The "Wobbly Goblin" Wobbles into History

[Jeff Higgins]

Well, after 27 years of sneaking around hostile airspace, the F117 Stealth Fighter is being retired. It hardly seems that long.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/11/stealth.fighter.ap/index.html

[Rick Lee]

Doesn't seem like such a long service life, considering how many other planes far outlived their predicted service lives and cost much less money in those days' dollars.

[kach22i]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I want one.

[sammyg2]

The 117 is being mothballed because we have a much, much better replacement.
The 117 was innovative but it's obsolete now. It is subsonic, it isn't a fighter, it is inherently unstable and will fall out of the sky if the computers fail no matter how good the pilot is, they've lost 8 because of this.

The raptor is supersonic, it can dogfight, it can handle significanty better, it is as stealthy or more so than the 117, it is aerodynamically stable, and it can carry more payload for longer distances, it is cheaper to lfy and maintain. It is so much better it makes the F-117 about as relevent as a harley davidson. Cool to look at but an obsolete POS as far as technology.

[Rick Lee]

I saw the F-22 and JSF both fly demos at the Andrews Air Show in May. They were just amazing. No doubt they are superior in every way. But if we're still using B-1's and B-52's, even U2's, I don't see why there's no other use for the F-117, given what they cost to build. BTW, why is the F-117 designated as a fighter if it has no guns or missiles? Or is that incorrect?

[onewhippedpuppy]

Probably the cost to maintain them was greater than their usefulness. Great, groundbreaking aircraft, but today they are fairly obsolete. Everything they do can be done better by more versatile aircraft. Not a huge demand for a dedicated, air to ground stealth bomber.

[URY914]

27 years seems strange because we haven't know about it for 27 years.

[tcar]

The maintenance on the stealthy coating is a killer on it. Huge.

But, mostly, the reason is that it's just too stinkin' ugly to keep active.

[RWebb]

ground attack mission

carries a rack of 2 (?) or was it 2 racks of 2 each?

anyway, not much

you can think of it as a development mule that went to war for a while

[lowbob84]

The F-117 was designated a fighter to try and get more pilots interested in flying them. At the time of its introduction, the Air Force wanted to get F-15 pilots to fly them. F-15 pilots being the typical fighter pilot (big ego), didn't want to lose their title of 'Fighter Pilot'. So the Air Force gave the F-117 a fighter designation, and the fighter pilots were happy. Sounds ridiculous, but its true.

RWebb - you are right. It carries of rack of 2. Not much use in having a aircraft that can only carry 2 munitions when you have a B-2 that can carry 36. Plus, like whippedpuppy said, these things a really expensive to maintain. The protective coating on these aircraft have to be re-applied after every mission. When it takes over 40 manhours per 1 sortie, it ends up not being very cost effective. So retire the F-117, bank the cash being saved by not having to maintain them, buy more F-22s..