The U.S. Air Force on Tuesday retired its first class of stealth fighters, the F-117A Nighthawks, which were developed in secrecy and first used during the 1989 invasion of Panama. The jet is being retired to free up money for the Air Force's newest stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor, and the Air Force marked the F-117 retirement with a flyover at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. “We are extremely proud of the long legacy of the F-117 and are committed to retiring this first-generation stealth fighter with honor and dignity,” said Diana Filliman, whose office manages the program. “The F-117 program created a revolution in military warfare by incorporating low-observable technology into an operational aircraft.” Designed to penetrate heavily defended air space of Cold War adversaries, the F-117 was first used to lead the invasion of Panama in late 1989. Two years later, F-117s were hitting targets in Iraq in the opening of the 1991 Gulf War. The Air Force said the F-117 flew 1,300 sorties, making direct hits on 1,600 targets, and emerged from the brief war without a single loss against Iraqi air defenses. In 1999, the F-117 was used again in the NATO air war against the former Yugoslavia. But Serbian forces shot down one F-117 with an anti-aircraft missile, showing that the jet was vulnerable to ground fire. The F-117 also saw action in Afghanistan in 2001 and during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Only 59 of the aircraft were built, and seven were lost. The Air Force retired the first 10 F-117s in 2006, and has since retired another 27. The remainder will be put in storage next month at the Nevada test range where the first F-117 flight test was flown.
