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The latest publication from Detail & Scale is a lavishly Illustrated book chronicling the development of the F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter by Yancy D Mailes and Tony R Landis

The Lockheed F-117 represented a significant change of mindset in the design of attack combat aircraft. The desired goal of manoeuvrability, speed took a back seat to low observability [LO]. Although the faceted look of the F-117 was a revolution in airframe design, as modern combat aircraft go, its service life was a short. Never the less the narrative of its conception, design, development, and service is a fascinating one. The book tells the story of the F-117 Nighthawk a product of Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division. It was the first operational production aircraft to be designed with stealth technology and was solely operated by the USAF. Although referred to as the Stealth Fighter it was most definitely designed for Attack..

F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter – An Illustrated Developmental History

Chapters include:

Introduction.
The search For LO
Scorpion Test Team
Photographic History

Introduction provides brief look at the aims of this book. Much of the content was originally published in 2006 by Speciality Press, titled: ‘F-117 Nighthawk Stealth fighter – Photo Scrapbook’

The chapter ‘The Search For LO’ looks at the quest to diminish the Radar Cross section [RCS] of aircraft achieve LO beginning in1955. Radar Absorbent Material [RAM] was developed, but the coating was generally at the cost of performance. It was not until the early 1970’s that LO was seriously considered in the design of aircraft. The chapter focuses on the organisations, teams, individuals and the work to produce what some described the radical approach to LO as an aerodynamic engineer’s nightmare. The ‘XST Phase I’ programme was a chance to see employing mock-ups the potential of the two chosen designs to be built by Lockheed and Northrop. A ‘Pole Up’ test would subsequently decide the winning design to move onto ‘XST Phase II’. The winner of course was the Lockheed design with what would be become the ‘Have Blue’ project. The chapter goes on to describe the flight testing [to destruction] of ‘Blue-01’ and ‘Blue-02’. The chapter includes fascinating photos of both aircraft as well as a couple images of the Northrop mock-up. The early paper LO designs by Lockheed are included.

The chapter ‘Scorpion Test Team’ looks at the Combined Test Force [CTF] that designed, built, and flew the Advanced Tactical Aircraft [ATA - F-117] with a new set of capabilities and in complete secrecy. As you would expect with any new programme the steady progress to Initial Operational Capability [IOC] was punctuated with setbacks and delays. Remarkably for such a new system the CTF gained IOC in a matter of 28 months after its first test flight. Development of course continued after IOC as did the development of a new weapons system. The accuracy of the Mk.84 or GBU-10 was disappointing and a new bomb was developed. Efforts were also made towards slow speed handling. In the end. In the end a deadly weapon platform was created.

Photographic History takes up three quarters of the book, with a high number of quality colour photographs with informative annotation providing insights into the aircraft, support and weapon systems. Images cover all aspects of the development of the F-117 from the model and full-scale wooden mock-ups, radar test airframes, production at the Lockheed Skunk Works facility in Burbank. There are numerous ground and inflight views providing valuable detail of paintwork, markings, and stencils. Drawings are included providing detail of some of the paint schemes applied. Not all F-117’s were black. There are two pages given over to artwork and plans for a US Navy version of the F-117 [A/F-117X].

The F-117 may be retired from front line service now, though a number of them are carefully stored. Occasionally having the opportunity to flex their wings over the skies of the US.

Conclusions

This is an excellent reference work on the F-117. It is packed with many valuable images as well as illustrations many of which I have not seen previously. It is fascinating glimpse at the preliminary designs, the ‘Have Blue’ and ‘ATA’ programmes, mock-up builds, prototype and production builds as well as evaluation on the ground and in the air. The text describing the story of the F-117 is very informative as well as being very readable. If you are looking for a one stop reference on the F-117, then this is the one. Highly recommended.

Many thanks to Rock Roszak from Detail & Scale for supplying the book.