Was The F-117 Nighthawk A Fighter Or A Bomber? Why The Jet's Designation Is So Confusing

Lockheed's Skunk Works started its development of the F-117 Nighthawk in 1977 after the U.S. Air Force requested an undetectable fighter jet capable of wiping out high-value targets. The Air Force flew its first F-117A by 1981 and had a fully operational one by 1983. The Nighthawk's  production was a closely guarded secret, with the general public oblivious to its existence until 1988 when the Air Force finally went public with it. People wouldn't geta real-life glimpse of the stealth fighter for another two years, after it already had been flying missions overseas for seven years. The Air Force retired the stealth fighter in 2008.

While the Nighthawk might have looked a little funnier than traditional fighter jets with its bulky, angular design, it has influenced and inspired the stealth capabilities of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet and even Northrop-Grumman's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. The F-117 was undoubtedly designed as a fighter jet, but it had some drastic differences from more traditional fighters. 

For starters, it was completely devoid of any kind of gun, a feature present on virtually all fighters since World War II. It did have internal compartments that could carry an assortment of weapons, weighing up to 5,000 pounds, but it didn't carry air-to-air missiles. There was never any intention for the Nighthawk to intercept other aircraft. While it had been active several years before the public knew about it, the Gulf War would shine a light on its exact purpose.

F-117 Nighthawks flew 1,271 sorties throughout Operation Desert Storm during the 1991 Gulf War, and every plane returned to base without so much as a scratch. The Nighthawks dominated the skies. Unlike traditional fighter jets, they couldn't scramble at a moment's notice — it would take crews up to six hours to get a stealth fighter mission-ready, so they weren't used to intercept enemy aircraft. They were, however, ideal for well-planned missions that required a certain level of precision.

Roughly 36 Nighthawk's took part in Operation Desert Storm, making up 2.5% of the airborne fighting force of around 1,900 fighter jets and bombers. However, they performed more than a third of the bombing runs on the war's first night, dropping 2,000-pound GBU-27 laser-guided bombs. Throughout the operation they primarily acted as bombers, collectively dropping more than 2,000 tons of bombs by the end. The fighter's stealth capabilities allowed it to sneak past Iraq's perimeter, as well as some 3,000 anti-aircraft guns and 60 surface-to-air missile batteries. It was the only aircraft that could strike targets in Baghdad without being detected.

So why the "fighter" designation rather than "bomber" or even "attack," when it was most assuredly designed as an attack aircraft? The fighter designation was more attractive to pilots, especially higher-skilled pilots, than an attack designation, and the Air Force wanted to entice the most capable pilots for the Nighthawk program.

The F-117 Nighthawk was powered by two General Electric F404-F1D2 engines that could only get it up to high subsonic speeds, unlike many fighter jets of its time – 684 mph, to be exact. This "fighter" wasn't keeping up with an F-15 or F-14, and its lack of guns or cannons was a clear sign that it would never hold its own if it was going to get into a dogfight. As far as anyone knows, in fact, no Nighthawk ever carried air-to-air ordnance, but it was not outside of the realm of possibility for it to carry air-to-air missiles.

Robert "Robson" Donaldson, a retired Michigan Air National Guard major, on the Fighter Pilot Podcast discussing his experiences with the F-117, said there was a plan for the stealth fighter to take out Soviet Union's Airborne Warning And Control System if the Cold War had ever escalated. And how would they do that if the Nighthawk didn't carry any air-to-air weapons?

"It could actually carry every munition in the inventory at the time of its insertion, with the exception of the Sparrow missile, which was radar-guided," Donaldson told the podcast. "So we could carry air-to-air missiles." 

Since the Nighthawk was never sent on such a mission, it also could have had an attack designation, which is reserved for aircraft that only target land and sea targets with both conventional and specialized weapons.