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It's incredible to think that this remarkable jet is in the twilight of its career. My tribute to the Nighthawk:

Yeah but it's been doing it's job for a quarter century now.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Indeed but when you consider that aircraft such as the B-52 have been in service for around double this time the F-117s service career is relatively short. Of course the F-22 with its newer technology and multi-mission capabilities has cut the Nighthawks career short.

those are great images, thanks for sharing them!

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If it Flys, shoot it

In some ways it's a good thing. The F-22 can do everything the Nighthawk does better, and a lot of stuff it can't. The F-117 is also a maintainer's pain the butt. I've yet to hear though if the Raptor is better.

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Evil is evil, no matter how small.

will any of these aircraft be going to the air national guard. The next question is are these aircraft just worn because of the new materials used at the time.

I thought that they were all going into storage at Tonopah.

In reverse order:
Flyable storage.
None to the home guard.
Raptor was designed from the ground up to be much more maintainable than current jets. Something like half or less just in required tools compared to the F-15. Even on the engine no componant is supposed to be more than two layers deep. It's LO stuff is WAY easier to take care of, even way better than the B-2.

Dont know if the F-35 has kept the decal type LO \"coating\" it wa supposed to get. THAT was even LESS expensive to take care of than the F-22s LO coating.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.