The Insane Engineering of the F-117 Nighthawk
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2024
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Credits:
Producer/Writer/Narrator: Brian McManus
Head of Production: Mike Ridolfi
Editor: Dylan Hennessy
Writer/Research: Josi Gold
Animator: Eli Prenten
Animator: Stijn Orlans
Sound and Production Coordinator: Graham Haerther
Sound: Donovan Bullen
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster
Head of Moral: Shia LeWoof
Special Thanks To Lockheed Martin for providing archival footage
Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images
Thank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage.
Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com/creator
Thank you to my patreon supporters: Abdullah Alotaibi, Adam Flohr, Henning Basma, Hank Green, William Leu, Tristan Edwards, Ian Dundore, John & Becki Johnston. Nevin Spoljaric, Jason Clark, Thomas Barth, Johnny MacDonald, Stephen Foland, Alfred Holzheu, Abdulrahman Abdulaziz Binghaith, Brent Higgins, Dexter Appleberry, Alex Pavek, Marko Hirsch, Mikkel Johansen, Hibiyi Mori. Viktor Józsa, Ron Hochsprung - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
The most interesting thing about the F-117 to me is that, without the computational power to effectively simulate radar returns at high fidelity yet, engineers had to simplify things. Which is why it has simplified flat panels, while modern stealth aircraft have complex curves. The F-117 is literally a low poly stealth aircraft.
i though part of it was manufacturing complexity of stealth paneling and making it curved
If I remember correctly they had to break it down into a bunch of triangles and then calculate the radar return off of each triangle, then sum it up, pretty much a low poly aircraft.
It's mind blowing what engineers did back then without computers.
@@3isr3g3n The design was generated with a computer, hardware limitations of the time are what lead to the low-poly design.
The F-117 being stealthy is basically a hollowed out log in terms of boating. It's primitive af, but it floats and works:)
I remember watching an interview with one of the F-117 pilots from the strike and he talked about his post-strike count to make sure everyone in his airgroup made it (using satellite markers, I think, no radio traffic) and he kept coming up one short, and as he was on the way to panic-land, he realized he forgot to count himself.
In such a high stress situation, I can't really blame him for the (in hindsight) humourous little oversight.
Wow
Its like wearing the glasses over your head type situation
@@quintonconoly I heard this in Owen Wilson's voice.
The video is really proof that we have a Creator.❤️
Everything you saw in the video (the jet, the clouds; the ground) are made of things called “atoms”! And these are amazing than you think:
Atoms are so small, millions could fit on the period at the end of this comment! -> .
Everything around you, from your hand to the whole universe, are made of 100+ different types of atoms!
And guess what? The screen you’re using to read this TH-cam comment is also made from 100+ different types of atoms - that’s around trillions of trillions (more than you can imagine) of atoms!
We really live in a detailed world.🌌
A world that did not exist by accident, but invented!
Him constantly calling bombs missiles is bugging me, respectfully.
i wonder if hes his own editor or if someone else is?
It's very much not like him.
Trivial detail as the subject is the plane itself and not whatever you want to call the explodey-bois. Now if this was a video solely on laser guided bombs and he was calling them missiles then it would make sense.
@@jamesjrossAren’t there a few GBU variants with a rocket booster?
Technically bombs are also missiles in the general sense, but I understand the frustration.
23:20 The F-117 lost in Serbia wasn't due to the Serbians' doctrine. In fact, they had to violate the doctrine by activating the radar a second time in the same location. This second sweep happened when the pilot had the bomb bay doors open, so the radar was able to detect the Nighthawk. Additionally, the Serbians wouldn't have known where to look if USAF hadn't gotten lazy and used the same flight paths for multiple strikes.
We didn't know it was invisible
@@milosdenkovic1984 It was never invisible the US got lazy while Serbs took some very big risks and got very lucky.
Sorry for that brother, we did not know it was invisible
@@milosdenkovic1984 I never said it was invisible. I said the American planners made a mistake by using the same attack route, which let the Serbs know where to look. I said the Serb commander violated the doctrine by running the radar a second time in the same location.
And I said there was a little luck involved, because the F-117 opened its bay doors (which are highly reflective) at the same time the radar was running that second scan.
If not for all three of those factors, the plane would have probably gone back to base without incident.
@@j4s0n39Serbian officer and the f117 pilot became friends after that.
One of my favorite stories of the development of the Nighthawk is when during testing, Skunk Works put a model of it up on a pedestal and hit it with different radar waves to see if they could get a return off of the model. They ended up getting a return off of the pedestal, then hovering a few feet above it they got a return from an object about the size of a bird.
The technicians then looked out at the model and saw, sitting on the cockpit, a small bird.
The video is really proof that we have a Creator.❤️
Everything you saw in the video (the jet, the clouds; the ground) are made of things called “atoms”! And these are amazing than you think:
Atoms are so small, millions could fit on the period at the end of this comment! -> .
Everything around you, from your hand to the whole universe, are made of 100+ different types of atoms!
And guess what? The screen you’re using to read this TH-cam comment is also made from 100+ different types of atoms - that’s around trillions of trillions (more than you can imagine) of atoms!
We really live in a detailed world.🌌
A world that did not exist by accident, but invented!
@@Our-Creator-Loves-Us it's not proof at all lmfao. you just THINK it''s proof because you have already made up your mind about it being created. We have no proof at the moment. I'm not saying there isn't a creator, but I am saying there is ZERO PROOF
@@quistador7something made it.
Wether that's a force of nature or almighty creator, something created everything we know.
@@The.Toaster "Creator" implies some level of intelligence behind it. Now just looking at nature, if it was created what ever did it certainly wasnt all that intelligent.
@@Hurricayne92 no it doesn't necessarily. Gravity is the creator of planets. Warps space and time based on mass and density.
That doesn't show a level of intelligence. It just is. Yet it sculpted everything you know, created orbits, the day, the night and binds our reality into what we perceive as time.
Would you say gravity is intelligent? Of course not. At a quantum level there are other forces of attraction that you could include as responsible for our existence that also aren't denoted as intelligent or I think you mean to say aware?
0:20 is a laser guided bomb not a gps guided missile
Pretty embarrassing mistake tbh
Its actually gps guided I think
@@MrGtubedude Both, he got the detail about having both GPS and Laser guidance, at least for later models of the Paveway II iirc, I think earlier ones where only laser guided.
Makes it hard to take the rest of the video seriously. JDAMs didn't enter service until 1999
@@praski149 probably done on purpose to get the comment count up
I could let slide that you kept calling laser guided glide bombs, missiles. But then you had a graphic of a bomb with fire coming out of the back of it and that made me laugh.
Bomb is censored lol
@@avo616fr? This is culture changing like unalive taking over
Can't say bomb on an airplane.
@@Watchdog_McCoy_5.7x28 Munition? Ordnance? Air-launched gliding high explosive weapon?
that kind of bomb actually exists though and is called the skipper which has a booster for extended range, u might wanna take a look at it :)
That F-117 shootdown has allot more nuance to it than described. The reason the radars were so often moved around was not to counter stealth, but to prevent themselves from being slapped around by Anti-Radiation missiles like the AGM-88. The Serbs had people watching the runway where F-117's were based, and reporting what aircraft were taking off. That night, the F-117's had no EW or fighter support, and were the only ones in the air. The Serbian air defenders knew ahead of time that only the F-117's would be up, and left their radars on (Something which would be a death sentence any other night). The first two times the commander of the battery which shot down that F-117 turned on his radar, he saw sweet fuck all. The F-117 was only picked up when it opened its bomb bay doors, and the first missile didn't even hit, having been guided in Low-Frequency mode (Less accurate) to have a better chance of picking up the F-117 at all. The shootdown was a result of equal part complacency on the US's part, and very high luck on the Serbs part.
The f-117 had some flaws with its design mostly because all stealth scenarios couldn't be simulated at the time but those flaws were hard to exploit, which americans let the serbs do through the formers laziness/ poor planning
@@andreipiv Yep. That and allot of luck. ALLOT of luck
💯 not to mention, he said the US made no attempt to destroy the wreckage. There’s a few dead Chinese guys from a bombed out embassy that would claim otherwise…
@@andreipiv It's not the fault of the Serbs that the Americans still left their design exposed, the Serbs did what they were supposed to do which was to wait for the plane to be detected and then shoot the invader down.
Honestly, It's a pretty incredible success on the Serbian side of that conflict. Having the correct intelligence apparatus in place to map out previous US flight paths and keeping the airfield under surveillance to understand what threats we were going to be throwing at them
Equally a massive failure on the US side to rely entirely on stealth without support, electronic or otherwise as well as poor mission planning that allowed patterns to be found.
The Nighthawk that was shot down, also had the fact it flew a regular route at a regular time, and advance spotters visually confirming the takeoff and route relaying that information to the aerial defense. I think knowing the route and time really played against the aircraft's effectiveness.
Yep this is probably the most important point in the shootdown.
@@Di3Leberwurst no the most important was the Jamming plane wasn't active. Most narratives forget that from the point of the formally engagement of US military they never again operated without jamming as they knew they were detectable especially by the 90s. Reports from the US's own evaluations also showed Iraq was more S.E.A.D. than D.E.A.D.
Your graphics team needs its own "The insane..." episode to truly understand its magnificent work off late. It's impressive.
Thank you for choosing to put such effort and still keep it free here.
You'll always see me cheering your team and you.
i will definitely watch ”the insane engineering of real engineering”
yeah
The video is really proof that we have a Creator.❤️
Everything you saw in the video (the jet, the clouds; the ground) are made of things called “atoms”! And these are amazing than you think:
Atoms are so small, millions could fit on the period at the end of this comment! -> .
Everything around you, from your hand to the whole universe, are made of 100+ different types of atoms!
And guess what? The screen you’re using to read this TH-cam comment is also made from 100+ different types of atoms - that’s around trillions of trillions (more than you can imagine) of atoms!
We really live in a detailed world.🌌
A world that did not exist by accident, but invented!
I am reading "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich. Not only it is an illuminating story about how these incredible aircrafts were developed, but also some lessons about leadership and manufacturing.
When 2 operational F-117 test models were taking test flight, someone asked Ben Rich: "How much do they cost?"
Ben Rich answered "35 millions."
The other man asked again "No, not each of them. I mean the entire development."
Ben replied "35 millions."
This was developed when Lockheed was in financial trouble. Ben put faith in his engineers at Skunk Works to create the breakthrough of aviation technology, while keeping it perhaps the only case of a cost "under-run" in military technology development.
(I might have some details wrong, but please forgive me. I read the book in English and it is not my first language.)
@@thaileinh9877 Thanks for posting - that small a budget for such advanced development really is astounding.
Great book!
@@thaileinh9877 ah I guess thats probably why you said "35 millionS" twice :D we dont pluralize 'million' in english :D 35,000,000 is just 35 million
My Uncle Tommy was an engineer for the -117. One thing that I love about that airplane is the fact that Have Blue used so many off the shelf parts to make it happen. They used bits and bobs from the F-15, F-16, F-18, F-111, B-52(!!!) and it came in on time, on budget, and changed the future of air power as much as, if not even more than, jet engines.
Imagine stealth propellor aircraft
Edit:(To clarify) a stealth ww2 era propellor plane
Hahaha that's definitely an engineer's mindset. When I design I try to maximize how much of it can be sourced through McMaster-Carr.
This pos changed nothing but the money piles of the .01%
probably the most sensible way to develop future tech - go with mature technology for non-critical components. we learned this the hard way after all the fuckery with the f22 and f35 as well as the zumwalts. the b21 development is going smoothly cuz pretty much all the hardware under the skin is already developed.
@@Idontknow4did you not understand the video?
Just made dinner, just opened TH-cam and Real Engineering just uploaded a video on the nighthawk.
Same lmaooo, what a coincidence.
Same! Except it's a late breakfast 😊
We eating good!
Same bro (I ate it already lol)
I made TH-cam, opened Night Hawk and dinner uploaded a video on Real Engineering
During Desert Storm. The Saudis nicknamed them "ghosts." If you haven't already. I highly recommend the book Skunk Works by Ben H. Rich.
And I believe it is alshabah in Arabic which just sounds really cool and is a great nickname.
I was based at Khamis Mushayt airbase with a RSAF tornado ids squadron with the F117’s based there, we used to watch them taxi out and take off on there missions every night when darkness fell and we had a few visits down the the HAS site to have a look around them
In the local town the photo shops were full of pictures of them in the shop windows they weren’t a secret in the town
The video is really proof that we have a Creator.❤️
Everything you saw in the video (the jet, the clouds; the ground) are made of things called “atoms”! And these are amazing than you think:
Atoms are so small, millions could fit on the period at the end of this comment! -> .
Everything around you, from your hand to the whole universe, are made of 100+ different types of atoms!
And guess what? The screen you’re using to read this TH-cam comment is also made from 100+ different types of atoms - that’s around trillions of trillions (more than you can imagine) of atoms!
We really live in a detailed world.🌌
A world that did not exist by accident, but invented!
@@herbertkeithmillerindeed
in arabic we always call these slick looking stealthy planes "Shabah"
That’s a superb book, read it years ago. Glad I wasn’t alone! 😂
With so many channels using text-to-speech programs, reading only the first numerical information found by googling without fact-checking and deliberately making mistakes so people comment how the video is wrong, therefore bringing engagement, It's nice to see well-researched, high quality documentaries that have clearly had a lot of thought and effort put into them.
@@cruisinguy6024 Just instantly click away from them. It's always obvious. Usually they can't even write the title without it sounding like a made up language
Well, about that...
The video opens with an obvious error. And here I am still feeding the algorithm anyway. 🫠
Literally a big mistake 30 seconds in 😂
what are you talking about i'm not even 10 minutes in and there are two glaring mistakes in both the presentation and the representation of some of the technologies being discussed.
edit: it gets worse.
The Lockheed engineers were confused at first as to why they were finding dead bats around the aircraft whenever it was parked outside. Only to realise that their design was so effective that the bats couldn't see it with echo-location.....
I guess it's just 2 different sources of waves. So maybe it doesn't matter. But a source would be nice
@@mnxs theres actually a story about this!
Bats use sonar which very basically almost works like radar as you need your input to bounce back at you so one time some dude at lockheed tried to take a photo of the aircraft with a camera that used sonar to focus and he couldn't cause it kept on coming back blurry and that what gave him the idea for stealth submarines!
I'm pretty sure sonar stealth submarines never actually happened past some tests but still a really cool story
@@Ryan-ob7yt"stealth submarines never happened..." - that we know of
@@ericw.1620 hah yeah ig that depends on how stealthy they were
@@Ryan-ob7ytall modern subs are relatively stealthy vs sonar, but like stealth aircraft, the anaerobic coating only really works at longer ranges.
My dad likes to tell a story about when he was first stationed at Randolph AFB in the early 90s. Apparently he and his CO were walking around the base, and they kept hearing soft thumps coming from the hangar with the 117s. Upon investigation, they found several unconscious bats along the floor. It seems the fighters disorient the bats’ echolocation systems and they end up slamming against the walls. They eventually had to relocate the bats and set up anti-bat deterrents to stop any more from moving in.
Okay. That's a very original and creative story. You gotta email Myth Busters or something, damn it!!! Get everybody/everything out of retirement for this one.
See comment on Ben Rich’s book “Skunk Works”. He talks about this in the book and how they didn’t have any data outside of test environments that the stealth technology would work. I’m sure the pilots were reassured when they saw the bats
Another crew chief myth...
Now thats a cool story if it really happened.
My spidey sense tells me the USAF would have been more concerned with bats damaging the aircraft than bats dying inside a hangar. Expensive bat eliminator..
0:19 Those are laser guided bombs, not GPS guided missiles. The Nighthawk never carried missiles; it was a very light bomber.
The word 'Bomb' is sensored
how do you know silly man
@@demonicrgc I don't know silly man. Is silly man a friend of yours?
Missiles ...not a bomb. Bomb... not a missile...
@@jamesjross to my knowledge the F-117 can only carry paveway II and IIIs and later JDAM. yes there was a rocket powered version of the paveway (AGM-123) but as far as i (and wikipedia for that matter) know the f-117 did not carry those. and even those are conciderd "rocket assisted bombs" not missiles. conclusion: some artistic liberty was taken by real engineering
editor messed up
@@TNTorge No the Skippers are considered AGM not rocket assisted bombs... AGM-123 Skipper II is a short-range laser-guided missile developed by the United States Navy. The Skipper was intended as an anti-ship weapon, capable of disabling the largest vessels with a 1,000-lb impact-fuzed warhead.
@@petrilofberg1758from Oxford Languages, "an object which is forcibly propelled at a target, either by hand or from a mechanical weapon." So unless you count gravity as forcibly propelling a bomb then they don't really count as missiles...
All missiles are bombs though, it does work the other way around as a bomb is simply a container filled with explosive or incendiary material.
@@petrilofberg1758 Oh For F sake... "Bombs differ from artillery shells, missiles, and torpedoes in that the latter are all propelled through the air or water by a human-made agency, while bombs travel to their targets through the force of gravity alone."
19:01 The elevons deflect downward, but the plane pitches upwards. It is shown correctly at 16:52 .
Yea this is not the first time I noticed this. Animator is not an engineer after all :D
@@slahous if I had to guess, I'd say this was AI generated. Still images can be pretty convincing, but videos are still very quirky in my opinion.
I currently work at the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum in Ashland, Nebraska, home of F-117 Nighthawk 85-0831, which currently holds the record of most flight hours of any Nighthawk and was the one that flew with the Skunkworks logo on its belly for the retirement of Ben Rich.
Im local to this museum, that 117 was a sight to see last year without the ram coatings! What do you do at the museum?
Real Engineering is by far one of the best TH-cam channels.
Defo.
bold but hard to argue
Mustard's on par with these guy's too, alongside LEMMINO with their extremely high quality documentaries
@@kiwuuspurr1927Mustard is too slow on youtube, updating only three to four times a year
let’s call it one of the best Nebula channels
I like Mustard and Neo a lot too
7:35 GBU-10s do not have a rocket motor. They are free fall laser guided bombs. This repeated reference to missiles, and the reference to GPS during the Gulf War (JDAMs didn't exist until almost a decade later), are huge errors. You should fix them and rerelease the video.
Next video should be "The Insane Engineering of GBUs".
It's engagement bait :))) For people to comment and make the video comment count go up
The video is really proof that we have a Creator.❤️
Everything you saw in the video (the jet, the clouds; the ground) are made of things called “atoms”! And these are amazing than you think:
Atoms are so small, millions could fit on the period at the end of this comment! -> .
Everything around you, from your hand to the whole universe, are made of 100+ different types of atoms!
And guess what? The screen you’re using to read this TH-cam comment is also made from 100+ different types of atoms - that’s around trillions of trillions (more than you can imagine) of atoms!
We really live in a detailed world.🌌
A world that did not exist by accident, but invented!
@@Our-Creator-Loves-Us That is the dumbest spam message I've ever seen.
Also, there are not "types" of atoms, there are different elements. And a monitor is not made of over 100 different elements. There's no mercury, einsteinium, or francium in a monitor.
"Trillions of trillions" would be 10^24. There are 10^80 or more atoms in the universe, so you clearly don't understand what you're talking about.
9:48 That guy crawling into the intake just triggered so many fears and revulsions in me😂 Seeing him do that sent shivers down my spine!
forreal, hope they were practicing lock-out-tag-out, and Id have to verify it myself before climbing in there 😅
"missiles"... guided bombs. it carried jdams, paveways(just normal dumb mk82/mk84 bombs upgraded with gps and laser guidance kits respectively) or b61 nukes. it never carried any missiles
A missile is: "an object (such as a weapon) thrown or projected usually so as to strike something at a distance" - this according to Merriam-Webster, an American dictionary. It may not be militarily correct, but it grammatically correct.
@@luckystriker7489 Look at the second definition. Also, that is not the correct use of "grammatically correct".
@@luckystriker7489 Look at the context here (i.e. modern military equipment). That "ancient" definition wouldn't have sufficed, as 'missiles' would've included many other types of dumb weapons.
But yet, there is no official record of the F-117A being upgraded to carry the B61 nuclear bomb. Reason: to prevent accidental detonation, modern free-fall nuclear bombs like the B61 and B83 have extremely complicated fusing systems with a lot of security locks, and that would require the installation of specialized electronics to arm and drop the B61. Interestingly, the Soviets from 1983 on really feared this type of plane, because on a one-way mission it could fly from western Europe all the way to Moscow effectively undetected until the nuclear weapon was dropped, which meant the response time of the air defense system around Moscow would have been just about zero.
the gbu-12 is not a JDAM if you're gonna correct someone please get it correct!
plus the video is about the plane not the weapon the guy just didn't want to research weapons
Another thing to note about the circumstances around Serbia shooting an F-117 down is (iirc) that originally, that plane would be escorted by electronic warfare aircraft. But due to poor weather, those escorts returned to base early.
The video is really proof that we have a Creator.❤️
Everything you saw in the video (the jet, the clouds; the ground) are made of things called “atoms”! And these are amazing than you think:
Atoms are so small, millions could fit on the period at the end of this comment! -> .
Everything around you, from your hand to the whole universe, are made of 100+ different types of atoms!
And guess what? The screen you’re using to read this TH-cam comment is also made from 100+ different types of atoms - that’s around trillions of trillions (more than you can imagine) of atoms!
We really live in a detailed world.🌌
A world that did not exist by accident, but invented!
Yes, that is my understanding. But, the curious thing is that if the weather was bad enough that the escort craft didn’t factor in, then why wasn’t the 117 mission scrubbed?
I was training to get my pilot's license, learning about smooth airflow over lifting surfaces so the first time I saw a F-117 with all the angles and hard edges, my first thought was "That thing flies?"
Fast forward several years. I watched a documentary where they interviewed all the first test pilots. ALL of them, every one said the first time they saw it they thought "That thing flies?"
F-117 now looks like it is not yet fully rendered. Absolute beauty.
lol must still be too far away, LOD hasnt kicked in yet :P
As always, fantastic video. Just gotta point out in the opening scene those are laser guided bombs, which is actually what it carried in the gulf war, so the animation is correct.
Before the serbs come in, Ill write the mandatory paragraph considering the 1999 yugoslavia incident.
Yes, a F117 was shot down, but the reason it was shot down because the Americans were kinda stupid and made multiple mistakes.
The first, crucial mistake, is that they never changed flight path, which meant that you could predict the Nighthawk's location pretty accurately without even using radar. The second, and equally stupid, reason was that when this aircraft was shot down, its bomb bay doors were wide open, ruining the radar cross section. The third reason was that, unlike most nights, there were no seed planes around to protect the aircraft
The yugoslavian army noticed all of this, and in a hail mary attempt to down it, sent a shit ton of rockets with pretty rough directions over a 8 mile radius, and a single "golden shot" downed the aircraft. It didnt hit, but the shrapnel nearby was enough to damage the (way too fragile if I may add) F117, and down it.
The incident isnt a proof of yugoslav military superiority or proof of the F117 being a "shitbox" or whatever I've seen it being called. Its a testament to the US army's stupidity and the fact that sometimes, miracles do in fact happen.
Im tired of this fact being repeated over and over again without proper context. And even with all this context, 1200+ Mission carried out by 59 aircraft over the course of 25 years (1983-2008) is pretty damn impressive.
This is true but just pointing out that the bomb bay doors were open for less than a second, making the shoot down even more unlikely.
Yet they'll probably ignore this constructive text and brag about it anyways...
Cope harder lol, doesn't change the facts hahahaha. You guys never entered by foot just bombing targets w/ many civilian casualties. Neocolonialism at its finest, still to this day you cause wars and keep the US military industry and the warmachine country running.
Is it shut down and put out of production? So, stop trying to make an effort to justify someone's stupidity.
@@milankolarski8876 He's adding some context, to stop s*rb disinfo.
Those animations are going Hollywood level
There is no fallout from an air burst nuclear weapon. Fallout comes from dirt and other debris from the ground being lofted into the sky by a rising mushroom cloud.
Genuinely my favorite plane of all time, with no dog fighting or even combat capacity only surgical precision strikes while being almost invisible.
same!
23:15 wanted to add that the commander of the SAM system later claimed that they were only able to get a lock when the F117’s bomb bay doors opened which briefly created a bigger radar cross section.
He changed his story multiple times. The fact is that the S-125 was in a site location presumed empty so planners put an egress route there. The F-117 basically nearly entered the S-125 minimum engagement distance. Point blank shot.
There were no fancy tactics or trickery involved. Just physics. Stealth works with the inverse square law. Take out the distance, stealth aircraft become detectable.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD yeah, not surprised. Realistically how would he even know that the bomb bay doors were open?
@@MrGluGlu Pure luck, I doubt he was waiting for it to start its run, just got lucky with turning the search radar back on. It certainly would help out a SAM site immensely in gaining a lock, even at close range.
@@MrGluGlu luck? no one has said they KNEW the bomb bay doors were open, just that that's how it happened. I mean if the AA missile batteries were there then the targets were probably very close so there's a decent chance the doors would be opening over that area. Everyone is saying it was the 3rd radar sweep when that time happened to align, its not like they knew when the doors were opening ahead of time and targetted it at that moment.
I gotta say that for a short period of time that is one year that I've been following your channer, the quality of your videos has risen astonishingly! The visual effects are supreme. Keep it up. Definitely worth a subscription!!!
Thanks Brian, now I got "Time after time" stuck in my head.
Loved this plane since it came out. The inlet wipers and the asymmetric thrust were new to me!
Not him adding a rocket motor to a bomb and calling it a missile.
Well, funnily enough the navy did exactly that with the AGM-123, which was a GBU-16 with a rocket motor bolted to it. The F-117 never carried it of course.
A missile is: "an object (such as a weapon) thrown or projected usually so as to strike something at a distance" - this according to Merriam-Webster, an American dictionary. It may not be militarily correct, but it grammatically correct.
@@luckystriker7489 we can argue semantics all day long, but if you're going to make a video about a military aircraft, military terms should take precedence. Bomb & Missile are classed and employed differently within the US military, so it's important to not use the two words interchangeably.
@@abhishekrao1525 We can indeed argue semantics all day. Like for instance a rocket, in military terms is unguided self-propelled, but a rocket according to NASA is indeed guided. SpaceX's Starship is not a missile, it's a rocket. A bomb in the English language is an explosive device regardless if it is placed, dropped, hurled. shot or yeeted. The F-117 most definitely yeeted a bomb which makes it a missile.
@@luckystriker7489 Sure, you're technically correct and you can use both of those words interchangeably all you want when not talking about a military aircraft. But it's inaccurate and irresponsible when talking about a military aircraft and using other military terms. The DoD uses bombs and missiles differently for a reason. I'm guessing you've never served in any military, much less an aviation combat squadron. I have. I'm coming at this from personal experience with existing maintenance and usage procedures.
As a pilot I cannot get enough of these deep dive aircraft engineering vids! Exceptional quality! And that CGI throughout the vid is fantastic
Thank you for talking about the very complex F-117 mission planning system. Very few discussions of the F-117 recognize this critical aspect of the F-117 system. One thing you did not mention is the very advanced (for its time) flight control system of the F-117. This was required due to the airframe being aerodynamically unstable in pitch, roll & yaw. This was made possible by the airflow probes on the nose of the F-117, which was yet another very complex and underappreciated breakthrough from the ADP engineering team.
23:35 Actually, the real reason they were able to shoot down the plane was because they kept flying the exact same route for weeks, which means people were simply able to see the thing.
Even then, the SA-3 radar was only able to lock on to the F-117 after it opened its bomb bay doors. The SA-3 missile hit the F-117 immediately after it dropped its bombs.
IIRC it was also because the F-117 entered the SA-3s minimum engagement range
@@MaxAalbers-xy2xq Other way around. Because they kept using the same flight route, the Yugoslavian army was able to place the radar and missile in it's path.
@@Gemm6905 The F 'Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible' 117 that was detected by then a 30year old Soviet radar. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@bhaashatepe5234Shut up bot
Excellent production!
Seriously one of the best channels on TH-cam. Awesome work.
The bit at 20:45 made me remember playing the video game for the F117 and doing all sorts of crazy stuff like dogfighting enemy fighters and landing on carriers in the gulf. Good times, even if unrealistic.
Um... the F117 wasn't shot down because radar could see it if it flew over, it was shot down because of an extremely lucky radar ping while the bomb bay doors were open. And that still took multiple SAM launches.
The idea that low frequency radar can beat stealth is Russian sales propaganda.
The bomb bay explanation makes no sense. It would have to be stuck open as the aircraft was on egress route. The fact is that stealth works through inverse square law, so if you reduce distance stealth stops working. The F-117 almost flew into the S-125 minimum engagement distance. It was a near point blank shot. Physics itself mandates that a stealth aircraft is detectable at extremely short ranges.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD Basically the radar system was turned on in high power mode and managed to catch the bomb bay door being open JUST as it was opening and they launched on that vector. It was the ONLY time the F117 was EVER shot down and it was sheer luck. And russia has been using that to sell an outdated anti-air system ever since. It's literally russian sales propaganda to say that system can beat Stealth AT ALL.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD also given how the stealth systems WORK in the F117, "the inverse square law" would mean that the F117 would have to be parked on top of the radar system that was set in low power mode for it to detect the F117 was there.
Stealth works by scattering or absorbing radar waves. it's not a magic shield that works off inverse square laws.
Skunkworks did a LOT of tests on Haveblue and got returns the size of a quarter off the aircraft even at very close ranges. Flying into its minimum engagement range makes no sense for it to just beat stealth at that point. So I have no idea how you think this is an "inverse square law" when the radar waves are NOT returning to the transmission point. How do you get better returns off the emissions when they're not coming back? How do you inverse square that?
@@setojuraiit's not about low power, it's about low frequency. Low frequency radars can pick up resonances from parts of stealth planes, and can be used to track them in some cases.
The tradeoff is that low frequency radars don't have the information density for high resolution. In other words, a low frequency radar can track a stealth plane in some cases, but can't lock a missile on. You need a high frequency radar to get a missile lock, and those are what most stealth aircraft are built to beat (except the B-2, which doesn't need to make concessions to fighter maneuverability and is built to beat everything).
@@sethb3090 Thank you for the expansion on that. That's good info. And yeah, he still had to operate the radar in high frequency mode (I used the word power for some weird reason but yes you're right) to get a missile lock. Which he did. Off an open bomb bay door. Which was only open for a few seconds at a time. Dude got seriously lucky and Russia has used that ever since to sell their inferior systems. And a disturbing amount of people think that the radar legitimately can beat stealth systems.
I may be mistaken. But I think it's JDAM or GBU's shown at ca. 00:18. And not missiles.
Anywwho.. Great video, thanks
The animation looks like Paveway II (UK), which is essentially a GBU-10 Paveway II, but with a Mk 13 1000-lb GPB instead of a 2000-lb Mk 84 or BLU-109.
The Nighthawk would've used either the GBU-10 or -12 Paveway II or the GBU-27 Paveway III in Desert Storm, JDAM wasn't operational until late 1998.
It's engagement bait :))) For people to comment and make the video comment count go up
@@doktork3406lie, he made a comment that he pinned and got too much backlash so he deleted it lol
Just want to put it out there, being able to see this a day or two ahead on nebula without ads that make me feel like running a railroad spike through my head, is what keeps me going through college.
Just wanted to mention how top tier the animation of this video is. Better than most things I've seen.
0:18 it bothers me more than it should that he said 'Missiles' & depicted the GBUs with trails 😢
Also, they are laser guided, not GPS guided (edited the comment due to incorrect grammar)
@@tejas1205the animation is correct
Aperantly laser guided bombs were used
The amount of people on the spectrum using this to completely discredit all the hard work put into this vid is insane...
Yes, it's a mistake. But way too many of you are letting this ruin a really high quality video.
@@SuperCatacata i havent seen anyone trying to discredit the video for one mistake
What people are doing is pointing it out
@@SuperCatacata You don't have to be autistic to be able to point out errors that should've been trivial to get right with barely a few minutes of googling.
15:25
Just want to make it clear that this point is more about negative aerodynamic features rather than poor lift.
Airfoil is more (almost entirely) about NOT worsening aerodynamics.
The lift force is almost entirely created by the angle of attack.
This is probably the most common misconception in aviation.
It's fascinating to learn how advancements in stealth technology dramatically altered the nature of warfare and spawned a new generation of aircrafts. The precision and relentless attention to detail demonstrated in the engineering of the F-117 is truly remarkable.
The video is really proof that we have a Creator.❤️
Everything you saw in the video (the jet, the clouds; the ground) are made of things called “atoms”! And these are amazing than you think:
Atoms are so small, millions could fit on the period at the end of this comment! -> .
Everything around you, from your hand to the whole universe, are made of 100+ different types of atoms!
And guess what? The screen you’re using to read this TH-cam comment is also made from 100+ different types of atoms - that’s around trillions of trillions (more than you can imagine) of atoms!
We really live in a detailed world.🌌
A world that did not exist by accident, but invented!
Your winglets video over 8 years ago was one of your very first videos that I watched, Before you even had 50k subs. I am glad and proud to be a subscriber to your channel and consistently watching your content for all these years. I was 14 years old when I first started watching you and I’m 22 now.
is a true master piece
This was one of the rare cards to get in the Desert Storm trading cards.
Naw you just unlocked a long lost memory for me. That game was lit
@the_fat_hans7755 I know, this video did the same for me too. But yeah man that was old school legit!
My parents were both in Security Police during the 90s in the USAF. My father used to tell me a lot of stories about his time at Eglin AFB and this aircraft was his all time favorite. One of his favorite (and most boring) posts was watching over the 117s. What’s funny is he was always told to NEVER touch these aircraft due to the material on these aircraft but he ended up touching one secretly lolol. One of the best moments of his life. My father passed away in 2016 sadly but I still have a picture of him standing next to this beautiful aircraft with his m16. I have never been huge into aircrafts until my father passed and anytime I see the F-117 anywhere I always think of him. Rest in peace dad.
I love all the renders and animations, each and every one is extremely pleasing to look at.
Who else thinks the next insane engineering video will be on the B-2 or the F-22?
I would love to see ‘The Insane Engineering of the B1 Lancer
(B-O-N-E)
It can't be the F22. There's still not enough information available for this
I would love to see a B2 video though
@@elina35462 fair point
@@leveler7436 YES
0:19 these are paveway laser guided bombs
@@jamesjross the fuck?
It's engagement bait :))) For people to comment and make the video comment count go up
This is such an informative engaging video. Thank you for explaining things so clearly with beautiful visuals. Excellent video!
The animation in this video was incredible!
We didn’t know it was invisible
What’s crazy is no other country has been able to produce a plane as stealthy as the F-117 at scale, despite it being 40+ years old technology.
Its more about budgets and money really since the US military has almost unlimited funds- and being fair many 'early' stealth aircraft are really batch produced (64 F117s, low numbers of F22s & B2s- its only second gen thats getting the numbers). No other country could afford to develop something that could have been a dead end.
Its second generation stealth thats become affordable allowing any nation to make a true mass produced stealth aircraft- including the US.
You saw the level of compromises required to achieve the stealth performance it had, modern stealth aircraft are far, far more capable and still stealthy enough; it is no longer top priority because it doesn't need to be. If they set their mind to it, pretty much any modern air force would be able to field an aircraft way stealthier than the F-117 was, but the question is why bother if it would so heavily cripple other aspects?
The F 'Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible' 117 that was detected by then a 30year old Soviet radar. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@rubbernuke1234 🤣🤣🤣🤣 the coping mechanism of the fan boys of the US imperialism is unbelievable. they even defended the illegal actions conducted by the US and its puppets through military actions in sovereign countries such as Iraq, Serbia, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, etc,
The F 'Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible' 117 that was detected by then a 30year old Soviet radar. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@bhaashatepe5234Bot please shut up
Video production at the highest quality. The CGI of the plane and the documents presentation like lying on the table is quite realistic.
Both the visuals and the information is of such high quality. Thank you for your time and effort that goes in to making these videos!
Serbs with their 1960s SAM:
"sorry, we didn't know it was invisible"
I love the F-117
Around 12 years ago I was in a UK motorway services on the M4. One of these passed at quite low altitude overhead (possibly landing at Brize Norton). I was amazed that I didn’t hear unless almost completely overhead. Even then, incredibly quiet for a military jet.
The way you tie in military arms race is 2nd to none.
Info is great, amazing that this can be watched for free.
I have nebula, it's worth it.
The graphics and visuals on here are next level these days 👌
Please put insane engineering of rafale
Why is it insane?
@@mossab8209 rafale is capable of shooting f22 raptor
You guys just don't miss. Makes me feel like I'm watching the history channel back in the 90's.
23:12 You failed to mention a _critical_ fact about that shoot-down: that F-117 had malfunctioned and had its weapon bay door jammed open, thereby largely negating its stealth profile.
Just got on break at McDonald's, I see Real Engineering uploaded, and I'm getting paid soon. Thanks for making today great
Hey you guys get McDonald's themed item's as gifts too?
@@helpthebirdsarekeepingmeho4368 Wdym by getting gifts?
How do you actually get a job at McD's?
if you say missile one more time...
This plane made my shortlist for childhood favorites. It's always wonderful to learn more about the planes I've revered for as long as I can remember!
I saw a pair of these as a kid in 2000 flying high in the direction of New Mexico during Recess play time. Still feels like a new plane every time I see it
Its only a matter of time until Serbians find their way to this video and start commenting on how they shot one down
There's literally a guy right under you for me that posted some of that shit lmao
With its bomb-bay open (for 30 seconds of the whole mission) and therefore the stealth profile ruined. But that makes the story less impresssive so they somehow forget about that part of the story
@@nekdonikde5317 Worse... They were flying known routes every single night, allowing the AA battery to position itself perfectly and there were no anti-radiation escorts to cover for them that night, unlike most nights.
@@somelokyguy6466 yeah I know. But didn't want to make the comment too long
@@alexanderd6793🤣🤣🤣🤣 the coping mechanism of the fan boys of the US imperialism is unbelievable. they even defended the illegal actions conducted by the US and its puppets through military actions in sovereign countries such as Iraq, Serbia, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, etc,
The F 'Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible' 117 that was detected by then a 30year old Soviet radar. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Lmao, half these comments are complaining about how it didnt carry missiles but bombs and the other half are Serbs coping about 99
Incredibly well done as usual. Thoroughly enjoyed this one guys!
7:32 My dude really slapped rocket engine on a GBU-10 Paveway laser guided bomb and called it a missile. The cringe is barely tolerable.
Everything else was great as always. Just, as a DCS nerd and an ex-soldier, I had a physical reaction to this. LOL
lmao, that really is funny
yeah that one hurt personally. also the opening when he called it GPS guided missile.. there were no JDAMs in 1991 LOL.
It's engagement bait :))) For people to comment and make the video comment count go up
Plot twist: Tony Stark built this in a cave with a box of scraps🙂
One of the coolest storiest to me was that while nighthawks were stationed in the middle east, ground crews would often find dead bats next to the tails of the planes in the morning since the bats wouldn't "see" them with their sonar and just flew into the thin tails during the night.
I find this difficult to believe. Sound deadening is a completely unrelated topic to stealth.
Way to go, man! This is an awesome video about something I think is very cool. You and your team did excellent work and should be very proud.
EXCUSES EXCUSES:
"F117 wasn't followed with a fleet of jamming planes"
"They used the same flight path"
"Rat chew on the stealth cables"
"Pilot opened bomb bay door too soon"
"A crow take a dump on a plane before flight and made it visible to radar"
"A pigeon was splashed over windshield before take off"
YAWN YAWN YAWN.
Reality?
It was detected by S125, locked, shot down, game over.
That was confirmed kill.
Night before another one F117 was detected, damaged, but managed to escape.
COPE HARDER!
We want peace...not war....
Again amazing animation !! Better than every big TV chanel documentary .
My first assignment in the USAF was at a F-117 base. When I arrived an F-117 flew right over my head as it landed. Pretty epic way to start my USAF career.
Greetings from Serbia, sorry we didn't know it was invisible.
the bomb bay doors were open so its stealth coating was broken. also shooting down a plane with 0 defense capabilities isn't a flex.
You want the whole paragraph on why it was luck or do you already know that?
Sorry, we didn't know your country fell appart around the same time
@@abdallah-yu8hqthan learn to build a better door. 😂😂😂
@@jovansvedic8423the doors were open for less than a second lol. If it were a real problem then the genocidal maniacs would’ve shot down more than 1
Oh... Serbian comments are inbound!
Edit: And I got time to watch this to end - An epic plane from my childhood x)
Yeah wasn't one or a similar shot down?
@@ILovePancakes241 f117 was shot down becose of very good luck and knowing there werent any sead planes in the air
@@ILovePancakes24 Yeah - they got lazy, flew the same route every time and this Serbian SAM guy was clever at moving his missiles, use a low band radar.. they knew the plane was taking off from the base, and as soon as the bomb bay door were open they shot a missile and got the plane.
Or something - its a long time ago I made a deep dive into the incident.
It taught NATO and USAF to not be complaisant even with superior stealth.
@@ILovePancakes24 🤣🤣🤣🤣 the coping mechanism of the fan boys of the US imperialism is unbelievable. they even defended the illegal actions conducted by the US and its puppets through military actions in sovereign countries such as Iraq, Serbia, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, etc,
The F 'Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible' 117 that was detected by then a 30year old Soviet radar. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@nikolaideianov5092 🤣🤣🤣🤣 the coping mechanism of the fan boys of the US imperialism is unbelievable. they even defended the illegal actions conducted by the US and its puppets through military actions in sovereign countries such as Iraq, Serbia, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, etc,
The F 'Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible' 117 that was detected by then a 30year old Soviet radar. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Those inward fins look so good!
This was the first ever model plane that i build, love it.
Great video
These topics are interesting, but I don't like the "Insane Engineering of ..." title format, seems a bit clickbaity to me
Well we should ask one of the engineers that worked on the F-117. Knowing the hard work of engineering that goes behind simple commercial technology, I bet the one needed for such a plane has the merit of the adjective "insane"
nice story telling and graphics. But please get your story straight/consistent. Is it Bombs or missiles? Is it Laser guided or GPS guided? Because to my knowledge (and the most basic "research" (wikipedia)) the F117 was only able to carry bombs. Those are not Missiles. It leaves an aweful taste and loss of trustworthiness , when someone trying to present science and engineering, gets such simple things wrong, which should be able to be solved with research on which science and engineering is based on.
To answer your questions:
In Desert Storm, the only weapons the F-117 would've had available are laser guided bombs. Those are the GBU-10 and GBU-12 Paveway II and the GBU-27 Paveway III. The video mostly seems to show GBU-10s.
The F-117 is indeed only able to carry bombs. In addition to the ones I've mentioned, it can also carry the B61 nuclear bomb and the GBU-31 and 38 JDAM (which were introduced at the end of 1998, so too late for Desert Storm).
And yes, common military parlance is that a missile is both self-powered (be it from a rocket motor, a jet engine etc) and guided. There are exceptions though (notably the AGM-154 JSOW, which is given the missile designation, but is an unpowered glide-bomb).
@@OliverMiles98 haha thanks for the reply. It was more of a rethorical question but I appreciate the effort :) As a side note, do you perhaps play war thunder?, cause that got me tripping in the very first mins of the videos seeing a LGB being dropped, whilst speaking of a GPS guided bomb (My Knowledge from WT finally pays off lmao).
@@nor3057 "As a side note, do you perhaps play war thunder?"
I used to years back, almost always tanks though. I quit because I found its fun to frustration ratio _far_ too freaking low and when I found out about Gunner HEAT PC I jumped ship completely.
For aircraft I'm mostly into DCS, it has its own issues and I haven't really played it for a year and a half now.
My knowledge here though comes from general interest, plus researching this stuff is fairly trivial. Designation systems for instance has some good information on the Paveway II and III series, as well as the JDAM.
A really cool book about this is the memoir from the mentioned Ben Rich, Skunk Work: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed.
For me, a dedicated video on B2 bomber from Real Engineering is the most awaited one.
For the love of God, the weapons were LASER-guided BOMBS. It’s wrong details like this that make me want to unsubscribe so GET IT RIGHT.
🤓☝️
Lol. You gunna be ok? It's a free video that is incredibly well produced 😂 relax. It's probably a mistake in the script and not his intelligence
Seeing the F-117 on display at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley was a highlight of a recent trip. Well worth it to stand in the presence (and shadow) of an incredibly cool aircraft.
I love these long videos on stuff like this
I’m blown away by the graphics/animation! Best science channel.