The F-117’s weirdest feature

[TLR_]

The f117 might have the the most weird features of any plane with weird features

[erod]

Your Microwave oven has a mesh on the glass door that does the same thing. It keeps the microwaves inside the oven.

[johno]

I've never seen a F-117 in person, the stealth stuff really does work.

[FuelAirSparkTime]

I know this plane is slow, not very maneuverable, and it's design made with early computer modeling, but it still looks like the quintessential "stealth fighter" to me

[Pichouette]

I used to know an F-15 pilot that was reassigned to fly F-117s. He really did not like flying it. He said compared to the F-15, it was like trying to fly a brick.

[timrussell]

Yeah, my F-117 inlet grid recently broke and i had to replace it. Cost me 40 million dollars plus another 300 grand to have it painted. The anti icing fluid only cost me a buck 89 though

[UnbarablePain]

I wonder why the wiper was chosen over an electrically heated grid, infrared stealth I presume?

[JorisWeima]

I'm intrigued by the little pointy bit at the top of the cockpit

[Voltaic_Fire]

It is easy to understand why yokels reported the F-117 as an alien ship when they saw it during test flights.

[godlugner]

The grid also required the aircraft to be moving at speed to get enough airflow into the engines. In the clip you can see odd shaped doors above the grids those are doors that open on the ground to permit enough airflow and are large enough for engine technicicans to enter when the engines need servicing

[BlazeMakesGames]

Ah so that’s how they solved the icing problem

[TheChipMcDonald]

Doug Demuro needs to give it a Doug score for quirks.

[ElectricityTaster]

If the CyberTruck were a plane and actually functional.

[evanleo]

Now I don’t need to worry about insects and road debris getting in the engine of my f117

[NickyLunaLove]

I love how whimsical it’s lil intake wipers make it lol

[fadmap]

Rumor has it, Lockheed studied John Cena to design stealth tech on their F117. To this, neither have been seen in battle.

[Aerospaceoomfie]

Fun Fact:

The Sukhoi Su-57S uses a very similar method as the F-117 with it's own intakes. Due to the requirement to be able to carry the R-37M long-range air-to-air missile and Kh-69 cruise missile internally, the weapons bays had to be designed pretty large. This meant that unlike on the Su-47, an S-Duct wasn't a viable option. So instead the intakes were positioned under the fuselage apart from each other similar to a Su-27 or YF-23. As the IWB is in the center of the aircraft running down most of the length of the fuselage.

Because of that within the intakes, which are made out of composites and coated with RAM on the inner sides, there's a muli-layered structure (I think it was three layers), of different shapes made from RAM to absorb incoming radar waves so that they don't reflect from the compressor assembly. One layer is grid shaped, if I recall correctly, one also was circular with multiple rings inside. It's all in the patents really. So while not exactly the same, the idea behind it is similar although the reasons are different.

So it's a feature the two share, another aircraft with this intake design is the RQ-170 stealth drone and the Iranian model based on it.

[gibu]

First time Ive ever heard about the icing problem and solution.

[Ed-tsbj]

I saw one up close, I never saw the exhaust!

[usov]

It was also a nightmare to fly and needed a computer just to keep the thing from stalling or shaking itself out of proper alignment, simply because of its weird shape. It was pretty stealthy tho.