Recently Declassified Secrets of USAF Stealth Aircraft

This is the first modern stealth fighter. Militaries have been pursing stealth aircraft technology since the advent of the airplane. But no one has mastered it quite like the US military. This is the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk. It’s the first truly modern stealth aircraft…one that spent most of its life as a top-secret black project.

The F-117 owes its unusual shape to the limits of 1970s computer technology; Lockheed had to make its sides flat and angular so its computer program could more easily minimize its radar cross section.

June 14, 2025 | 3:13 pm