Nighthawk lives on — a dramatic close encounter with the F-117 in February 2019.

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] this is Panamint Valley to my left is Death Valley and two weeks ago something rather remarkable happened I think the thing that surprised both of us was that we saw the jet first before we actually heard it on the radio and to Richard's surprise it was at 1:17 and we knew we knew they'd been flying for years but no one in our group had ever seen one previously another person had heard a pair of Lehigh a1 Seventeen's called out as traffic this was the first sighting Washington come over the mountain as a little speck into a Panamint Valley and put a lens on it and saw that it was an f-117 planful yeah and he announced to Joshua that he was a single radio aircraft and would be performing North and South runs in Panama Valley at 200 feet and we knew that something unusual was about to happen [Music] a few fleeting glimpses proved that the Nighthawks were still flying but that will change on February the 26th right here with a very close encounter he would do South the North runs and go on the other side of that little Ridgeline and then do his 180 para wedding and going back south again and I think from the north south to the South doors those maybe three three four minutes before he came back around and then he would be gone down south for about ten minutes although we may be down to Ballarat before he came back North this is the exact spot where the f-117 put in there very public parents flying right over the top of here and circling that rock in the distance at 200 feet before coming back and heading back to the South the first f-117 stealth fighters flew with the 450th tactical group at Tonopah from 1983 they operated in total secrecy for five years I mean we knew we knew they've been in Nevada and people had seen them but there's no way we would come out here in Panama where the public could see it up close and that's exactly what happened flying over a highway it was really hard the US Air Force officially retired the f-117 in April 2008 however a handful of remained operational ever since once we heard it fall back in on saline we took a chance and ran to the car and drove down to Bali as we could not a safe speed mind you and ran into a sandstorm you know the first pass we saw the 117 he could barely make him out through the dust or then we managed to get across to the other side of the valley through the dust storm and then we got roughly one pass each way one right over our heads and then went going away there's a chance he would come back and repeat the test so he went straight to the dog-bone Wednesday morning and we were gonna give him a time limit of two hours and then an hour he'd already called in with the two f-16s and it happened again back and forth 40 minutes worth and the f-16s were always on opposite ends as a race track [Music] late second day that's when he gave us the Shaka sign would that shocked all of us we couldn't believe that they would actually go out in public and be so blasé about it just very cool look at me I'm in my stealth jet yeah that was a lucky shot too we were sitting down for breakfast and we were gonna go in with the public at 2 o'clock whatever to go see the jet and some one females at Nellis and someone said oh it's coming in in just half an hour so so we left our breakfast on the table went out to the desert and shot the first two stealth fighters that were ever put on public display before they were actually viewable landing at Nellis that was April of 1990 11 years after retirement to seeing the aircraft fly again it was a little bit of an out-of-body experience there was a lot of yelling and gesticulating at the time it was like seeing it again for the first time really it's unclear why the f-117 is still flying while they do possess some unique operational capabilities their continued service appears to be linked to test and evaluation missions although until now these have been confined to the Nellis ranges until this very public appearance

Channel: Combat Aircraft

Views: 597,195

Rating: 4.8541245 out of 5

Keywords: F-117, Nighthawk

Id: hONI3ztajb4

Length: 6min 51sec (411 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Skorpychan]

Radar calibration.

[u/vertigo_effect]

Someone did post a supposedly recent picture of one wearing what appeared to be an aggressor paint scheme. Also,have seen videos posted on reddit of them flying.

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/cdogom/aggressor_f117/