Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
How do you hide an airplane behind a bird? Very skillfully. Lt. Col. William
B. O'Connor (ret.) flew the F-117 Nighthawk during the Bosnia Conflict,
and in Stealth Fighter, he explains the history, operation, and soul
America's most advanced stealth jet.
While the United States had never embraced a defensive mindset and
had only fielded one strategic SAM system to that point, the NikeHercules dating from the 1950s, and one real medium-range tactical
system, the HAWK (homing all the way killer), the Soviets had
fielded over fifteen different systems. One Soviet SAM system was
even armed with nuclear warheads.
It had become clear that there had to be a better way. So in 1974, the
U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a
program known as Project Harvey (named after the 6 feet 3 1/2
inches tall invisible white rabbit from the play of the same name).
The ultimate goal was to develop a combat aircraft with as low a
radar signature as possible. Five aerospace corporations had been
contracted a million dollars each to give it their best shot.
Surprisingly, Lockheed hadn't been among them. It was only an
accidental tip-off that allowed Lockheed's Ben Rich to lobby for
inclusion. Rich had been an engineer on the secret U-2 and SR-71
reconnaissance aircraft and had by then advanced to become
Lockheed's successor to the famous Kelly Johnson as director of the
Skunk Works. The "Skunk Works" is the official alias for the
department responsible for all of Lockheed's highly secret advanced
development projects. It was formed in 1943 to build America's first
jet fighter, the P-80, and numerous other projects that belong to the
shadow world of military operations.
By the time Rich had gotten wind of Project Harvey, there was no
money left for another developmental contract. So Lockheed was
offered a shot-for a dollar. But Rich wanted in and wisely turned
down the token dollar. He knew that any new technologies developed
with company funds would then be proprietary. Lockheed was
famous for building small fleets of extremely advanced aircraftoften used for highly secretive missions. During World War II, they
had built the United States' first operational subsonic jet fighter, the
P-80. They skipped the Mach-1 era altogether and jumped right to
fielding the United States' first fighter capable of speeds in excess of
Mach 2, the F-104 Star Fighter. Along the way came the high-flying
U-2, the higher-flying SR-71, the hypersonic D-21 drone (which
would ride piggyback on an SR-71 until released), and other things
not yet named.
Stealth Fighter: A Year in the Life of an F-117 Pilot by Lt. Col. William B.
O'Connor USAF (ret.) is reprinted with permission from Zenith Press. All
Rights Reserved
Stealth Fighter: A Year in the Life of an F-117 Pilot by Lt. Col. William
B. O'Connor USAF (ret.) is available from Amazon.
Stealth Fig
5 purchased by
slaw Buckeye_Fan
4/18/12 12:46am
nachobel TOTORO!
4/18/12 6:04am
slaw
chris209 Buckeye_Fan
4/18/12 10:42am
The F-22 is also decades newer and more advanced (the F-117
is also technically a bomber).
Buckeye_Fan I suppose I
4/17/12 10:39pm
Roen Buckeye_Fan
4/17/12 10:44pm
Agreed. The F-22 with its litany of problems is the world's most
advanced hypersonic cruise capable stealth fighter -well when
its functional that is. ^^
DingoJunior I suppose I
4/17/12 10:44pm
I suppose I DingoJunior
4/17/12 10:50pm
Correction: America's first subsonic jet fighter was the Bell P59 Aircomet. The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the second.
wagnerrp nurflugel9
4/17/12 10:43pm
OttoMaddox wagnerrp
4/18/12 4:08pm
wagnerrp OttoMaddox
4/18/12 4:51pm
The Brit's tried it, and found it lacking compared to even the
Meteor. The Navy tried it, and couldn't use it for carrier
operations. It wasn't even competitive compared to modern
Dabamash dpoles64
4/18/12 1:31pm
duodsg Dabamash
4/19/12 3:22am
Dabamash duodsg
4/19/12 1:49pm
HammerheadFistpunch
4/17/12 10:15pm
driggity HammerheadFistpunch
4/17/12 10:19pm
Came here to post this. I read the book about 4 or 5 years ago
and it's really good.
DingoJunior HammerheadFistpunch
4/17/12 10:39pm
MrCrash HammerheadFistpunch
4/17/12 10:42pm
rds2431 HammerheadFistpunch
4/17/12 11:02pm
pretty bad ass to me. A lot of people don't think they look great,
but I think those people are crazy. I also love how the P90 looks
for a gun, so that might explain my tastes more...
bugstomper2 chiggerfruit
4/18/12 2:59am
chiggerfruit bugstomper2
4/18/12 3:18am
Oh. My. God. You just made my childhood. This will be mine by
the end of the year.
Sprzout chiggerfruit
4/18/12 3:46am
I've heard they're incredibly hard to fly, that they want to roll
over because of the design of the body.
Then again, that seems to be common for spy planes - I seem
to remember that the U-2 had such a narrow window for lift
that pilots had to make a really wide, sweeping turn in them.
But you're right, they're awesome looking!
Sprzout
SpainIsInYurp chris209
4/19/12 4:07pm
MrvinTheMarshn
4/18/12 9:42am
Awesome.
DingoJunior Unicorn_Turdz
4/17/12 10:45pm
Picklehaube Unicorn_Turdz
4/18/12 10:35am
'MMMMMMerica!
-Nibbles chewing comments and spitting them out since 2011
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