Dewdz, Stuff for the whistleblowers group. This looks like some good shit. Way cool--Pentagon gettin' zapped! F-117A Nighthawk ("Stealth") Program--Summary Construction The primary RAM and infrared-reflecting material used on the F-117A Nighthawk, also known as the Stealth Fighter, is Dow Chemical's Fibaloy (Lockheed Memorandum TK-523). Fibaloy is used for structural airframe parts in the F-117A and for skin panels, spars, ribs, and 1ongerons. Only 10 percent of the airframe's structural weight is from metal. Reinforced carbon fiber, developed by the Air Force Materials Laboratory at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, is another important RAM used on the F-117A. This material not only absorbs radar energy, but dissipates it as well and helps reduce the F-117A's infrared signature. It is used primarily for high-temperature areas like outer skin panels near the engines, and wing and vertical-fin leading edges. The F-117A's unique shape is one factor that contributes to RCS reduction. Edges are rounded, and skins are made of Fibaloy in a secret and difficult manufacturing process. These skins are built in multiple layers that are filled with bubbles and tiny fibers oriented in a specific alignment, spacing, and density for maximum RCS reduction. This process is the most secret element of stealth technology. Parts are formed using super-plastics and are joined with strong adhesives. Kevlar 49 and Silag are used in key crossbar struts. Internal structural architecture of the F-117A has an even greater effect on RCS reduction. A design called cut-diamond, which employs several thousand flat surfaces, is used on the F-117A. Each of the small, flat surfaces is angled so it does not share a common radar reflective angle with any other small, flat surface. When a radar beam strikes the F-117A, only one or two of the flat surfaces reflects the incoming radar energy, while the adjacent surfaces present too high an incident angle to reflect the radar energy back to the radar receiver. The cut-diamond structure is covered by a layer of Fibaloy and Retinyl Schiff base salt materials that is able to absorb 98.7 percent of all radiated energy. Like the SR-71, internal plastic radar -absorbing triangular inserts are fitted to the F-117A's vertical-fin and wing leading edges. Iron ball RAM (supplied by TDK Magnetics, cf. Import Waivers) is applied to external surfaces and to some internal metal parts. All gear doors and access panels are specially shaped and tightly fitted to maintain the airframe's low RCS. To enhance its low visual signature, the F-117A employs both active and passive background-masking camouflage techniques that enable it to change color to match the background. Two camouflage colors are used: flat-black for night missions, and dull gray for day missions. The active camouflage technique is "background-clutter signal to aircraft RCS matching." This technique makes use of the F-117's extensive ECM/ESM suite and does not require any changes to the aircraft's structure. With this technique, an F-117A flying at low level protects itself from look-down interceptor radars by matching its overall RCS (as detected from above) with that of the terrain below. This ability makes the F-117A show up as ground clutter on the interceptor's radar, provided the F-117A's RCS precisely matches that of the terrain below it, and the hostile radars would simply reject the clutter and the F-117A masked in the clutter, and never detect the F-117A. ECM/ESM equipment is housed in smart skins, or portions of the F-117A's airframe that incorporate microcircuitry, thus avoiding the need to install antennae or sensors that might have a high RCS on the outside of the airframe. This feature has the combined benefit of saving space on the inside of the airframe and permitting the airframe to be lighter and smaller. Reconnaissance/weapons systems include a forward-looking laser radar used for both terrain-following navigation (TERCOM) and for attacking targets. A forward-looking infrared (FLIR) system is installed, as well as a low light level TV and a head-up display. Its weapons suite includes the optically guided AGM-65 missile and the AGM-45 Shrike antiradiation missile. The AGM-88A high-speed antiradiation missile (HARM) is also included. An advanced gun system developed by Hughes called the in-weather survivable gun system/covert is installed, and all weapons are carried internally. Another weapon that is planned for deployment in FY 93 is the AGM-I36A Tacit Rainbow antiradiation drone missile. This weapon can loiter after release and protect the F-117A from hostile radar tracking by detecting and destroying hostile radars. The Tacit Rainbow is small enough that four can be carried internally by the F-117A. In one recent test of the F-117A's weapon aiming and guidance system, a 500-lb bomb was dropped from altitude of 10,000 feet, and the bomb scored, going right into the top of its target, a 55-gallon drum. Results are similar to the Gulf War experience. Lear Siegler has developed a quadruple redundant electronic fly-by-wire system for the F-117A that eliminates the need for control cables, thus saving weight and simplifying construction. The pilot controls the F-117A with a side-stick controller mounted on the right side of the cockpit. The F-117A pilot sits on an ACES ejection seat. The pilot's canopy has flat surfaces, and should be coated with an optically transparent RAM to prevent radar reflection from the pilot or cockpit equipment. Landing gear is designed for rough-field operations, and each gear leg has a single wheel. Infrared signature is reduced by mixing fan-bypass air and air from cooling baffles with exhaust gases. Mixing of air with exhaust also has the benefit of reducing the acoustic signature. Because infrared homing missiles track aircraft by the heat of their exhaust nozzles, not the heat of the exhaust gas, the nozzles are made of materials that keep the infrared signature low. Cooling baffles and special coatings also help reduce the infrared signature from hot engine-exhaust nozzles. Newer infrared homing missiles with all-aspect launch angles can track only the exhaust plume, but the work done to cool exhaust nozzles and cool exhaust gases on the F-117A (and other stealth aircraft) makes infrared lock-on by these kinds of missiles highly unlikely. Two modified nonafterburning 12,500-1b General Electric F404-HB turbofan engines power the F-117A. Two-dimensional thrust-vectoring exhaust nozzles, which can vector thrust in various vertical and horizontal positions, are installed; however, the nozzles are only two-dimensional in shape, with no vectoring capability. Material around the engine bays is a matrix sandwich of polymers and pyramidic noise-absorbing structures. The sound-proofing is so effective that the F-117A makes only a medium-level (53 dB) humming noise at a distance of 100 feet, and on takeoff a slight whine (61 dB) is heard. The F-117A uses a Benson-designed Rotorduct system that provides additional cold thrust from the engines. The Rotorduct system is connected to the forward and aft sections of the engines. During night operations, the F-117A flies lights out, with no navigation, strobe, or position lights of any kind. F-117As are equipped for all-weather operations without any outside assistance. All guidance systems are passive, except for the laser radar, but that gives no signals that could be detected. Guidance systems include a ring-laser gyro based inertial navigation system and global positioning system receiver, both of which are passive navigation systems. Performance Although the F-117A can fly at supersonic speeds (Mach 1.73), most of its flying is done below the speed of sound close to the ground to take advantage of terrain-masking of hostile radar installations. High-speed flight at low levels also protects the F-117A from infrared-guided weapons or infrared detection systems. At higher altitudes, the F-117A would be exposed to such systems for longer periods of time, while at low levels, the F-117A is not over one area long enough for weapons systems to lock on. Even if the weapons could lock on briefly, the F-117A flies so quickly that it would be long gone before the weapon could shoot it down. Operating at high speeds and low levels makes the F-117A somewhat unstable due to its large wing/fuselage planform. USAF cites this as one reason, among others, for one or two of the four operational crashes. The F-117A uses small ride-control vanes similar to those on the nose of the B-I bomber. These are known as impedance-loaded flow-control vanes, and they alleviate the often bumpy ride encountered during low-level and high-speed flight. Supersonic flight in the F-117A is inefficient because of the materials from which it is built. Some of the materials, while excellent at reducing detectability signatures, have a rough finish that add to the F-117A's parasite drag. F-117A Operational Basing An F-117A unit is permanently based at Tonopah Base (Area 30, also known as Sandia Strip and Mellon Strip) in the northwest corner of the highly secret Nellis Test Range about 170 miles from Las Vegas, in Nevada. Tonopah Base has 72 hangars and was refurbished in 1979 by the U.S. Air Force. (It hadn't been used since World War II.) The unit is known as Team One--Furtim Vigilans (covert vigilantes), and there are 95 F-117As based there. (The term literally means "vigilant by stealth" or "stealthily vigilant" in Latin.) The full-service F-117A wing gained initial operational capability in 1983 at Tonopah Base. There are F-117A temporary-duty (TDY) detachments at Elmendorf AFB and Shemya AFB in Alaska, Kadena Air Base in Japan, and in the United Kingdom. The F-117A also has been active in the Middle East and in Latin America, used in the Gulf War and in covert drug trafficking survellance operations. The U.S. Air Force uses the F-117A in various roles and has integrated F-117A operations with those of the rapid-deployment forces and with the new special operations command. Two of the F-117A's known missions are covert reconnaissance and covert surgical strikes on preselected targets. In operational tests, this effective stealth aircraft has flown within 17 miles of actual Soviet-manned radar stations without being detected, and Soviet-manned Iraqi radar stations detected fewer than 3 of the F-117As in 753 different sorties over Iraq. F-117A Nighthawk Specifications Length 56.43 ft Height 15.72 ft Wingspan 40.20 ft Empty weight 19,674 lb Maximum takeoff weight 34,120 lb Cruise speed Mach 0.93 Maximum speed Mach 1.12 at 36,000 ft Powerplant two 12,700 lb GE F404-HB nonafterburning turbofans highly modified. Composites used in engine construction Combat radius 498 miles