Nighthawk
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From a blog I follow:
10/31/23 My Encounter with the F-117 by Scott Hunter
”It was a clear fall full moon night in November of 1988 and I was flying my Cessna 206 with the my tv camera crew (was sportscaster at the time with Mobile, AL CBS affiliate) back from covering an Alabama game in Birmingham. About 50 miles from BFM (Mobile Downtown Airport) level at 8K feet was cleared by Mobile Approach to start my descent. Before starting my descent at night I always rolled the plane up on its side to look below for any traffic…an wise old Air Force B-52 instructor pilot had drilled me to do it first to my right and then to my left…so as not to descend into them. As I rolled to the right looking down I caught a ‘Bat shaped black figure’ below me outlined by the moonlight off the Tombigbee River flying northwest to southeast…and with no anti-collision lights on or flashing! Quickly rolled to my left facing east and saw that same shape outlined by the moonlight off the Alabama River passed under me and then went into the darkness. Started to report the sighting to Mobile Approach but quickly decided it was probably ours and if it was flying with no lights it didn’t want to be seen and reported.
Years later met an F-117 pilot at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery and related that encounter with him. He confirmed it was an F-117 and that they routinely flew from their Tonopah, Nevada secret base to Eglin AFB for cross country training and did not use a/c lights and descended to lower altitudes as they got closer to Eglin to avoid being seen or detected. He told me there was no danger as the F-117 pilot could easily detect the contact on radar and avoid me. I responded…”well that’s good to know…but that night…he sure didn’t avoid being seen!”
To which I (the blogger) replied:
”Great story, Doc! Thanks for forwarding. One of my co-instructors in VFA-125 at Lemoore got sent to Nevada shortly after he checked it. He had been one of the Pax River test pilots for the Hornet. He flew the 117 during the eval phase. I saw him at a tail hook reunion a couple of years later. He said he had ejected out of one. The AF wanted it to go supersonic but it was very much not a supersonic design. As the airplane approached the number, it would go divergent and, of course, then come apart. Or at least that was how the story went.
And, of course, they wanted it to go to the boat. Another dumb DoD idea...
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