Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk

The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a retired American single-seat, subsonic, twin-engined stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed's Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force. It was the first operational aircraft designed with stealth technology. Work began in the 1970s to counter increasingly sophisticated Soviet surface-to-air missiles, DARPA gave Lockheed a contract for the Have Blue technology demonstrator in 1976, and Lockheed decided to develop the F-117 on 1 November 1978. The first of five prototypes made its maiden flight in 1981 at Groom Lake, Nevada. Its faceted shape gives it a very low radar cross-section, and a fly-by-wire system is needed because it is unstable on all three axes. The aircraft was a black project and the Air Force denied it existed until 10 November 1988. It flew in Panama in 1989 and in the Gulf War of 1991, the last of the 59 production aircraft was delivered on 3 July 1990, and the Air Force retired the type in 2008 as the F-22 entered service.