Air Force's stealth fighters making final flights - CNN.com

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- The world's first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology is slipping quietly into history.

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Technicians service an F-117 stealth fighter after it arrived at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, on Monday.

The inky black, angular, radar-evading F-117, which spent 27 years in the Air Force arsenal secretly patrolling hostile skies from Serbia to Iraq, will be put in mothballs next month in Nevada.

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, which manages the F-117 program, will have an informal, private retirement ceremony Tuesday with military leaders, base employees and representatives from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

The last F-117s scheduled to fly will leave Holloman on April 21, stop in Palmdale, California, for another retirement ceremony, then arrive on April 22 at their final destination: Tonopah Test Range Airfield in Nevada, where the jet made its first flight in 1981.

[From Air Force's stealth fighters making final flights - CNN.com]

Good night, funny guy. The coolest thing about the F-117 was that it was kept in secret so well that we spent years flying simulator games about the plane, and the shape was completely wrong (plus our games called it the F-119 or F-19).

At least they did not try to cover their asses about this being a money decision, which will let them route even more money to the F-22 and F-35 programs. It's actually amazing that the plane is already 27 years old.