Did anybody manage to get photos of the f-117 before it was officially announced?

I would imagine it could have very easily been mistaken for a ufo and I just wondered did any photos get into circulation before it was officially announced to the public? Like if anyone managed to get a lucky shot of it somehow whilst airborne or did it only fly at night back then?

One of the reasons that the F-117 came out of the black was the desire for daylight training and training with other elements of the USAF. Prior to that they flew only at night and over restricted areas.

There may be pictures but I have never seen them

As I thought, it only came out after dark until then.

But imagine if someone did get a snap they must have thought for sure it was a ufo or heavily based on alien technology, I mean just look at the thing now let alone all those years ago!

reply to post by fatdeeman


From what I remember there may have been 1-2 photos before the official photo was released let me double check though and get a source.

If memory serves a photographer for Aviation Week (may have been a free lance) snapped a shot as one flew over in Nevada. I believe this played a part in the USAF admitting its existence.

Can't remember the exact details but I'll have a look around.

[edit on 31-7-2008 by Mike_A]

[edit on 31-7-2008 by Mike_A]

hmmm... I believe the first public picture of the F-117 was the
famous picture in the front page of AW&ST in the late 80's which show the
"shadow" of the aircraft from the the bottom of it. The photographer
claim that he was "filling gas" in a early morning in Mojave Desert and
hear a jet noise very differents than most of the aircraft and took what
I believe two shoot of it. I don't remember the name of the photographer
but his last name sound like from the now Ex-Soviet Union.

Found this here more to back up MikeAs recollection as well.

netwrx1.com

[edit on 31-7-2008 by Jbird]

That sounds about right. Could have sworn it was a professional photography out looking for a scoop but I could have been mistaken I suppose. Either way, there was defiantly at least one photo of the F-117 before it was officially acknowledged.

Sometimes it pays to search the local forums

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Probably worth shutting down this thread and reviving the older if you want to further discuss the subject.

If my memory serves me correctly there was a scale model that was resoanably accurate, that was released in 1987? -86?. I seem to remember that it blew the lid off the whole thing.

You mean the F-19? That was what they THOUGHT it was going to look like, but they weren't even close. That was curved instead of faceted, and had wingtips that curved downward.

An interesting note to the F-117 story: Tom Clancy mentioned the mythical "F-19" in his novel Red Storm Rising which was written several years before the F-117 became public knowledge. Like many other aviation/military enthusiasts he was aware of the stories regarding the "Stealth" aircraft being spotted so he wrote it into his novel. Strangely enough the F-19 in his novel turned out to be quite similar to the real F-117 in terms of capabilities and operational use.

[edit on 17-8-2008 by Turiddu]

Not to take anything away from Clancy, but if you really think about it and know your aviation/weapons then you could figure out that any stealth fighter wouldn't be something that would carry a lot of weapons, and that it would carry them internally. And anything fighter sized wouldn't carry more than a couple of weapons internally.