I can't believe this story hasn't gotten more press or maybe it has and I've just been out of the loop? The awkwardly shaped yet menacing F-117 has been retired by the US military. Understanding the military's ability to adapt and upgrade their weapons platforms, I was a little puzzled that these successful stealth bombers, costing $45 million each, were being shut down. Although slightly tinfoil-ish in tone, this analysis provides an interesting context and theory to F-117's retirement. For one, it apparently wasn't that stealthy at all: On March 27, 1999 during our involvement in conflict in Yugoslavia, one of the F-117s was shot down. (An event that is celebrated on that day each year by the battalion responsible for the successful take down.) Was it just blind luck?
1960s tube amplifier enthusiasts will be thrilled to learn that the Yugoslavian air force attributes the shootdown of the F117A to P-12 type vacuum tube-technology Russian radars so old the U.S. considered them obsolete.
According to their account, the F117A Stealth fighter was detectable by antique radar operating at wavelengths of 2 meters—a detail that had supposedly escaped the Stealth designers, who operated on the assumption that the plane would only have to be invisible to modern centimeter and millimeter wavelength radars.
Read rest here.