A scene never to be repeated again: a sky filled with black stealth fighter jets

January 2, 2014 Military Aviation

F-117 fill the sky — 25 Nighthawks fill the sky over Holloman on Oct. 27, 2006 (Image credit: Denny Lombard via Lockheed Martin).

On Oct. 27, 2006, twenty-five Lockheed F-117A stealth jets flew over Heritage Park at Holloman Air Force Base during the Silver Stealth event for the F-117’s 25th anniversary.

59 production “Nighthawk” aircraft (one of those was lost to the Serbian Air Defense during “Operation Allied Force“) served with the U.S. Air Force until the type was retired in 2008: about half of them can be seen flying together in the image taken by Denny Lombard and released by LM’s Code One magazine.

For another impressive air-to-air image of the 25 stealth jets taken during the same event, have a look here.

By the way, isn’t that ironic that 25 aircraft filling the sky would still not appear on radar (at least, unless they were using transponder or Luneburg lenses)?

About David Cenciotti 4382 Articles

David Cenciotti is a freelance journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written four books.