The F-117 Instrument Panel Conspiracy

Hmm, intersesting as I thought when I set my eyes on the cockpit of one of the most advanced airplanes in the world. "I wonder what these could be for. Perhaps some of the members of ATS would know!". So here is your challenge, Find, and tell, what instruments are there, and what they do. Its like a game, you see?

Shouldn't this be in the aircraft section? And I do notice four missing things in the cockpit, no idea what they'd be though.

The Middle cluster directly below the HUD contains all the normal flight instruments such as:

-Artifical Horizon - shows the plane's location in relation to the earth's horizon so if the plane is upside down( bad example i know) the horizone wil lbe at the top i the screen.

-Altimiter -shows the pilot the altiudae at which he is flying.

-Airspeed - self explanatory.

PRetty much all I can identify apart from the obvious like the control stick :p.

Actually these were kkinda obvious to me lol.

Meh.

Wow, I did not realize that the F-117 cockpit is so rustic. It reminds me of the U-2's instrument panels, and that was designed in the mid 50's. There are no MFD's or anything. I would have thought that such a valuable aircraft would have been worthy of an avionics upgrade, along with the instrumentation.

But if you'll notice, there are 6 empty slots. 4 are highlighted where the pieces were removed, exposing the wiring behind, and 2 are just bolted off with metal covers.

I would imagine some of that would be the arming and aiming systems, as well as navigation, the latter two of which an enemy could use against the aircraft.

The only thing I see missing is the big red button that turns the plane invisible. and the even bigger reder button that says "Do not touch" that makes the plane go the speed of light. Duh.

This photo has a little more color and a few more of the avionics:

Wow, i didnt realize they were so cramped up. Stupid question here but is there an average height level that you CANT be over, in order to be accepted for flight training? Also I wonder what the average height is for a pilot?
I remember hearing something about a former Dallas Football player, Chad Hennings, had to have his A 10 cockpit customized for his combat roles in the 1st Gulf War.

The other MFD's I can only think of them being like GPS and Loran type features (to what I think, you all may have a different thought), but the thing that has always puzzled me was the small little three holes side by side. I mean, what could they be used for and how important are they to be removed?

Ahh, I was going to say that perhaps that image is of one of the first variants of the -117. (rofl, once again I look at the image and spot the 'A' after the F-117:shk: )

As you can see in John Lears photo, there are at least 2 MFDs, and another larger screen that could be used for (I suppoose) identifying targets for the precision weapons.

And brodband, what three small holes?

The three small holes highlighted near the bottom of the instrument panel (middle-right).

Compare the instrumentation and size of the cockpit of the F-117A with the size and instrumentation of the A-12:

Brodband, I'm pretty sure those three small white holes are just analog gauges, probably indicating engine temperatures or something. An OAT gauge and two exhaust temp gauges, perhaps?

Things I noticed that are missing... The entire glass cockpit display.

I'm pretty sure laser-guided bombs were fired with FLIR and DLIR displays. Where are they? That does not look like a 1980's stealth cockpit.

Looks more like the SR-71 Blackbird's cockpit.



Shattered OUT...

[edit on 14-2-2007 by ShatteredSkies]

Maybe it could be an older model of the F-117?

Originally posted by Kr0n0s
Wow, i didnt realize they were so cramped up. Stupid question here but is there an average height level that you CANT be over, in order to be accepted for flight training? Also I wonder what the average height is for a pilot?
I remember hearing something about a former Dallas Football player, Chad Hennings, had to have his A 10 cockpit customized for his combat roles in the 1st Gulf War.

There are height restrictions for sure and it annoyed me to death when I was first joined the military. From memory (and its sketchy) You have to be between 175cm and 185cm but from 180cm up you get whats called a 'sitdown' test where they measure your height from a sitting position with leg joints 90 degrees. I failed this at 16. BLAST! Thats why I went RAEME as Aircraft Tech and did training in Armament Engineering instead - even though I couldnt fly the steel birds I could at least touch them everyday.

I discovered this thread rather late and by accident, and I'm not sure it's worth resurrecting. Nevertheless, here is an answer to some of the questions raised.

The photo in the original post shows the cockpit of the second preproduction YF-117A (Article 781) after it was placed on display in the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. It has a much different, and more rudimentary, control panel than the later production airframes because it was stricly used for flight-test.

It might be possible to figure out what some of the missing instruments were by checking the diagrams in the flight manual (F-117A-1), but those drawings will reflect later configurations so there will be numerous differences. The missing items may have been removed to serve as spares for the remaining YF-117A test aircraft at the time, or they may have been given as souvenirs to people participating in the F-117A program.