detected.
The plane completely vanished.
It achieved this with hard edges, radar-absorbing coatings, a unique twin-tail, and special engine cowlings.
The nighthawk would be fully operational in the early 80s and for nearly a decade her pilots and crew flew night sorties in complete secrecy — a lot of air to air refueling allowed the Nighthawk to operate globally from a small handful of bases.
Nighthawk Goes Loud
Seven years later, the USAF and DoD decided the Nighthawk would work better as a deterrent if the world knew about it's terrifying capabilities.
And so, plans were made to reveal the aircraft to the world at Nellis AFB on April 21st 1990.
On a hot spring day, a flight of two F-117s landed in front of thousands of spectators, kicking off one of the most memorable air shows in US history.
After opening the show, the F-117s sat quietly on the tarmac surrounded by an entourage of armed airmen and curious onlookers.
Although little was said about the new "Stealth Bombers" — blimps, fighter jets, and mock dog fights continued the day's entertainment in style.
As we mentioned, the Nighthawk served all over the place since it's public reveal. It was even featured on some psychological warfare leaflets during Desert storm, where it was depicted as an unstoppable and undetectable force of destruction.
It still finds its place in the skies above Nevada. Even with talks of "spending prioritization" and "Doctrinal appropriateness" the nighthawk has endured, in it's own special way, for decades.
Everything about the F-117 that made it great in the 80s still captivates. It's razor-sharp edges, futuristic technology, and family tree of stealthy cousins (foreign and domestic).
We hope to see many more years of this little arrow-shaped bird up in the sky.
Blink, and you'll probably miss it...
