First F-117s Head For Retirement

Will Be Parked In Nevada

It's tough to believe that some of the most advanced aircraft in the US Air Force inventory are being put to pasture... but such is the case with the storied F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter. This week, the first six F-117s based at New Mexico's Holloman Air Force Base took off for probably the last time, bound for retirement in Nevada.

As Aero-News reported, the Bush administration announced last year the 52 Nighthawks based at Holloman would be retired. The Alamogordo Daily News reports the Pentagon plans to replace them with 36 F-22 Raptors, starting in 2009.

Ironically, the F-117As are returning to the place they were initially deployed. The Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, where the Nighthawks are destined to be parked, saw the first operational squadron delivered there in 1982.

That was six years before the Pentagon publicly confirmed the plane's existence; before then, sightings of the wedge-shaped F-117s provoked many UFO sightings in the most desolate parts of the Silver State.

"This has come full circle for this incredible airplane," said Brig. Gen. David Goldfein, commander of Holloman's 49th Fighter Wing, in a March 12 ceremony. He added the Nighthawk's story is "one of vision, guts, passion, heroism, defiance, incredible risk-taking, a story both uniquely American and, I believe, uniquely Air Force."

In the end, the F-117A fell victim to the very technology it helped pioneer -- as the Raptor incorporates many of the Nighthawk's advanced radar-evading tricks, while also delivering true air-to-air combat capability. Despite it's "fighter" moniker, the F-117A was in reality a ground-support aircraft.

"Holloman was chosen for the F-22," Goldfein said. "It makes sense to replace stealth with stealth."

The 49th Fighter Wing will continue to operate the F-117A for the next year-and-a-half. The wing has a squadron of the planes deployed in Korea.