Originally Posted by
SpeedFanatic
Hello,
First time poster/long time lurker here. This thread has lot of beautiful ideas and tidbits, some of them I can confirm with the things I know.
Gulf War I - F-117s flew along with another, yet undisclosed, bird. The unknown aircraft played as an "door-opener" for Nighthawks during their bombing runs. The situation happened again in the early 2000's during the first few nights of OIF. The unknown bird was supposed to be around a few years back, way after they retired F-117. So it is more like just "Nighthawk's helper". It is EW jet with little strike potential, too. It was built in smaller numbers than F-117.
A question to Ewan Whosearmy:
Could you provide name of the pilot's autobiography? Would love to read it!
I understand that some of the first F-117 crews deployed in GW1 had team stealth patches with two dissimilar silhouettes on them. These were hastily replaced by standard patches. Could the other aircraft be the oft rumoured TR-3 ? Developed from the YF-23 which was stealthier than YF-22 but much more expensive, and built in much smaller numbers ?
I too would like details of that autobiography.
Please.
Be lucky
David