Reenacting Bombing Missions in an F-117 Nighthawk

Ride along on a Microsoft Flight Simulator journey through history in the world's first top-secret stealth aircraft.

Patrick Chovanec

Monday, April 15, 2024 at 01:06 PM ET

Verified

F-117 Nighthawk in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. [Courtesy: Patrick Chovanec]

Key Takeaways:

The F-117 Nighthawk was a pioneering stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed's Skunk Works, based on theoretical work by Pyotr Ufimtsev, featuring unique angled designs and shielded components to minimize radar and heat signatures.
Despite its "fighter" designation, it was a subsonic bomber that required computer-assisted flight due to its inherent instability and was kept top-secret until its combat debut in Panama (1989).
The F-117 achieved remarkable success in the First Gulf War, flying numerous high-value missions with zero combat losses, establishing its reputation as a revolutionary weapon.
In its entire operational history, only one F-117 was ever shot down by a Serbian SAM in 1999, highlighting its effectiveness before its retirement began in 2006, though some are still used for training.

See a mistake? Contact us.

Today on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, I’m at Homey Airport (KXTA), also known as Groom Lake, aka “Area 51.” I’ve come here to the remote Nevada desert to fly one of the most iconic top secret aircraft of all time: the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter.

The story of the F-117 begins in 1964, when Soviet mathematician Pyotr Ufimtsev published the paper, Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction. It demonstrated that the radar return from an object depended more on its shape than size. Given the technology at the time, Ufimtsev’s insight was dismissed as impractical in Russia. But by the 1970s, given friendly aircraft losses to SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) in Vietnam and the Middle East, engineers at Lockheed’s “Skunk Works”—famous for designing cutting edge military planes like the P-38 Lighting, U-2 spy plane, and F-104 Starfighter—began taking the idea seriously.