The inky black, angular, radar-evading F-117, which spent 27 years in the Air Force arsenal secretly patrolling hostile skies from Serbia to Iraq, will be put in mothballs next month in Nevada.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, which manages the F-117 program, will have an informal, private retirement ceremony Tuesday with military leaders, base employees and representatives from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
The last F-117s scheduled to fly will leave Holloman on April 21, stop in Palmdale, California, for another retirement ceremony, then arrive on April 22 at their final destination: Tonopah Test Range Airfield in Nevada, where the jet made its first flight in 1981.
I remember when the plane was just a rumor.
It first went into combat in 1989 during the Panama intervention. It was the star of Desert Storm in 1991. It was first lost in combat over Serbia in 1999. And now it isn't worth it to keep in service with the F-22 flying. Although in storage and with pilots still out there who know how to fly it, we can't rule out seeing (or not seeing) it in combat again.
Dang, I'm getting old!
