Actually, there were at least six gray F-117A stealth fighters.

The first five Full-Scale Development airframes (Articles 780, 781, 782, 783, and 784) were painted overall light gray during early testing. FSD-1 (Article 780) made its initial flights in a desert camouflage scheme before being painted in the proposed production gray scheme. Ben Rich, head of Lockheed's Skunk Works, personally preferred gray and would have delivered the entire fleet in gray, but chief of Tactical Air Command, Gen. William Creech, wanted black since he felt it would better mask the faceting and their shadows during the day. "You don't ask the commander of TAC why he wants to do something. He pays the bills," Rich later recalled. "The Skunk Works plays by the Golden Rule: he who has the gold sets the rules! If the general had wanted pink, we'd have painted them pink."

In July 1993, FSD-3 (Article 782) was painted once again in a gray scheme for daylight visibility tests. During the trials, known as Project Evening Shade, the pilots used the call sign GRAY GHOST. The airplane was repainted overall black in October 1993.

In December 2003, Article 835 was painted in the same scheme as the F-22A for another set of daylight visibility tests undertaken by the Dragon Test Team OT&E group at Holloman. Known as "The Gray Dragon, " it wore this paint scheme until its retirement in March 2007.

During 2005, FSD-4 (Article 783) was repainted in an overall gray scheme for similar tests at Palmdale.

Plus, the roles of the F-22 and F-35 are rather different and more versatile than that of the F-117.

The Nighthawk's 'F' designation is somewhat confusing, and possibly to hush-up the true capabilities of the F-117 as a deep-penetrating strike aircraft. It was never designed for dogfighting, or Air Superiority like the Raptor, and didn't have the multirole capability of the turkey (my designation for the F-35 ) However, as a deep-strike platform, indications are that it was superb.

The only reason the F-117A received an "F" designation is that the SENIOR TREND FSD prototypes were tested under the designation YF-117A. The use of nonstandard YF designations for "black projects" aircraft was started with Project HAVE DOUGHNUT in 1968, and continues to this day. The numbering order is essentially random and the YF prefix, which ordinarily denotes a prototype fighter, is applied regardless of aircraft type. When SENIOR TREND went operational, it was just easier to keep the F-117A designation and drop the Y (prototype) prefix. It's the same lazy approach to assigning numbers as going from X-35 to F-35, or changing the P-170 into the RQ-170.