Message posted by F-117A Webmaster on April 30, 2002 at 23:04:46 PST:

Tom,
Sorry, you are mistaken there about the F-117A. There was a world of difference b/w Lybia and Panama. The F-117A was NOT wasted in Panama.

1. Lybia was when it was still a black unacknowledged program, Panama was when it was just becoming grey, after the program had been declassified.

2. Lybia had a fully operational radar network. Panama had no real radar network. The panama mission was about bombing accuracy, not stealth. That was Desert Storm...and we know how that went!

3. Range!! Panama was in our back yard....easy tp take the car around the block. A classified program halfway around the world...doable, (plenty to name) but still difficult. (Please remember the range of the -117)

So I don't think that they wasted the F-117A.
In fact, the entire Panama mission is STILL classified today. (Which is quite relevent to this thread). Lybia was a disaster from the get go. When France wouldn't let us use their airspace, we lost the element of surprise. My hunch is that is why the F-117 mission was scrapped....... the mission duration was tripled IRC because of that.

As far as the F-117A (and stealth in general), we lost that once Iraq started to share their radar tapes with our "allies" in Europe/Asia. Imagine if Kadafi had started circulating stealth radar plots in 1986 instead of 1991!!!!! The current stealth/counterstealth situation would have occured in 1997!!!! (Some assumptions there made of course).

Yes, you are right Tom. A military advantage only exists until 1. the enemy knows about it, and 2. the enemey defeats it.

The ONLY way to prevent the later is to prevent the prior.

F-117A Webmaster
www.f-117a.com

In Reply to: Re: Black Projects???? posted by Toms on April 30, 2002 at 15:56:08 PST:

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