 Editor in Chief Bill   | 15 Sep 2021 10:22 p.m. PST |
Fresno-Yosemite International Airport had a very strange pair of visitors this afternoon. Two F-117s landed at the airport in north-central California and taxied over to the 144th Fighter Wing's base, which is located just to the south of the passenger terminal. You can just imagine people's surprise when they saw the long-retired (officially) flat-black faceted Nighthawks touch down and taxi to the base with their white drag-chutes billowing behind them. It's worth noting that at least one of the jets was not fitted with radar reflectors… The Drive: link |
 aegiscg47  | 16 Sep 2021 6:03 a.m. PST |
Could be they brought some back for testing. |
| NavyVet | 16 Sep 2021 6:52 a.m. PST |
You believe everything the government says? |
| Thresher01 | 16 Sep 2021 6:57 a.m. PST |
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I suspect they were just moth-balled, instead of actually retired, which is good news. Here's to hoping that those F-14s can be brought back too, when/if needed, though I doubt it. Still, one can dream. They all have them, but they can retract the radar reflectors when desired. They'd be REALLY useful in case the ballon ever goes up with the Iranians, Norks, or Chinese, and for keeping Russia on their toes on the Ukraine border. Excellent to give our enemies something else to worry about too. |
| emckinney | 16 Sep 2021 7:27 a.m. PST |
The training ops have been reported for a while now. They are retired from operational (combat) service. link |
| Micman | 16 Sep 2021 1:39 p.m. PST |
THresher01, I thought that the F14s were destroyed instead of going to the boneyard. |
| arealdeadone | 16 Sep 2021 4:43 p.m. PST |
Yep F-14s were shredded to stop any potential flow of parts to Iran. F-117s have been active for some time now – seems a handful retained for testing. |
| Andrew Walters | 17 Sep 2021 9:59 a.m. PST |
It occurs to me they might be really useful in an aggressor squadron. There were also some weird ideas floating around twenty years ago about using it as a fighter or a ground attack role by reconfiguring the bomb bay. It would be neat to know, but they aren't going to tell us. |
| MrMagoo | 17 Sep 2021 12:44 p.m. PST |
Saw these two take off from the Fresno airport in the morning as I was driving to work. I shook my head and thought to myself, "Are those really what I think they are??" I was surprised, to say the least, to see two F-117's taking off from Fresno-Yosemite airport.. At least now I know I wasn't thinking they were something they were not! |
| forper23 | 18 Sep 2021 3:25 a.m. PST |
Oh Magoo you've done it again! |
 Legion 4  | 18 Sep 2021 7:07 p.m. PST |
😁😆 Only very old timers will know that of course …  |
| Tango01 | 08 Oct 2021 9:43 p.m. PST |
F-117 STEALTH FIGHTER? THE TRUTH ABOUT AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT IN THE NIGHTHAWK
link
Armand |
| Tango01 | 10 Oct 2021 10:18 p.m. PST |
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