two decades of stealth - air force magazine › pdf › magazinearchive... · enjoyed a monopoly on...

By John A. Tirpak, Senior EditorThe F-117A stealth fighter first flew 20 years ago this month.

OR 20 years, the Air Force hasenjoyed a monopoly on stealthcombat aircraft. No other na-tion appears to be even close

to deploying a capability like theF-117 Nighthawk, which made itsfirst flight in June 1981. The AirForce plans to keep stealth at thecenter of its strategy, even as itevolves the technology and prac-tice of low observables to over-match the attempts of adversariesto counter it.

“Stealth”—a catchall term thatencompasses technologies and tac-tics intended to reduce the detect-ability of a vehicle—has given theUnited States a previously unimag-ined dominance in modern warfare.The F-117 was the star of the 1991Gulf War, routinely destroying themost fiercely defended targets inBaghdad and returning untouched.

In the 1999 Balkans war, the B-2bomber, one generation of stealthbeyond the F-117, stole the show inits combat debut by precisely hittingover a dozen targets per mission—against air defenses that had gone toschool on the lessons of the GulfWar. It also returned without ascratch. In short, stealth contributedenormously to the lopsided victoriesof the last decade.

Fielding of the next generation ofstealth aircraft—the F-22 and JointStrike Fighter—awaits the results ofthe Pentagon’s ongoing strategy re-view, due to be completed in the fall.Air Force officials, however, areconfident the Bush Administrationwill see the indisputable value ofstealth as the enabler of swift mili-tary victories.

USAF plans an all-stealth forcein its future, according to Maj. Gen.(sel.) David A. Deptula, the ser-vice’s national defense review di-rector. In March, Deptula told theHouse Armed Services subcommit-tee on procurement that the AirForce’s stealth airplanes will beable to “operate with great preci-sion and survivability in the mod-ern air defense environment—anenvironment where nonstealthy air-craft simply cannot go.” America’sintelligence, surveillance, and re-connaissance assets, “networkedavionics,” communications sys-tems—and stealth—represent “the

Two Decades of Stealth

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United States’ asymmetric advan-tage and are key to retaining ourposition as the world’s sole super-power,” he told the House panel.

USAF’s still-strong enthusiasmfor low observable technology, how-ever, is tempered somewhat by thereality that, after 20 years, the con-cept of stealth—once a word noteven uttered for fear of compro-mise—is no longer a secret. Theprinciples underlying stealth are nowwidely understood, and the nation’sadversaries have had 13 years tostudy the F-117—from a distance—and attempt to calculate its weak-nesses.

Stealth’s Mystique“Stealth is a huge advantage,” said

Gen. Michael E. Ryan, USAF Chiefof Staff. However, he added, stealthaircraft are “not invisible,” and themystique of stealth as a cloak ofinvulnerability, allowing solo pen-etrations of enemy airspace underany conditions “simply isn’t sup-ported by science.”

What might have been the mostsobering event in the short history ofstealth was the loss, in March 1999,of an F-117 to enemy fire in Kosovo.It shattered the aura of invincibilitythat had been enjoyed by the aircraftuntil that point. The Serb foe pa-raded the wreckage on television.The pieces undoubtedly were shippedto America’s adversaries for scru-tiny, and critics of the Air Force andstealth technology had a field day.

Senior service leaders say that,while it would have been preferableto keep pieces of the F-117 fromenemy hands, neither stealth in gen-eral nor the F-117 in particular are inespecially greater peril because ofwhat happened in the Balkans.

“It doesn’t worry me,” said Gen.John P. Jumper, head of Air CombatCommand.

From the pieces of the F-117 alone,Jumper said, it would be “very, veryhard to duplicate” a stealth aircraftby reverse engineering it.

He went on, “There are intricaciesto stealth that come with our manyyears of experience.” Pieces alone—without the means to duplicate theway they were manufactured or theiroverall shape on the aircraft—couldonly give small hints about whatmakes the F-117 stealthy.

One program official speculatedthat US adversaries have probablyalready formed some ideas abouthow the F-117 works after watch-ing it for 13 years. Being able to“put a micrometer on [some of thepieces] isn’t going to tell them awhole lot extra that they didn’t al-ready know.” He added that AirForce “Red Team” specialists—whose job it is to look for and iden-tify vulnerabilities in stealth—stillfind the F-117 “a challenge, andthey have all the data” on it.

“My opinion is, that having thathardware in their hands is certainlysomething we would rather not havehad happen,” said John Somerlot, a

stealth expert with Lockheed Martin,now working on the F-22 program.

“However,” he continued, “the realtechnological advantage is the inte-gration and systems engineering. It’snot just having some material in yourhand that’s able to absorb X numberof [decibels].

“It’s the ability to take that anddesign it in, produce it, deploy it,and support it. A lot of people canbuild models that are high perform-ing, but when you have to put wheelson the ramp and then support those,that’s where the real technology is.”

Don’t Ask, Won’t TellThe Air Force has been under-

standably reluctant to discuss thespecifics of how the F-117 wasbrought down in Kosovo, preferringto keep US adversaries in the darkabout what tactics might have beeneffective against the stealth fighter.However, senior USAF officials re-port privately that stealth technol-ogy itself was not to blame in theloss.

According to these officials, thetrue culprits were NATO constraintson how F-117s could approach Ko-sovo in the early days of OperationAllied Force, the intense media cov-erage of aircraft taking off fromAviano, Italy, and the presence inItaly of spies who sent immediatereports of air activity to Serbian gun-ners. These factors allowed the Serbsto make gross estimates of the where-abouts of aircraft en route to targetsin Yugoslavia, the F-117 among them.

“We were more predictable than weshould have been, under the circum-stances,” said one senior official.

About 20 miles outside of Bel-grade, the F-117’s luck ran out. Anundetected surface-to-air missilebattery was lurking in the darknessbelow. It had not appeared on in-telligence maps of the area, and theF-117 pilot was not aware of it. Whenthe F-117 became briefly visible onradar as it opened its bomb bay doors,Serb radar operators on the ground,aware that an F-117 would be enter-ing their area, had a momentary op-portunity to shoot. It is possible thatthey didn’t even have a radar lock onthe stealth airplane but were closeenough to guide the missile opti-cally. Badly damaged by the blast ofthe warhead, the F-117 could not becontrolled, and the pilot ejected. Hewas soon rescued.

Twenty years later, no other nation has yet fielded a stealth aircraft comparableto the F-117. It applies a variety of techniques—shaping, materials, tech-nology—to hide from sensors as sophisticated as radar down to the human eye.

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AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2001 35

Jumper said the shootdown wasmostly the result of “a lucky shot.Those limited times of exposure thatwe know exist”—when the F-117opens its bomb bay doors, or pre-sents certain angles to a radar—“lasted just a little bit too long. Wewere targeted by a SAM site that wedidn’t have precisely located.”

Jumper added that the setback mustbe measured in relation to the greatsuccesses achieved by the F-117.

One and Only One“We had flown hundreds of sor-

ties in the most demanding and high-threat, ... most heavily defended ...places that we’ve encountered in thedecade of the ’90s,” such as the heartof Belgrade and Baghdad, “and welost one,” he pointed out.

Had the Air Force concluded therewas a fundamental flaw in stealth, itwould not have continued to use theF-117 and B-2 in Kosovo or wouldhave reassigned the types to less-challenging targets, service officialsinsisted.

SMSgt. Walter Franks, superin-tendent of maintenance for the F-117at ACC, said there have been nomaintenance change orders issuedon the airplane as a result of the lossof the airplane in Kosovo.

While Jumper echoed Ryan’s ob-servation that the F-117 is not invis-ible, he noted that “in the right cir-cumstances, it’s very, very hard tosee. It will continue to be that way.And its performance continues to

improve, both in its maintainabilityand its stealth qualities. So, I don’tsee stealth being ‘on the ropes’ inany way.”

A prominent criticism of both theF-117 and the B-2 in Kosovo cen-tered on the fact that, even thoughboth were billed as radar evaders,both types were supported by jam-ming aircraft. This was not supposedto be necessary.

Jumper said bluntly that the F-117sand B-2s “don’t need escort jam-mers.” However, senior USAF offi-cials acknowledge that the stealthaircraft certainly did coordinate mis-

sions with jamming aircraft, particu-larly the EA-6Bs operated jointly bythe Air Force, Navy, and MarineCorps, to increase the safety marginwhen attacking tough targets.

“When there was jamming in thearea, we were glad to take advantageof that,” said Maj. Gen. Leroy Barn-idge Jr., who commanded the 509thBomb Wing of B-2s during AlliedForce and who is now vice com-mander of 9th Air Force.

“Anytime you can maximize theproblem for your adversary, that’s agood thing,” he added.

Lt. Col. Jack D. Hayes, chief ofthe F-117 Weapons System Branchat ACC and an F-117 pilot engagedin intelligence work for F-117s op-erating in Kosovo, said the jammingcontroversy is overblown.

“I wouldn’t mind having F-16CJ[that is, the defense suppression vari-ant] and EA-6 support” on a stealthmission, said Hayes, “but all they dois make my job easier. They helphide me [and] they keep the [enemy’s]radars off.” Compared to an F-15 orF-16, “we’re still leaps and boundsahead of them in terms of where wecan go and what we can do.”

Jammers also would be a detri-ment on some missions, Hayes said,because the presence of jammingwould alert an enemy that an attackwas coming. One of the basics ofbeing stealthy is to maintain radio—and radar—silence.

One of the lessons learned fromKosovo was that the Air Force may

Designed as a “special operations” aircraft in the 1970s, the F-117 has takenadvantage of evolving stealth technology to remain a potent capability. Initialplans called for just 20 airplanes, but wiser heads raised the figure to 60.

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Loss of an F-117 outside Belgrade was the sole blemish on an otherwisespotless combat record. USAF leaders say adversaries won’t learn enough fromthe pieces to build their own stealth airplane or compromise the F-117’s stealth.


have made a misstep in eliminatingits F-4G defense suppression andEF-111 escort jammer force fromthe inventory, since both types weresorely missed in Kosovo. Ryan saidthat USAF is placing a higher em-phasis on electronic warfare nowand has cast stealth as “part of theoverall electronic warfare issue.”

“Most of our assets still need to bepackaged in some way,” Ryan said,meaning that strike aircraft usuallyneed to be escorted by fighters andjammers in a “package” of capabili-ties to accomplish a mission.

The Best Trick“Not always,” he continued, “and

that depends on the operational situ-ation.” However, “we use every goodtrick we have, and we package ourgood tricks together to give us thebest trick. ... It’s all about surviv-ability.”

The F-117 mission begins withmeticulous planning, which takes intoaccount known or suspected surface-to-air-defenses. The plotted missionis loaded into a computer cartridge,which is physically carried out to theairplane and plugged into it by thepilot. After takeoff, the airplane’sautopilot—affectionately known as“George”—takes over, flying the air-plane to the release coordinates. Theautopilot also flies the F-117 homeagain.

The extensive use of autopilot isnecessary for two reasons. One, theaircraft must always present the pre-

cise optimum attitude toward anyradars it will encounter—somethingthat is beyond the capacity of thesteadiest human hand—and two, itprovides a very steady ride for thepilot as he compares the target areawith maps and reconnaissance pho-tos to ensure finding and hitting theright target, at a very specific time.

Not having to maneuver the air-plane, watch out for enemy missiles,or navigate and simply concentrat-ing on bombing pays off handsomelyin accuracy, according to Brig. Gen.(sel.) Marc E. Rogers, commanderof the 49th Fighter Wing.

He noted that, in practice runs, the49th does not award its pilots anycredit for anything less than a bull’s-eye.

“You get 100 percent or zero,” hesaid. Such a standard is possible, hewent on, because F-117 pilots prac-tice finding the target, hitting it pre-cisely, and timing the strike perfectly,day in and day out. “That’s all theydo,” said Rogers, who observed thathis pilots are “very, very good” atreading and interpreting reconnais-sance photos.

The F-117 typically carries twoLaser-Guided Bombs of the 2,000-pound variety. These usually alsohave a hardened warhead, to pen-etrate targets such as aircraft shel-ters or deeply buried bunkers.

Pilots of the F-117 pride them-selves on “discipline on the targetattack,” Hayes said. “No collateraldamage. That is our bread and but-ter: going ‘downtown’ and hittingonly—and I repeat, only—what we’resupposed to hit.”

In Kosovo, Hayes said, F-117 pi-lots were admonished not to releaseweapons unless they were sure theywould be able to guide their Laser-Guided Bombs all the way to im-pact. If a stealth airplane arrivedover a target that was obscured byclouds or smoke, it had to returnwithout dropping its bombs, sincelasers can’t penetrate to the groundin such conditions.

“In a lot of cases, they went in andwere ... unable to employ weapons,”

Laser-Guided Bombs precisely on target at a precisely planned time are theF-117’s trademark. New LGBs with backup satellite guidance mean bad weatherand smoke no longer offer refuge to the enemy. More new weapons are coming.

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The “platypus” is the colorful name coined to describe the F-117’s uniqueexhaust. It hides the aircraft from infrared sensors by dispersing the exhaustheat over a wide area, mixing it with cool air and shielding it from ground view.

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Known as “Martians” (shorthand for Materials Repair Specialist), F-117technicians for years applied Radar Absorbent Materials in a fashion moreakin to art class than metal shop. Here, A1C Kenneth Sheppa trims out areplacement piece.

All About Stealth

Stealth is the blanket term for the technologies, tactics, andtechniques used to make an object such as an aircraft hard todetect, track, or shoot. Stealth must be taken into account inthe design of the aircraft; it cannot be achieved as a develop-mental afterthought or with a “bolt on” device.

The principal means of detecting aircraft is by radar: Pulsesof energy are broadcast, and when they strike an object,echoes come back to the receiver. The Radar Cross Sectionof an object is a description of how reflective it is to radar.Very large objects can be made with a small RCS and viceversa.

Stealth aircraft are shaped in a way that most of the radarenergy is deflected in another direction, reducing the echothe radar set receives. The echo is further diminished by theuse of Radar Absorbent Materials on the skin and in thestructure of the stealth aircraft. These materials can eitherhold the radar energy or actually release it at an alteredfrequency; some of the echo comes back at a frequency towhich the radar isn’t listening.

By combining these techniques, the returning echo is sosmall that the stealth aircraft will either be lost in the elec-tronic clutter of the radar or be mistaken for something muchsmaller, such as a bird.

Highly radar-reflective features, such as engine fan blades,are hidden deep within the fuselage of astealth aircraft, at the end of a serpen-tine inlet that also absorbs or dissipatesradar energy, or behind “blockers” thatredirect radar energy.

On the F-117, radar energy is de-flected by a series of facets around theairplane. This early means of radar de-flection was driven by the computingpower available in the 1970s, when theairplane was designed. The RCS of eachfacet could be calculated and their ag-gregate reflectivity measured. As com-puting power advanced, RCS could becalculated for whole areas of an aircraftand with complex, curved shapes. Oncethis was achieved, facets were largelyabandoned in order to improve aerody-namic performance of later stealth air-craft.

A stealth airplane must also presentitself differently to radars of differenttypes, depending on the frequencies atwhich the radars operate. For some ra-dars, a head-on approach is best; forothers, an oblique angle may offer themost protection.

To avoid being visually detected,stealth aircraft are typically painted black

and flown at night. They also tend to have a slim silhouette,making them harder to spot.

Because aircraft can be detectable by their exhaust heat,stealth aircraft do not have typical exhausts. On the F-117and B-2, the exhausts are above the aircraft, to shield themfrom heat-seeking infrared detectors below. They absorbsome exhaust heat with special ceramic tiles, similar to thoseused to protect the space shuttle from re-entry temperatures,and mix ambient cold air with the exhaust heat to reduce itsintensity. They also disperse the exhaust over a wide, flatarea, further disrupting and diminishing the heat signature.

Stealth aircraft reportedly also have devices that helpcontrol the creation of contrails at high altitude.

To be stealthy, an aircraft must avoid electronic emissions,such as radio signals or use of radars. Such emissions can bedetected and alert defenders that an aircraft is coming.Likewise, stealth aircraft usually fly at subsonic speeds toavoid creating a sonic boom.

Stealth missions are meticulously planned to either avoidradars entirely or pass between them at the optimum angleand altitude. The 49th Fighter Wing, which operates the F-117,reportedly maintains a database of the location of everyknown anti-aircraft radar in the world, a database which isconstantly being updated.

he said. On the positive side, F-117scaused none of the 20 or so cases ofcollateral damage in Kosovo. How-ever, due to the discipline of with-holding weapons if accuracy couldnot be guaranteed, “we wound uphaving a lower mission effective-ness rate overall, because of weatherand because of ROE [Rules of En-gagement], than we did in DesertStorm,” Hayes explained.

Rogers said his F-117 pilots arelearning to use the fighter in newways. “We are getting integrated

with Red Flag” exercises, he said,and experimenting with “whetherit’s better to be in the front, themiddle, or the end of a package.”Whether to be the “pathfinder” orthe mop up “depends on the mis-sion,” he said.

“The more you use it, the moreyou learn,” Rogers added.

Evolving TechnologyPart of the reason the Air Force is

not too worried about the safety ofthe F-117 is that the airplane’s tech-

nology is continuing to evolve. Whilethe outside shaping has remained thesame, the technologies and tech-niques used to maintain its signaturehave been improving continually.

In the early days of the F-117,the aircraft’s Radar Absorbent Ma-terials had to be applied by hand,by maintenance personnel who de-scribed their work as “more an artthan a science,” said one programofficial. Gaps in the RAM, and ac-cess panels that needed to be openedon a regular basis, had to be me-

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A Short History of the F-117

ticulously smoothed over with aspecial putty and then left to curefor many hours before a mission.

“We called that process ‘butter-ing,’ ” one former program techni-cian said.

Now, the RAM is sprayed on

Pyotr Ufimtsev, a Russian mathema-tician, laid the groundwork for modernstealth when he published a paper in the1960s describing a new method for cal-culating Radar Cross Section across alarge surface. The Soviet Union showedlittle interest, but when the paper wastranslated years later, it was noticed byDenys Overholser, a Lockheed Martin“Skunk Works” employee. Overholsercame up with a computer program called“Echo 1” which could predict the RCS ofa faceted aircraft.

The Air Force at the time was alarmedabout the lethality of new surface-to-airmissiles. Israel’s largely American–builtair force had lost 100 fighters in 18 daysto Arab SAMs in the 1973 Yom KippurWar, so USAF was looking for an edgeagainst the missiles.

With the approval of William J. Perry,then the Pentagon’s engineering chief(later Secretary of Defense), Lockheedwon a contract to build two demonstra-tor aircraft under the XST, or experi-mental stealth technology, program, laterdesignated “Have Blue.” The demon-strators had a Radar Cross Section thou-sands of times smaller than the stealthi-est airplanes in the Air Force, about the size of a ball bearing.

The loser of the XST competition was Northrop, which latergot the contract to develop the Advanced Technology Bomber,known today as the B-2. It was the promise of stealth forfuture bombers that caused the Carter Administration tocancel the B-1A.

Even before testing of the Have Blue aircraft was com-pleted, the Air Force ordered 20 full-up stealth combat air-craft. They were intended to be “special operations” airplanesfor surprise strikes, such as against terrorist training campsor in wartime against critical targets behind enemy lines.

To speed development time and cut costs, off-the-shelfparts, such as landing gear, engines, and flight controls fromother fighter programs, were used in the new aircraft.

At the urging of the Pentagon and influential members ofCongress (former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, chairman of theSenate Armed Services Committee, was one) privy to thesecret program, the buy of the new stealth fighter was boostedto 60 airplanes.

The first F-117 flew June 18, 1981, at Groom Lake, asecret, remote facility in Nevada. By 1983, a stealth unit wasdeclared operational, but the entire program was strictlyspecial access required—only those who needed to knowwere briefed into it.

The origin of the designation “F-117” is still debated, but thegenerally accepted explanation is that it happened to be thenumerical name of the manual Lockheed wrote for the air-plane.

Based at Tonopah Test Range—part of the Nellis AFB,Nev., gunnery range complex—the unit, first known as the4450th Tactical Group, practiced flying at night and in radiosilence. Pilots on the program were selected for maturity andskill but led a monastic existence, living at the secret base

and flying in the dead of night, and coming home to theirfamilies only on the weekends.

Caspar Weinberger, Defense Secretary during the ReaganAdministration, scrubbed plans to use the F-117 in the 1983Grenada invasion and in Operation Eldorado Canyon, the1986 air raid on Libya. Weinberger felt that it was too soon totip off the Soviet Union as to the existence of stealth.

In 1988, the Pentagon released the first grainy photo of anF-117. The disclosure was due to the fact that F-117s wouldsoon begin daytime flying, and it was only a matter of timebefore the aircraft was spotted. Security on the program hadsucceeded beyond the wildest expectations of anyone in-volved. Perry had predicted, in 1977, that the stealth catwould be out of the bag within two years.

The F-117 first went into action in 1989, when two stealthairplanes dropped bombs during Operation Just Cause inPanama. (A few months prior, the personnel and equipmentof the 4450th Tactical Group were absorbed by the 37thTactical Fighter Wing, which had moved to Tonopah fromGeorge AFB, Calif.) Two years later, the F-117s went to waragainst Iraq, routinely flying against the most heavily de-fended targets and returning unharmed. The stealth air-planes became associated with the quick victory in the Gulfand racked up an impressive record of destruction achievedper sortie.

As the F-117s became less classified, the aircraft weremoved to Holloman AFB, N.M., beginning in May 1992, underthe 49th Fighter Wing, which changed its mission from air-to-air to air-to-ground.

The F-117s also participated in Operation Allied Force,based out of Aviano AB, Italy. Again, they tackled the tough-est targets in and around Belgrade, achieving pinpoint accu-racy whenever they dropped their bombs.

robotically, with machines adaptedfrom the automobile industry. Andpanel doors have been fitted withquick-access strips which eliminatethe need for puttying and curing andspeed the process of getting the air-plane ready for battle.

The maintenance improvementsover the last 20 years have furtherreduced the F-117’s visibility on ra-dar and have “shown anywhere froma 20 to 50 percent reduction in main-tenance man-hours per flight hour,”Hayes said.

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This grainy, retouched photo of the F-117 was the first released by the AirForce. Details were deliberately obscured and the image distorted to keepstealth watchers guessing a little while longer about the type’s true shape.


Built to withstand hard maneuvering, the F-117 has instead been handled withkid gloves. The low stress on the airframe and its renewable stealth featuresmean the F-117 could last until 2030, though 2018 is its planned retirement.

The F-117 mission capable rate of80 percent is “the envy of the AirForce,” one senior program officialsaid.

Avionics on the airplane have alsobeen improved. Old-style “green”cathode-ray tube displays have beenreplaced with color multifunctiondisplays and a moving map. The origi-nal inertial navigation system hasbeen upgraded with a ring laser gyro,to further enhance precise naviga-tion.

New weapons are also being addedto the F-117. Since being fitted withGlobal Positioning System capabil-ity, the F-117s can now use what’scalled the EGBU-27: a dual-modeLaser-Guided Bomb that can switchto satellite guidance if the weathergoes bad or if the target is obscuredin the last seconds before impact.Such a weapon will allow the F-117to press an attack when it wouldotherwise have to withhold bombrelease. Other planned new weaponsadditions include the Joint DirectAttack Munition and possibly theWind-Corrected Munitions Dis-penser.

Extremely LORyan said the Air Force is con-

tinuing to press ahead with efforts todevelop extremely Low Observabletechnology, to make future genera-tions of stealth airplanes even tougherto spot.

“We’re still pushing to do signifi-cantly better ... as part of our scienceand technology [effort],” said Ryan.Perhaps, he joked, USAF will invent“ ‘the cloaking device,’ eventually.... Each time we do [stealth], we’re alittle bit better at it.”

Stealth figures prominently in theAir Force’s new Global Strike TaskForce concept, which posits stealthaircraft removing anti-access threatsto US forces as they enter a theaterof operations.

Jumper warned, however, that “weneed to ... make sure we don’t try tobuy stealth on the cheap.” The Navy’sF/A-18E/F, for example, takes ad-vantage of some Radar AbsorbentMaterials, inlet shaping, and canopycoatings to diminish its frontal Ra-dar Cross Section. However, the re-duction in RCS is not substantialand in any event is undone by theexternal carriage of weapons, whichare a large radar reflector.

“What good is reducing the RCS

USAF has always planned to “mis-sionize” the just-as-stealthy and farfaster F-22 to take on the F-117’srole “sometime in the future.”

Like all aircraft in the USAF in-ventory, the F-117 suffers from anumber of “aging aircraft” prob-lems. For example, the manufac-turer of the multifunction displaysused in the cockpit went out of busi-ness, so ACC bought up enoughreplacements to last until 2009.Other structural problems involveload-bearing devices inside the air-plane and obtaining parts for otheravionics systems suffering from“vanishing vendors” syndrome.

Without resolution of these prob-lems, “we’ll wind up grounding air-planes around 2009,” Hayes reported.However, there are three more yearsto fix these problems financially, suchthat an early retirement can be headedoff.

Ryan said the Air Force will likelymake more use of jamming—andadvances in stealth technology—tomatch the threat posed by new-gen-eration double-digit SAMs. The newsystems generate huge amounts ofradar energy, he said.

“If you put enough power out there,you can fry the skies,” he noted.

“We will ... continue to offset ca-pabilities the other guy may come upwith to counter [stealth],” he said,and in turn the Air Force will un-leash a new edition of stealth whichwill counter the countermeasures.“It’s a moving chess game.” ■

on a ‘clean’ airplane?” wonderedTom Burbage, Lockheed Martin’sexecutive vice president and gen-eral manager for the Joint StrikeFighter program. “Once you havethe weapons on the pylons, unlessyou have some way to recess them[into the wings] or give them theirown treatment, you’ve undone what-ever you achieved by treating theaircraft.”

“Real stealth,” Jumper said, means“internal carriage” of weapons.

“You can use the airplanes withexternally configured stores whenstealth is not an issue,” he said, butstealth continues to be important.

In Kosovo, not all the SAMs couldbe found; witness the lost F-117. Insuch situations, where “there are stillsystems that are alive down on theground, ... that means they have theopportunity to bring them up, [and]stealth in everyday airplanes is agood thing to have,” said Jumper.“They are effective against thosetransportable systems that are downthere somewhere.”

The Air Force is planning to keepthe F-117 around a good long timeyet. Designed to execute hard, fighter-like maneuvers, the F-117 has notbeen maneuvered very aggressively,and ACC believes its airframe couldconceivably last until 2030 or later.

“Lockheed designed it for a lotmore Gs than we’re flying it at,”Hayes reported. Strictly for plan-ning purposes, a retirement date hasbeen set at 2018, but Ryan noted that

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