Sunday, March 16, 2008
THE NIGHTHAWKS GO TO SLEEP
The F-117 Nighthawk (erroneously called the "Stealth Fighter" -- erroneous because they are exclusively bombers) is being retired. The Nighthawk was a splendidly successful program: It was developed all the way through to deployment in absolute secrecy, and in operation it was a genuine game-changing technology. As the linked article at AvLeak explains, retirement of the F-117s will leave a gap in US capabilities, although the Air Force is doing its best to publicly slur over this. The truth is that the budget stress of F-22 procurement and F-35 development is stretching the Air Force to near the breaking point. I hope it turns out to be worth it, because mothballing the Nighthawks, while being publicized as a reversible move, really isn't. The money to put them back into operation simply won't be around, and the kinds of missions they are uniquely capable of performing require operational swiftness, as well as stealth.
Meanwhile, the AvLeak piece contains a link to this interesting item that addresses the general question of the aerospace "black budget." (Give this a moment to load -- it's in some kind of weird Flash-based PDF-like format, but is worth it.) Like many aerospace geeks, I'm endlessly fascinated by this subject, and it gives a good overview of how decent estimates of the size of the aerospace black budget are made, and also an outline of what's probably in there. Alas, no "Blackstar" or "Brilliant Buzzard," it appears.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 12:25 PM
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