in an open eld adjacent to the barracks.
The purpose of the target selection was
to stun and confuse, rather than kill,
the sleeping soldiers before they had
an opportunity to engage US Rangers
parachuting in to occupy the Río Hato
airstrip 90 seconds after the F-117 strike.
Three hours before the invasion was
due to begin, Noreiga’s forces gained
advanced warning of the impending
invasion and deployed to the Río Hato
airstrip. In the event, the bombing
results were not as e ective as had been
planned. Several Rangers were killed
and more than a dozen wounded in
the ensuing re ght, before the island
could be secured. As for Noriega, having
initially taken refuge in a church, he was
eventually extradited to Florida.Operation ‘Desert Storm’
The F-117’s true baptism of re began on
August 20, 1990. Following Iraq’s invasion
of Kuwait, the 415th TFS ‘Nightstalkers’ was
ordered to deploy to King Khalid Air Base
near Khamis Mushayt, Saudi Arabia, via
Langley AFB, Virginia. An unprecedentedwere used to send basic heading and
altitude data to a command post. This data
was supplemented by 73 radar-reporting
stations, feeding into 17 intercept
operation centers (IOCs). Four sector
operations centers controlled the IOCs,
and from these three-storey, reinforced
concrete hubs the defense of Iraq could be
orchestrated. The defensive network was
systematically dismembered by the F-117s
from the outset. Key early warning radars
and communications links were then dealt
with by other, non-stealthy assets.
On December 4, 1990, the ‘Ghost Riders’
also deployed to Khamis. At 00.22hrs
on January 17, 1991, the rst of three
waves of F-117s got airborne to deliver
the opening salvos of Operation ‘Desert
Storm’, an air campaign that would not
only validate the success of the aircraft
and of stealth technology, but would
change the shape of air combat forever.
During the next 43 nights, 41 F-117s ew
1,247 sorties in 6,905 ight hours over
the most highly defended targets in Iraq,
achieving bombing results never before
recorded. It all happened without the loss
of, or damage to, a single jet.18 F-117s completed the move to Saudi
Arabia in just 15 hours. King Khalid was
well beyond Iraqi ‘Scud-B’ missile range,
but the ying distance to Baghdad would
necessitate three aerial refuelings per
sortie, and a typical mission would last
more than ve hours.
The Iraqi IADS was sophisticated and its
destruction was vital in order to disable
Saddam Hussein’s centrally controlled
system. In excess of 400 observation postsLeft: When
the 415th TFS
deployed to King
Khalid Air Base
for ‘Desert Shield’
the term ‘Team
Stealth’ was
coined. Aircraft
‘821’, named
Sneak Attack,
was the personal
mount of Maj
Wes Wyrick. It
completed 32
combat missions
during ‘Desert
Storm’ and
another 19 in
‘Allied Force’. USAF
Below: During a
low-observable
program — Senior
Spud — consisting
of just four fl ights
in July 1993,
aircraft 784 had
the port side of its
fuselage and the
inside of the tail
units covered in a
textured metallic
surface, which
refl ected light
in a unique way.
Lockheed Martin
via Tony LandisA trio of F-117s airborne
from Holloman at
sunset. Missions from
Tonopah were initially
fl own exclusively at
night, to preserve the
secrecy of the project.
Rich CooperUSAFhttp://www.combataircraft.net // June 2018 57
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