F-117 took part in convert operation in Syria

I thought the 117 has been retired for 10 years now?

They were drunk

>SDBs
Highly accurate small payload munitions. So they were doing covert targeted hits on SAA VIPs or what, because I can't see any other purpose to secretly bring a stealth aircraft out of retirement to commit hyper-surgical strikes in Syria

Going by the F-117s may be testbeds for various new sensors and whatnot. With Syrian airspace probably being very safe for US aircraft they may have decided to do some field tests while they were at it.

Can't the F22 carry SDBs? Why not just use those?

>pull airframes, wings, engines and manuals out after a decade of storage
>have a small army of AF maintenance monkeys put everything together like it was Humpty Dumpty
>ferry them with tanker support to whatever sandbox shithole airbase

All instead of using a B2 or a F22.

Did they have to dig the pilots out of retirement too?

NightHawk has been pictured at Area51 for many years since ''retirement. A small unit for sensor testing etc for F-35 or bomb purposes is thus likely to have done this. These pics are from february this year, so they're still at it.

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>f-117
>covert
>in 2017
I thought sino-russian quantum sonar had made them long obselete

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F-22 was in fact used to strike targets in Syria, which makes this report even more questionable.

Probably. They're digging pilots out of retirement just to pilot aircraft that are still supposed to be in service.

Highly unlikely. Most likely a mistaken B1 (frequently used) or f22/35. Or could be complete bullshit. The media making radical false claims like this isn't new nor uncommon

How many of them, though? I assumed the single/couple/? were only flying for low RCS training. Not combat coded and not fully operational.

So was the F-35. The article is bullshit.

Or you know to not get shot down by trigger happy SAM crews

>So was the F-35.
Was it during one of those Israeli-Syrian/Iranian standoffs last year?

Nope, well thats not confirmed.

USN F-35B's.

>F-117s may be testbeds for various new sensors and whatnot
IIRC, they're being used to test if the sensors on other platforms can detect them. Not being fitted with the sensors themselves.

I could imagine they might want F-117 if they needed a small platform to deliver GBU-27 or GBU-31 with BLU-109/BLU-116. Since it doesn't fit in F-22 and F-35A hasn't been deployed to the region yet.
But SDB seems strange.

Also, I'm surprised the Serbs haven't shown up ITT yet

Shit is dope.

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>Also, I'm surprised the Serbs haven't shown up ITT yet
5th post after OP.

>convert operation in Syria
>convert
A stealth jet doesn't really seem like the best choice to tell someone about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

They weren’t mothballed, I’ve got a friend that works on B2’s and she says 117s fly around out in Nevada for radar characterization.

>pic related

they also claimed B-2 shoot down as well.

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Let's assume for the sale of argument that f-117s did for considering missions, doubtful. But whatever. The only real reason I could imagine for doing such would be for practice and getting institutional experience back for the airframe.

Supposedly, but it's been seen flying very recently
combataircraft.keypublishing.com/2019/02/27/f-117-nighthawk-still-out-there-still-flying-clearest-photos-yet/

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It just doesn't make sense, F-22s have been used, B-1s as well. Israelis have been using F-35s for a few strikes. The stealth technology in the F-22 and 35 is leagues ahead of the nighthawk.

it's hand-me-downs

>Israelis have been using F-35s for a few strikes
Do you have a link ?
I know American F-35s have seen combat but I haven't read anything about Israelis

haaretz.com/israel-news/this-is-the-israeli-army-s-photo-of-an-f-35-over-beirut-1.6114446
I can't find the other source but there was also a report that they used it against a radar site in Syria.

Well if everyone there is dead there are no more heathens are there?

>claiming 3 shot down
Serbs confirmed for Pajeet-level faggots

The absolute lack of understanding of how stealth works, brought to you by S*rbian posters.

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Why use a F-117 when you have F-22s?

>Russians making anything obsolete
Ha

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The level of Tinfoil here is huge, in this thread not the article.

Congress required the the fleet of F-117s be kept in a state that would permit their return to service should a need arise.
Part of that is semi-regular test flights to check they are still fully airworthy, this explains any and all sighting of the F-117s flying

This was only changed in 2017 when congress allowed them to fully remove 4 per year from the roster.

Easy answers to what they did, if they are in Syria, would be that the F-35 and F-22 are not very optimized for low level ground strikes.
It is plausible they where used very close to Syrian and/ or Russian Air defence network components and didn't want to offer the Russians a good high resolution capture of the RCS for either operational aircraft

Makes sense

>fly over area where vatniks have "stealth defeating radar"
>go to where ISIS is after flying around radar
>????
>profit!

>Can't the F22 carry SDBs? Why not just use those?
To deny the Russians practice painting them, is the plausible theory in currently seeing.

As to why any stealth aircraft at all have been necessary to truck in bombs for sand people, eh.

the F-117s RCS is very well known by US engineers. theyre likely testing response times of russian SAMs

I hate those kits. I built the Tiger 1 and no matter what I did, I couldnt get the tracks to look any better than a lump of dogshit.

The Navy flies F35C's

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>national interest
it's fucking nothing.jpg

The marines are apart of the navy. (i saw it after i posted, and had this damage control ready to go, fyi)

>So they had to divert to the Jordanian base where a Dutch F-16 detachment was based.
Oh, that's an interesting corroborating detail.

Officially, yes. Unofficially, the airframes are still in good condition and you can't scrap an F-117 for anything but parts for another F-117, so it doesn't make sense to sit them out in the boneyard or take them apart.

The public and media shit their pants whenever an F-22 goes down. F-117s are deniable assets: technically, they're not even in service anymore, so if something goes wrong the DoD can pretend nothing happened.

Tbh it doesn't make sense to me that they were retired when they were. Didn't the airframes have a lot of flying hours left on them?

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Eh, nighthawk wreckage might seem a little suspicious.

Google working on optical guided missiles now?

>Why is someone just making shit up

Welcome to war propaganda.

Reports of what munition it carried are probably less reliable than reports about the airframe's presence.

They're just curious user :^)

this cant be real

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They're only used as aggressors and the RAM is not fully maintained.

Optically guided missiles are so simple provos could make them.

>This piece was originally posted on War Is Boring
NOW
IT
MAKES
SENSE
FUCKING SPREYFAGS

It's a wartime propaganda poster. When making those you want to triple your gains and half the losses. Ever wondered why Americans always claim hundreds of killed enemies with little to no KIAs and every lost aircraft is reported as "lost in an accident" before somebody posts manpad video?

>Aggressors
Simulating what, PAK FA?

It was probably only "retired" publicly. It was likely still being used though.

Closer to something like a J-20 or J-35.

Aesthetic as fuck

Mothballed, not retired.

+15

-10

Russians make plenty of obsolete stuff

Spam

I assume they've converted it to a drone or "optionally manned" system of some kind and are testing out that "wingman" shit out with it.

They were USMC

>mutts this buttblasted because serbia BTFO (((stealth))) bombers with the missile equivalent of throwing rocks
kek, stay furious mutts.

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>QF-117
Could be that to be honest. Reports say they are always flying with a twin-seat F-16 at the Nevada test ranges

Imagine being this retarded. Major doctrinal errors and complacency allowed that aircraft to be shot down. And that's stealth from 25 years ago.

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Why bring the f-177 out of retirement when the f-22 could do the same thing

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And that was radar and missile from 40 years ago.

I'd assume they'd have someone in the cockpit in case the drone stuff fucked up – otherwise you just use a regular drone.

because everybody involved in the syrian conflicts has already seen a downed F-117, so it's neither an enticing prize to go for nor a bad loss for the USAF if it does get shot down.

>because everybody involved in the syrian conflicts has already seen a downed F-117, so it's neither an enticing prize to go for nor a bad loss for the USAF if it does get shot down.
Better answer; Russia and China already have all possible ELINT signatures from the F-117 and giving away more isn't a problem. Operating F-35s and F-22s when we have no need for it will only betray their electronic signatures.

lol

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We still use guns from 130 years ago

Actually that’s a really good point. I fully believe they’d un mothball declassified stuff to keep the real modern stuff secret.

Remember how long the B-2 was stupid secret dark-side-of-the-moon tier shit? Yeah.

What you want to ask then is "how come the Russians, with their amazing AAA tech, couldn't even see a stealth plane thought to be obsolete by the end of the '90s ?"

That's exactly the PSYOPS goal :
To discredit russian tech so that they cannot export it

2 F117's were shot down with a missile from 1959 mutt.

> how come the Russians, with their amazing AAA tech, couldn't even see a stealth plane

kek, they saw it.

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>2 shot down

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waaah cry mutt and be not white waaaah

The 4 riders of the 3rd world farmer apocalipse ?

>2 F117's were shot down

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F-22 isn't equipped to hit moving ground targets

lol as if they need pilots for them.

They be drones anons. All of them.

CIA counter intelligence. Suddenly and overnight, the stealth threat was gone.

>The stealth technology in the F-22 and 35 is leagues ahead of the nighthawk.
ehhhhhh no it's not.

I would bet, even money, based on the airframe of the f-117 that it has the same silent flying tech the b-2 has. It's shape is perfectly fine and the coating could be changed out as well.

We don't know what's going on inside it. Thermal coating used to sweat out moisture to knock it from thermals, updated bombbay to a "closed" bomb-bay for deployment, ect.

F-22 and f-35 don't have that tech because they can't. It's in how their exhausts are mounted externally compared to the f-35 and b-2 for the whole pulse-ramjet/muffler system.

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