F117 Night Hawk
F-117 nighthawk
The F-117 Night Hawk is a stealth ground attack aircraft operated only by the united states air force. It is owned by Lockheed and its first flight was in 1981. The F-117 will be retired by the air force on april 21 2008 due to the purchasing and development of the f22 raptor and the f-35 lightining II.
The F-117 Night hawk is about the size of and f-15c eagle. It is a single seat plane that is powerd by two non-afterburning general electric f404 turbofan engines and has quadruple- redundant fly-by-wire flight controles and is able to refuel in the air. Because it is designed to be a stealth plane, the F-117 Night hawk carries no radar which lowers emissions and cross-section. It navigates primarily by gps. Targets are aquired by a thermal imaging infrared system. The F-117 night hawk’s split internal bay can carry 5000lb of ordance. Typicle weapons are a pair of GBU-10, two BLU-109, or two JDAMs.
The F-117’s first mission was in 1989 durring the U.S. invasion of panama in which the aircraft droped two bombs on Rio Hato airfield/ In the Gulf War, the F-117 acumulated about 7,000 combat flying hours. Since its releace, there has only been one F-117 lost in combat and it was to the Serbian forces. On march 27, 1999 durring the Kosovo war, the Serbs found that they could detect the F-117 on radar if they used radars operating on unusually long wavelengths.
- Crew: 1
- Length: 69 ft 9 in (20.08 m)
- Wingspan: 43 ft 4 in (13.20 m)
- Height: 12 ft 9.5 in (3.78 m)
- Wing area: 780 ft² (73 m²)
- Empty weight: 29,500 lb (13,380 kg)
- Loaded weight: 52,500 lb (23,800 kg)
- Powerplant: 2× General Electric F404-F1D2 turbofans, 10,600 lbf (48.0 kN) each
Performance
- Maximum speed: Mach 0.92 (617 mph, 993 km/h)
- Cruise speed: Mach 0.92
- Range: 930 NM[42] (1720 km)
- Service ceiling 69,000 ft (20,000 m)
- Wing loading: 65 lb/ft² (330 kg/m²)
- Thrust/weight: 0.40
Armament
- 2× internal weapons bays with one hardpoint each (total of two weapons) equipped to carry:
- Bombs:
- BLU-109 hardened penetrator
- GBU-10 Paveway II laser-guided bomb
- GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bomb
- GBU-27 Paveway III laser-guided bomb
- JDAM INS/GPS guided munition
.
