Yeah, in another life, I flew it for 3 years in the 8th Fighter Squadron at HMN until just prior to the type's retirement. Am Bandit 670, as it comes to our assigned Bandit numbers to those who have flown this aircraft.
The 117 was very interesting in that being a so-called black program, that worked both for as well as against the program; in that, it was protected because no one knew it existed. But it wasn't getting operationally used, because no one knew it existed. The raid on Libya in 1986 in response to Gadafi's sponsoring of terrorist attacks in Germany, would've been a perfect raid for the 117 to take part in, a type of deep-strike interdiction that was right up the Nighthawk's alley. F-111s were used and planned for, partly because mission planners didn't know of the existence of the 117 or it's capability at the time, which is part of why it wasn't used. Had they been used, it's quite likely that many air miles could've been cut off the route that the F-111s were forced to take due to the number of countries that didn't authorize overflight. What they didn't know, wouldn't have hurt them. Very possible too that we may not have lost the F-111F and crew to suspected radar guided AAA that happened, due to the stealth capabilities. But alas, we will never know.
The A-7 Corsairs were what the guys were flying when they were at Nellis versus being "uprange" and they actually were doing some real work, in addition to their main task of supporting F-117 flight, currency, and chase operations. The A-7s were later replaced with the T-38, as A-7s began being retired from the ANG (the 4450th being the last active duty A-7 squadron). In fact, I wrote about a high profile accident in Indianapolis, where one of the 4450th's A-7s crashed at the airport in IND, and the program was VERY close to being exposed after this crash:
http://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/dead-stick-leads-to-a-dead-end.113095/#post-1560527
F-117 flight operations in the early days were indeed only at night, and only within the confines of the NTTR (Nellis restricted area), namely for secrecy. Later, flights began venturing outside the NTTR at night, under flight plans showing them as an A-7 Corsair. In July 1986, Ross Mulhare was killed in the first operational (not test) accident of the F-117, near Bakersfield, CA. Still a black program, there was high risk of program exposure after this crash too, which was suspected due to spatial disorientation due to the fact that Mulhare had been fatigued from the constant circadian rhythm disruptions of working in the 117 program uprange, was fairly low time in the jet like everyone was (although an experienced and high time F-4/F-15A/F-5E pilot); as well as some negative qualities unique to the jet itself, found to be contributory factors.
The 117 was VERY easy to get spatial-D in, since:
- because the cockpit was so sealed well, there was no "wind rush" or other aural cues of airspeed.......60 knots sounded like 600 knots. This caused a problem when.....
-.......the pilot was flying, as I spent most of my time heads-down in the IRDS display searching for my target and heavily depended on the autopilot to be doing the flying. Visual lookout was kind of a joke, as there wasn't time to and the plane had crappy viz anyway except for out the sides; but then in combat, that didn't matter (though I certainly wasn't maintaining any reasonable see and avoid while VMC in stateside airspace...unsafe in that way, especially when operating outside Class A airspace and any VFR civil plane could be legally tooling around. Very high liability there). The IRDS did have a small mini-HUD like display in the corner of it that showed aircraft attitude only, but we usually decluttered that since there was already a ton of targeting information we needed to be looking at. The jet really did need a WSO onboard.
Later, because of this and a couple more suspected spatial D accidents, all of which were fatal, the F-117 was fitted with what was known as PAARS, or Pilot Activated Automatic Recovery System. When the PAARS button was depressed on the stick, the autopilot and autothrottles engaged (if off), the aircraft recovered itself to the horizon via the closest means available, rolled wings level upright, and established a 5 degree nose-up at 250 knots. Only problem was that in finding the quickest way to the horizon, it didn't know the difference between positive and negative Gs.
Fairly interesting and remarkably in-depth (for 1989 and a civilian newspaper, one year after the F-117 was moved from black to gray):
http://articles.philly.com/1989-06-06/news/26109717_1_small-planes-batlike-pilots
