Although in the equipment sequence of the American army, the representative starting with F is a fighter, however, the F-117 does not have the slightest air combat capability! The bomb bay inside the belly of this plane was loaded with two laser-guided bombs, and other than that, there were no weapons! Not even an ordinary cannon!

It shuttles through the night sky, entirely by stealth ability!

In later generations, when the United States fought the Gulf War and attacked Iraq, almost all of them were at night, because in the United States in later generations, night vision equipment was quite mature, and all pilots wore night vision devices to fight at night, just like during the day. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

But now it is only the eighties, and the head-mounted infrared imaging night vision device has not been put into use in a large area, for example, in the Falklands War next year, the British army is also equipped with a large number of low-light night vision devices and infrared passive imagers, which need infrared headlights, so that the Argentine army uses headlights to illuminate each other, so that the other party's night vision devices are scrapped.

There is no head-mounted infrared imaging night vision device, and there is also a lack of navigation and aiming pods with night vision function, so there is no large-scale night attack, and the US air raid on Iraq is mainly placed in the daytime, although some aircraft can fly at night, but also mainly rely on instrument flight.

And for the F-117, no matter how expensive this device is, it must be standard, because it is a stealth aircraft! Its black color means that this kind of aircraft does not fly in the daytime at all, it is a ghost in the dark! And in order to maintain radar stealth, in addition to reducing various radar reflections, it itself does not emit electromagnetic waves, that is, the F-117A simply does not have the radar used on conventional aircraft! Instead, passive photoelectric sensors such as forward-looking infrared and television are used to search and target targets.

The units have two positions, with an optical window under the windshield of the F-117A cockpit for dual-field forward-looking infrared sensors and a window on the right side of the nose landing gear compartment under the nose fuselage for retractable lower-view infrared and laser designators. The upper and lower systems work together to provide the pilot with complete visibility in a variety of flight attitudes. An infrared sensor above the nose is responsible for the initial target search and calibration, while a downward-looking infrared and laser designator under the fuselage provides the ongoing calibration, monitoring, and target damage assessment required for post-drop guidance.

These passive infrared sensors provide perfect nighttime imaging, allowing them to fly at night as if they were during the day.

However, although when it was designed, this kind of aircraft emphasized stealth performance, and after it was finalized, various tests showed that the radar would not find this kind of aircraft, but the pilots were still not confident, and God knows if the Iraqis would come up with all kinds of means to deal with themselves! Behind the Iraqis is the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union, all kinds of black technology are endless, even fighters with three times the speed of sound can be made, maybe they have special radars, lock themselves, and shoot them down?

Hearing the words on the radio, Colonel Wheatley was a little crying and laughing, at the beginning, he was the first pilot to change to fly the F-117A, and he became the commander of this tactical fighter wing, and now, he is the soul of the formation of this sortie.

"Attention, take off in formation, boys, let's drop bombs on Saddam's bed!" Colonel Wheatley said over the radio. His confidence was contagious to everyone, and the cacophony of the radio was gone.

Takeoff! This unique shape of the aircraft is extremely difficult to control, and only the fly-by-wire system can complete the task of controlling the aircraft, and this fly-by-wire system is transplanted from the F-16.

The engine in the tail section did not have afterburner, otherwise there would have been an excessive infrared signature, and just like that, the fighter slowly left the runway and took off with two heavy bombs.

The plane had no other features except for the two navigation lights on the wings, and Colonel Wheatley took one last look at the photograph tied to his knees, which was the target of his attack this time, the Ministry of Defense building and the television broadcasting building in Baghdad, which happened to be on a shipping route, and he could return as soon as he slipped past and dropped his bomb.

The night sky is pitch black, and since flying the F-117A aircraft, they have been living a life of day and night upside down, sleeping during the day and going out at night, and after a long time, they have almost forgotten what the day looks like.

God forbid! Wheatley said in his heart.

"Nighthawk calls babysitter, Nighthawk calls babysitter." Flying forward for nearly an hour, Wheatley made his first call on the radio.

"The babysitter received, the babysitter received, in the airspace of the scheduled No. 3 refueling, please turn on all navigation lights." There was a clear sound coming through the headphones.

"Nighthawk understands." Wheatley flipped the switch and turned on all the navigation lights. In particular, a small protrusion on the top canopy is shiny, where an aerial refueling light is placed, which is used to illuminate the fuel inlet on the back of the aircraft during night aerial refueling operations.

The F-117 is not only radar stealth, it is completely black, and at night it is like a black man walking at night, occasionally showing big white teeth, and it seems that only the big white teeth move in the air.

A KC-135 tanker on standby in the predetermined airspace, the refueling crew flexibly operated the refueling probe, aimed at the tail refueling port of the F-117, and with the successful docking, the boiling fuel quickly flowed into the fuel tank of the F-117.

The U.S. Air Force's hard-stick refueling method minimizes the difficulty for pilots.

The F-117 is a partial student, paying full attention to stealth and ignoring aerodynamic characteristics, and when this aircraft was developed, it was met with all kinds of opposition, believing that this kind of aircraft could not fly at all. And now, although this aircraft is already in service, short legs are still a shortcoming. Using only in-flight fuel, the aircraft had a maximum range of only 1,000 kilometres, so it was necessary to refuel once before entering Iraqi airspace and another refueling on the way back.

"Note, turn off all navigation lights and reconfirm the course." Leaving the tanker, Wheatley gave one of the most important orders.

Nighthawk is the king of the darkness, he believes that it will not be discovered by the Iraqi air defense forces, but if the navigation lights outside the plane are not turned off, it will be miserable, and the poor maneuverability will make it a target for Iraq's ground anti-aircraft artillery.

After shaking the wings, alerting the friendly fighters and making sure that all the navigation lights were turned off, five F-117s, like ghosts in the night, entered Iraq's airspace. (To be continued.) )