One of the things you'll notice in the photos of my jet 85-0818, is how the jet looks somewhat ratty looking, and with strips/pieces missing underneath the tail number of the vertical stab, as well as white chalk looking stuff around the cockpit. This was not the fault of any kind of maintenance, but merely a limitation of the jet itself.
F-117s at home station were not kept in a full combat-ready status. Their weapons attack systems were fully ready, but the jets themselves had to be prepared for combat if the call came, in terms of the stealth items and specifically the external coating of the fuselage. With these first generation stealth jets, the outer coating on the jet....the RAM, or Radar Absorbent Material.....came in "sheets" and had to be placed onto the metal fuselage of the jet by trimming to fit, then gluing into place, with a fairly long curing time. Because of this, bits and pieces of of RAM would come off inflight often, and it was alot of work to maintain it. To do so would have far too many jets out of service and far too many maintenance hours dedicated, so RAM was only replaced in larger sheets if need be. Smaller areas of missing RAM were either left missng temporarily until maintenance could get to it, or were filled in with the RAM putty, resulting in the worn look that some of the jets had, even though that was only a look. When off to actual combat or to an exercise like Red Flag, the jets were fully prepped and looked pristine, with their RAM coating perfect and Radar Cross Section for that particular tail number well within specs.
The RAM itself was one of those items that had to be removed in order to access panels and such on the actual airframe which were located underneath the RAM on the actual metal fuselage. Looking closely at a 117, everything is underneath that RAM, and there are no rivets, screws, or anything that protrudes when the RAM is on. Antennas retract flush into the fuselage when not needed, etc. On one of my side console pics, you can see a switch for extension/retraction of antennas.
This is what an F-117 with no RAM coating applied looks like. It’s just an aluminum aircraft with some minor olastkc parts and a funny angular shape.
F-117s at home station were not kept in a full combat-ready status. Their weapons attack systems were fully ready, but the jets themselves had to be prepared for combat if the call came, in terms of the stealth items and specifically the external coating of the fuselage. With these first generation stealth jets, the outer coating on the jet....the RAM, or Radar Absorbent Material.....came in "sheets" and had to be placed onto the metal fuselage of the jet by trimming to fit, then gluing into place, with a fairly long curing time. Because of this, bits and pieces of of RAM would come off inflight often, and it was alot of work to maintain it. To do so would have far too many jets out of service and far too many maintenance hours dedicated, so RAM was only replaced in larger sheets if need be. Smaller areas of missing RAM were either left missng temporarily until maintenance could get to it, or were filled in with the RAM putty, resulting in the worn look that some of the jets had, even though that was only a look. When off to actual combat or to an exercise like Red Flag, the jets were fully prepped and looked pristine, with their RAM coating perfect and Radar Cross Section for that particular tail number well within specs.
The RAM itself was one of those items that had to be removed in order to access panels and such on the actual airframe which were located underneath the RAM on the actual metal fuselage. Looking closely at a 117, everything is underneath that RAM, and there are no rivets, screws, or anything that protrudes when the RAM is on. Antennas retract flush into the fuselage when not needed, etc. On one of my side console pics, you can see a switch for extension/retraction of antennas.
This is what an F-117 with no RAM coating applied looks like. It’s just an aluminum aircraft with some minor olastkc parts and a funny angular shape.