Taken at the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Miramar Airshow, October 2005. For more photos, visit http://www.warbird-photos.com ----------------------------------------------- The one that started the rebellion of right angles, the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk... aka the Stealth Fighter. The F-117 is a unique aircraft, and for more than just obvious reasons. Aside from having nearly NO right angles on the entire plane as to direct radar beams in directions away from the source, it's unique engine system can produce very little heat. Many people don't realize that the landing gear on a F-117 is actually the exact same gear as on the Boeing F-15 Eagle fighters. In order to save some time and keep the F-117 near budget, they purchased the extra landing gear from McDonnell Douglas/Boeing at the time and incorperated it secretly into the F-117. When the F-117 was first tested to see if it would really be 'invisible' by radar, they placed a smaller F-117 perfect scale mockup out in the middle of a desert area. Once they turned on the radar, there was a massive size blip right where the F-117 was. They immediatly thought that the test had failed and that both the radar absorbant paint on the aircraft and it's no right angles were still not defelecting the beams away. But, upon looking at the F-117 out in the desert, they noticed something... a bird had landed on the F-117! That's right, the bird was giving off more of a radar ping than the F-117 was. Full size F-117s are said to only make the radar ping of about the size of a seagul's ping. If you were to take every single F-117 in existance, you could fit all their radar pings into a single B-52 Stratofortress's ping! When flying through United States airspace, ATC radar cannot pick up the F-117's signature. Obviously, that poses a severe hazard to commercial traffic. So, when an F-117 will be flying in civilian airspace, they place these odd shaped aluminum attachments onto the sides of the aircraft that will purposly reflect radar back and make the F-117 show up on ATC radar. In the photo above, you you look to the F-117's right side, you'll see one of the 'Warts' (as the F-117 crew call it) sticking outward. Shot with a Canon Rebel XT EOS 350D DSLR Camera (8mp). Lens was a Canon 100-400mm USM IS F4.5L Series.