The Busy Spartan program was refueling the F-117 Stealth fighter, known to us as The Black Jet. Going back to the boom pod after the F-117s left our wing, I laid down in the couch for the next group to come up. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my flying career. You could see the wingtip navigation lights blinking but you couldn’t see the airplane. Once it came under our tail boom flood light, I watched the air refueling door roll over! Seeing that was one of the most surreal experiences of my flying career! Our Boom Operator Mikey kept saying over the interphone “This is the Cat’s ass!” I flew F-117 missions for a month until my Squadron moved to Jeddah Saudi Arabia where we would fight the Desert Storm war.
The Air Force retired the F-117 Fleet in 2008 as the F-22 Raptor came into Air Force squadrons. All F-117s were thought to have been destroyed. Recently a photographer driving through Panamint Valley of California saw a black speck coming on the horizon. It was an F-117 flying at 200 feet straight down the valley. The following day he came back with his camera and took beautiful pictures of the airplane going by. In one photo you can see the pilot giving the photographer a “hang-loose” hand signal shown here. The F-117s are currently being used as stealthy adversary airplanes in our exercises over the Nellis Air Force Base Range north of Las Vegas Nevada.