Contrary to popular belief, the F117 can be tracked on radar. It's very difficult but can be done. I've done it and know others that have as well (Brits in 1992). The F117 was primarily designed to be invisible to high frequency radars and nearly invisible to long range air search radars (low freq types). High Freq radars are the fire control radars, meaning that the NightHawk is nearly impossible to lock up but not impossible to track. Given the Serbs knew the track, if you find one and then shift to thermal sights for the SA-6, a shoot down isn't very surprising.

There are so many inaccuracies in this story that it's not even funny. First of all the Serb Commander was not using a specially modified radar system or a home built device. That's all pure BS. The real truth is the Serbs were using a 45 year old radar system they had gotten from Russia. This radar system employed long wave length radar which no one uses any more. All most all of the current up to date radar systems utilize short wave length radar which cannot detect stealth aircraft like the F-117. It was pure fluke that the Serbs even had that older system because they would have preferred to have had one of the newer systems. Had they had one of the most advanced radar systems in use today, they would have never seen the F-117 on their radar screens thus they wouldn't have shot it down. That is the true story all this other crap about a specially modified radar system is nothing but pure crap.

I stumbled across this thread while surfing and thought I'd post some info that evidently has been lacking on the original post topic (F117 shot down):

(full disclosure--if your asking for me to cite sources or post links to my "source", I can't. My source is myself - having been on the program for the better part of the decade of the 90's I can speak from first-hand knowledge of some of the topics)

No F-117s were lost in combat over Panama. For common sense maintenance reasons all tail numbers are known and tracked. There were no combat losses over Panama. Please put this to bed.

Kosovo--We lost one aircraft flying from the squadron we had flying out of Aviano (806) and I will not get into the technologies that the Serbs had (I'm ignorant to it and can't speak to it) or to the capabilities of the aircraft I worked on (not appropriate). But I can say that, without a doubt, another aircraft did sustain battle damage and did return to my unit flying out of Spangdahlem. An enemy surface to air missile had it's proximity switch activated after it was fired at a nearby F-18. The pilot banked to the right when he got a visual on the missile track, this most definitely saved his life and the aircraft. Shrapnel went through the left wing, engine, tail section and passed through the cockpit and under the ejection seat. His radios were fried and he called in the damage through the intercom to the tanker on his way home. We waited at the end of the runway and he performed an uneventful landing and taxiied off the runway. As we were hooking up comm to talk to the pilot, massive amounts of fuel were noticed coming out from under the left engine (the main fuel feed line was found to have a 3" hole in it from shrapnel) I immediately directed him to shut down the aircraft and egress the aircraft. The fire department sat there prepared to fight a fire that never came. I went over to the far side of the jet and caught the pilots helmet and as he slid down the side of the aircraft (they didn't even get the ladder off the truck!) he came to a running stop against me. I asked him what happened and he said "I don't know, but I think it had something to do with the missile that exploded right over my head!" He was (me too admittedly) pretty high on adrenaline. As it was nearing dawn and we new the legendary European planespotters would be near the fenceline we quickly got the aircraft inside a hangar and started to see all the damage. It was discussed to pull the wings off and fly it via C-5 back to the states. But we decided we could fix it there. EXTENSIVE repairs ensued and the structures guys and the specialists who had to rewire the cockpit performed amazingly and the aircraft was airworthy in exactly 30 days. A local flight to perform ops checks was performed and then the aircraft flew home for RCS testing to see if anything could be learned from the incident. The aircraft was returned to service after testing was complete but it did not return to Europe.

Sorry for the long post, but those of us attached to the program loved the jet and I wanted all their hard work putting that one jet back together to get a little recognition, most people in the Air Force don't fly, we just do everything else.

thanks for sharing that mech 117.
This repair that you speak of was done on station in Aviano?

No, I was with the 8th Fighter Squadron flying out of Spangdahlem AB, Germany. The 9th Fighter Squadron was down in Aviano. There was only so much ramp space to park airplanes at Aviano so our squadron flew out of Germany (war is hell!)

The Serbs simply modified there SA-3 radar sets to pulse doppler mode by retuning the if detector stage in the radar receiver. This creates a slope detector that will defeat any stealth aircraft at short range.
A slope detector has the advantage over normal FM detectors in pulse doppler radar sets because it shows both amplitude and doppler shift at the same time. The greater the velosity of the aircraft the higher the output of a slope detector producing a +20db gain at 600mph over a stationary object. This cancels out half of the -45db radar signal loss at X-band for the F-117. A simple mode to the APG-66 radar set used in the f-16/18 aircraft will allow the radar set to detect an f-22 at 40+ miles. A similar mode to the AIM-7 Sparrow missile will allow it to engage an f-22 at 20 miles.