B-2 Stealth Bomber crashes in Guam.

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Originally Posted by YellerDog

Not particularly stealthy of it.

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Actually, it crashed last week. We just couldn't see the crash until today because of stealth.

Damn. That's pretty stealthy.

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Originally Posted by Error

The F-117 was designed and built in the 70s/80s, so it really shouldn't shock you that someone finally figured out how to detect it. It was also first generation stealth technology, and it is probably approaching the end of its usefulness as a strike fighter.

Stealth was never supposed to be used as a weapon. Find the weakest part of an enemies defense grid, send the stealth fighters in there, instant corridor for the real bombers to come in and exploit. Stealth was supposed to assist the bomber in getting in and out of an area, giving the pilot a greater chance of surviving the mission by having radar take a longer amount of time to aquire the target (F-117).

The B-2 has had an outstanding safety record, but the pilots are human, and so are the people who work on them. You can bet the Air Force will make damn sure that whatever happened to this one won't happen again.

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Do you have a source for that information on the F-117?

The first plane that evaded radar was the U2, but that was because it flew at such a high altitude.

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shad...roject016.html

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In the late 1950's the American CIA began sending Lockheed U2 'spy-planes' over the Soviet Union to take intelligence photographs. The U2's flew at 80,000ft (24,000m) to be out of range of anti-aircraft fire, but it then became clear that radar was not detecting them.

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I assume you are asking about the F-117 being the first stealth platform. Fair enough, you are correct about other aircraft having exhibited characteristics of stealth, but the F-117 was the first plane designed to go in harms way and do so using stealth technology.

http://www.laturbo.com/index.php?opt...491&Itemid=109
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-117_Nighthawk
http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf1171.html
http://www.historynet.com/magazines/...y/3038186.html

As for the U2, from what I've read in the past, the Russians knew they were flying overhead they just didn't have missiles or planes that could fly high enough to shoot them down. Then they developed something that could and that caused the Air Force to deploy the SR-71, which also had a small radar signature, and was too fast for anything the Russians could make.

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Originally Posted by YellerDog

Damn. That's pretty stealthy.

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You know how we do...

http://www.layercake.net/wp-content/...wplanebig3.jpg

I remember a F-117 got shot down by serbian forces during the kosovo campaign. It is kinda funny, that such a high-tech airplane could be shot down by a hungarian baker. Zoltan Dani celebrates his 'kill' each year, by baking a cake shaped like the canopy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...oltan_Dani.jpg

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Originally Posted by dakidski

I remember a F-117 got shot down by serbian forces during the kosovo campaign. It is kinda funny, that such a high-tech airplane could be shot down by a hungarian baker. Zoltan Dani celebrates his 'kill' each year, by baking a cake shaped like the canopy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...oltan_Dani.jpg

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Bravo to him...

Sealth aircraft 10,000+.
Hungarian Baker 1+.

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Originally Posted by Drewbacca

Sealth aircraft 10,000+.
Hungarian Baker 1+.

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your right but I bet that one bomber costed way more than there entire army.

arent these things pretty much held together by duct tape now anyway? everytime i watch an aviation show on the Military Channel they talk about how they're constantly being serviced just to stay in the air. i don't think they've made any new ones since the original batch, which was how many years ago? i guess it's only a matter of time.