The Lockheed F-117A Night Hawk was an aircraft developed over decades and benefiting from a combination of advanced American engineering and also unique theories about stealth from a Russian scientist that Ben Rich, Lockheed’s top man over the design of secret new military aircraft, believed would give a new American fighter an edge over any other jet or ground defenses.
With its origins in the ultra-secret Senior Trend program of the late 1970s and the Have Blue program prior to that, Lockheed built the US Air Force an aircraft that, unlike Vietnam-era fighters and bombers, could evade enemy radar detection and interdiction by enemy rocket defenses or fighter aircraft. The concept was just as crucial as the high emphasis placed during the Kennedy Administration on bombers able to win a nuclear war against the USSR: Fighters, not bombers, would win smaller-scale regional conflicts whether against the USSR, other Communist nations, or even other foes. The need for advanced jets that could drop light bombs but also move swiftly and overcome enemy aircraft was clear as an imperative to further America’s evolving view of airpower.
The great faith placed in the F-117A was shattered when one was lost to a rocket from an S-125 Neva anti-aircraft system of the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade of the Army of Yugoslavia, under the command of Colonel Zoltán Dani on 27 March 1999.
The American F-117A was flying on a mission as part of Operation Noble Anvil and relying on the cover of both the dark of night and its much-hailed stealth capabilities to avoid detection by Yugoslav forces. However, Colonel Dani’s men had applied concepts of longer wavelength range to radar spectra based on theories of Nikola Tesla to enhance the depth and scope of their Soviet-built anti-aircraft radar. In doing so, they found they could detect on radar those brief moments when the F-117A had its bomb-bay doors open or when its landing gear were in the lowered position.
Of course, the landing gear were tucked up safe in their housings during flight but the bomb-bay doors would open for releasing weapons. When it was apparent that an American bombing operation using F-117As and B-2 Spirit bombers was underway, Colonel Dani and other commanders would instruct their troops to pay special attention to the longer-wavelength frequencies of their radar and look for even a short-lived blip on their radar screens.
Shortly after 8pm (20:00), Colonel Dani’s forces near the city of Buđanovci noticed a radar signal that would come and go, and was only a slight and not strong signal even when it appeared. Based on prior experiences and the fact bombing was taking place in the area, they knew this to be an F-117A and accordingly fired two Neva rockets. The first rocket barely missed the F-117A , zooming over it close enough to cause moderate wake turbulence. The second missile however, exploded close enough to the American aircraft to do grave damage and also send it into a wild spin.
Though the spin produced excessive g-forces and the American pilot Lt. Col. Dale Zelko struggled to eject from the wounded plane, he was eventually able to eject without sustaining serious injuries as his aircraft plummeted to the ground below. Colonel Zelko was then able to radio for help from American forces as he parachuted to the ground. The US Air Force, hearing his mayday call for help, dispatched combat search and rescue teams to find the pilot and return him to safety. Despite efforts of the Army of Yugoslavia to also locate and capture Zelko, the US Air Force was able to find and extract him first. The loss of this F-117A however was the first time in combat an American stealth aircraft was lost to enemy fire and was an unexpected blow to the esteem of American forces who believed the Soviet equipment of the Army of Yugoslavia to be far inferior to the best and newest stealth aircraft in the Air Force’s inventory.
How did Colonel Dani’s men obtain such a perfect shot at an aircraft regarded as perfectly invisible? Was it their innovation and foresight in modifying their radar to look at frequencies not commonly employed? Was it pure luck? Was it some unforeseen problem with the F-117A itself or some odd aspect of its mission that night? Actually, it was somewhat all of the above.
Colonel Dani and the men serving under him deserve ample credit not only for their genius in modifying the radar, but also in their adept and quick recognition of the F-117A’s brief appearance on the radar screen. They saw their target and took their shot, just at the right time. The F-117A was indeed also flying a mission that took it into heavily protected territory and forced it, in the process of dropping its bombs, to open its bomb-bay and expose itself—though the Americans were not fully aware this was really even a problem—to the modified radar able to discern its presence.
In addition, the same stealth design aspects of the F-117A that were supposed to make it nearly invisible at night to both radar and the naked eye required a loss in aerodynamics which forced the aircraft to operate at sub-sonic speeds. Unlike most contemporary fighter aircraft, it lacked an afterburner on its engines and thus did not have the advantage of sheer speed many people presume all modern fighter jets to hold. If not invisible, the F-117A was actually a rather easy target: the US Air Force had counted on its stealth aspects to protect it from detection and thereby from being fired upon. Once it could—even if for a short moment—be detected, it lost a great deal of its supposed technological advantage.
Colonel Zelko was recovered safe and sound and in the post-war years, as amazing as it may appear, he and Colonel Dani who ordered his F-117A shot down have not only met but become good friends, realizing as professional men of arms each was only serving his nation and doing his duty at the time and there was nothing personal in their adversity. That is a happy ending to a few very tense moments for each man, but the ramifications of Colonel Dani’s rocket were felt at the deepest levels of the US Air Force nonetheless, as generals and scientists realized the decades of work on stealth aircraft had not produced aircraft yet that were truly able to evade enemy anti-aircraft systems.
A gamble had been taken by the designers of the F-117A and it was a gamble also taken in the design of the B-2 Spirit bomber that served alongside it and other new, stealth-era, aircraft of the US Air Force. It was the gamble of making stealth, making invisibility to radar, the key feature of these combat aircraft. While stealth is considered one of the most-crucial of virtues for a modern combat aircraft, the design considerations stealth requires demand an aircraft not able to reach trans-sonic speeds and also in some cases, such as the B-2, where its movements must be so precise that complex computers are necessary to help the pilots control every facet of flight.
The B-2—which also served in Operation Noble Anvil—though a very effective bomber overall and still in active USAF service, costs over $1.4 billion per aircraft unit and one has been lost (the Spirit of Kansas) when it crashed due to computer and instrumentation telemetry malfunctions; in that crash, both pilots survived but the plane was a total hull loss and could not be salvaged. The immense costs and delicate nature of stealth was proven in Serbia to not always provide the benefit of an aircraft able to travel undetected far into the enemy’s territory for its missions.
Just as supersonic bombers during the Cold War years changed the game of strategic bombing, the stealth revolution was also a game-changer, but not—at least not for the F-117A which has been retired and considered outdate now by the US Air Force—perhaps game-changing enough
With its origins in the ultra-secret Senior Trend program of the late 1970s and the Have Blue program prior to that, Lockheed built the US Air Force an aircraft that, unlike Vietnam-era fighters and bombers, could evade enemy radar detection and interdiction by enemy rocket defenses or fighter aircraft. The concept was just as crucial as the high emphasis placed during the Kennedy Administration on bombers able to win a nuclear war against the USSR: Fighters, not bombers, would win smaller-scale regional conflicts whether against the USSR, other Communist nations, or even other foes. The need for advanced jets that could drop light bombs but also move swiftly and overcome enemy aircraft was clear as an imperative to further America’s evolving view of airpower.
The great faith placed in the F-117A was shattered when one was lost to a rocket from an S-125 Neva anti-aircraft system of the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade of the Army of Yugoslavia, under the command of Colonel Zoltán Dani on 27 March 1999.
The American F-117A was flying on a mission as part of Operation Noble Anvil and relying on the cover of both the dark of night and its much-hailed stealth capabilities to avoid detection by Yugoslav forces. However, Colonel Dani’s men had applied concepts of longer wavelength range to radar spectra based on theories of Nikola Tesla to enhance the depth and scope of their Soviet-built anti-aircraft radar. In doing so, they found they could detect on radar those brief moments when the F-117A had its bomb-bay doors open or when its landing gear were in the lowered position.
Of course, the landing gear were tucked up safe in their housings during flight but the bomb-bay doors would open for releasing weapons. When it was apparent that an American bombing operation using F-117As and B-2 Spirit bombers was underway, Colonel Dani and other commanders would instruct their troops to pay special attention to the longer-wavelength frequencies of their radar and look for even a short-lived blip on their radar screens.
Shortly after 8pm (20:00), Colonel Dani’s forces near the city of Buđanovci noticed a radar signal that would come and go, and was only a slight and not strong signal even when it appeared. Based on prior experiences and the fact bombing was taking place in the area, they knew this to be an F-117A and accordingly fired two Neva rockets. The first rocket barely missed the F-117A , zooming over it close enough to cause moderate wake turbulence. The second missile however, exploded close enough to the American aircraft to do grave damage and also send it into a wild spin.
Though the spin produced excessive g-forces and the American pilot Lt. Col. Dale Zelko struggled to eject from the wounded plane, he was eventually able to eject without sustaining serious injuries as his aircraft plummeted to the ground below. Colonel Zelko was then able to radio for help from American forces as he parachuted to the ground. The US Air Force, hearing his mayday call for help, dispatched combat search and rescue teams to find the pilot and return him to safety. Despite efforts of the Army of Yugoslavia to also locate and capture Zelko, the US Air Force was able to find and extract him first. The loss of this F-117A however was the first time in combat an American stealth aircraft was lost to enemy fire and was an unexpected blow to the esteem of American forces who believed the Soviet equipment of the Army of Yugoslavia to be far inferior to the best and newest stealth aircraft in the Air Force’s inventory.
How did Colonel Dani’s men obtain such a perfect shot at an aircraft regarded as perfectly invisible? Was it their innovation and foresight in modifying their radar to look at frequencies not commonly employed? Was it pure luck? Was it some unforeseen problem with the F-117A itself or some odd aspect of its mission that night? Actually, it was somewhat all of the above.
Colonel Dani and the men serving under him deserve ample credit not only for their genius in modifying the radar, but also in their adept and quick recognition of the F-117A’s brief appearance on the radar screen. They saw their target and took their shot, just at the right time. The F-117A was indeed also flying a mission that took it into heavily protected territory and forced it, in the process of dropping its bombs, to open its bomb-bay and expose itself—though the Americans were not fully aware this was really even a problem—to the modified radar able to discern its presence.
In addition, the same stealth design aspects of the F-117A that were supposed to make it nearly invisible at night to both radar and the naked eye required a loss in aerodynamics which forced the aircraft to operate at sub-sonic speeds. Unlike most contemporary fighter aircraft, it lacked an afterburner on its engines and thus did not have the advantage of sheer speed many people presume all modern fighter jets to hold. If not invisible, the F-117A was actually a rather easy target: the US Air Force had counted on its stealth aspects to protect it from detection and thereby from being fired upon. Once it could—even if for a short moment—be detected, it lost a great deal of its supposed technological advantage.
Colonel Zelko was recovered safe and sound and in the post-war years, as amazing as it may appear, he and Colonel Dani who ordered his F-117A shot down have not only met but become good friends, realizing as professional men of arms each was only serving his nation and doing his duty at the time and there was nothing personal in their adversity. That is a happy ending to a few very tense moments for each man, but the ramifications of Colonel Dani’s rocket were felt at the deepest levels of the US Air Force nonetheless, as generals and scientists realized the decades of work on stealth aircraft had not produced aircraft yet that were truly able to evade enemy anti-aircraft systems.
A gamble had been taken by the designers of the F-117A and it was a gamble also taken in the design of the B-2 Spirit bomber that served alongside it and other new, stealth-era, aircraft of the US Air Force. It was the gamble of making stealth, making invisibility to radar, the key feature of these combat aircraft. While stealth is considered one of the most-crucial of virtues for a modern combat aircraft, the design considerations stealth requires demand an aircraft not able to reach trans-sonic speeds and also in some cases, such as the B-2, where its movements must be so precise that complex computers are necessary to help the pilots control every facet of flight.
The B-2—which also served in Operation Noble Anvil—though a very effective bomber overall and still in active USAF service, costs over $1.4 billion per aircraft unit and one has been lost (the Spirit of Kansas) when it crashed due to computer and instrumentation telemetry malfunctions; in that crash, both pilots survived but the plane was a total hull loss and could not be salvaged. The immense costs and delicate nature of stealth was proven in Serbia to not always provide the benefit of an aircraft able to travel undetected far into the enemy’s territory for its missions.
Just as supersonic bombers during the Cold War years changed the game of strategic bombing, the stealth revolution was also a game-changer, but not—at least not for the F-117A which has been retired and considered outdate now by the US Air Force—perhaps game-changing enough
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