The Air Force Reserve delivered a historic F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter to the Smithsonian Institution on Oct. 6, nearly two decades after the aircraft was retired.
The 512th Airlift Wing, based at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, transported the 29,500-pound aircraft aboard a C-5M Super Galaxy in a two-day, cross-country mission. The aircraft was delivered to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. The operation required precise weight distribution and careful handling to fit the disassembled aircraft—fuselage and detached wings—into the cargo compartment.
"This is probably one of the coolest pieces of cargo that I've ever seen," said Senior Airman Lucas Richard, a loadmaster assigned to the 709th Airlift Squadron. The crew loaded the aircraft in Palmdale, California, securing the wings first and then the fuselage, which required overnight work to fabricate and install tie-down points.
The specific aircraft was nicknamed "The Overachiever" and was the only F-117A to fly in all four major conflicts in which Nighthawks served: Operations Just Cause, Desert Storm, Allied Force and Iraqi Freedom. During its 1991 operations in Iraq, it flew 1,271 sorties with an 80 percent mission success rate and suffered no battle damage. The aircraft was retired in 2007.
As of January 2021, the Air Force had retained approximately 48 F-117As in its inventory and disposed of approximately four aircraft annually since grounding the fleet in April 2008. Preparing an aircraft for museum display requires coordination between the War Department and its industry partners.