Is the silver fox different than the Nighthawk? You be the judge...

I was looking through some pics and I noticed a little irregularity with ole silver fox. Now I don't think its the angle cause too much stuff looks different on the grey one. The wings, tails, exhaust, etc.

What you guys think?

I think you're right. It's almost like the Silver Fox was an early build, or prototype, and the rest were altered based on things they found from the early ones (or the other way around and they altered some late builds). But I definitely see what you mean, the exhaust is shorter in length, the tails don't angle out as far, and the wingsweep is sharper.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Yeah sorry i stole the words from your text message. lol

reply to post by boomer135


Hey no problem. It doesn't change that it definitely is different from the others.

Part of the problem with your images is that they aren't cropped and resized to the same scale of each other. So, one plane appears different than the other due to stretching/compressing of the image.

Either way, the single grey F-117 is called the "Grey Dragon" and it's the only F-117A Nighthawk to be painted in a two-tone grey paint scheme for testing of daytime operations of the F-117A.

The grey F-117A is exactly the same as the black F-117A. Just different color paint.

reply to post by _BoneZ_


There's a great overhead shot of the grey bird, and a black F-117 and the wing does look different on the grey. It's a sharper sweep on the grey aircraft compared to the black. It's not as sharp as it looks in some pictures, but it definitely looks sharper. In fact I've found a couple black ones that look like the wing angle is slightly different to the others as well.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I've put the photos in photoshop along with a few others I've found, the wings on the silver fox are Definately swept back at a different angle, and the tail on the silver fox is closer together than on the black nighthawk.

I was going to start a thread on this, but is it possible that they are testing new meta materials on the skins of the F-117?

Cheers.

reply to post by Stealthbomber


It's possible. Either they were testing something on it, or like I said, they found something that worked a little better partway through production and made changes based on it.

If the Grey Dragon (or Grey Ghost) was different from the black Nighthawk, they would have different designations. But they are both designated F-117A. Every source I can find in a quick search indicates that a single F-117A was painted grey for testing of daytime operations. There are no design differences between the grey and black F-117A's.

So, unless someone can provide any sources indicating different designs for the grey and black F-117A's besides photo manipulations in Photoshop, then this case is closed as far as I'm concerned.


But sitting here saying they're different without any sources is embracing ignorance, and contrary to what I could find in a quick search.

reply to post by _BoneZ_


Yeah if you read that link you sourced you'll see that those are my pics there. On aviationintel.com as well. I know tyler rogoway. I thought there was more than one though.

Originally posted by _BoneZ_
If the Grey Dragon (or Grey Ghost) was different from the black Nighthawk, they would have different designations. But they are both designated F-117A. Every source I can find in a quick search indicates that a single F-117A was painted grey for testing of daytime operations. There are no design differences between the grey and black F-117A's.

So, unless someone can provide any sources indicating different designs for the grey and black F-117A's besides photo manipulations in Photoshop, then this case is closed as far as I'm concerned.


But sitting here saying they're different without any sources is embracing ignorance, and contrary to what I could find in a quick search.

edit on 15-6-2013 by _BoneZ_ because: (no reason given)

Except they are both my pics and I didn't manipulate the photos. Just put them side by side in paint and saved it.

And the "Grey Dragon" was being flown by a lockheed civilian. Skunkworks usually doesnt flight test the planes after they have been fully tested and certified and given to the Air Force, which occured way back in the days of Ben Rich...unless it was a different design/model.

And sorry if you think we are embracing ignorance with our questions.

reply to post by boomer135


Looks like a working prototype. Probably for aerial testing. (Stability, speed etc.) I'm sure the insides of the two were/are quite different though.

But I honestly have very little knowledge of either so take my post as an uneducated guess.

You're correct they are different. The silver is slightly smaller has different wing and vertical stabilizer angles (which is what makes its smaller as it's slightly narrower). They even unofficially have different designations, the silver was unofficially the F-117A2 later the F-117B. The official designation was the same as part of a disinfo campaign so any leaked documents or details wouldn't tip off anyone who would care that there were actually two projects going on. There were even several other models that never saw flight. I don't know how much of the other differences besides the visual one's I should talk about, but I can find out sometime soon.

reply to post by EViLKoNCEPTz


People who say that the Gray Dragon and other F-117A aircraft are externally different are mistaken. The Nighthawk often looks very different from photo to photo depending on the angle from which the shot was taken, the cameral lens and magnification, etc. It is an optical illusion that I have become very familiar with over the years.

There were only two model designations for the Lockheed Nighthawk, YF-117A and the F-117A. The first YF-117A did have smaller tail fins during the first 10 flights but these were replaced with the enlarged version that became standard for the fleet. Fuselage and wings remained the same for all preproduction and production airframes (780 through 843).

The Gray Dragon was not the only F-117A flown with a gray paint scheme. There were at least six gray Nighthawks.

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.

reply to post by Shadowhawk


It would be helpful if you listed your source(s). And please don't link wiki, I'll laugh at you. I know someone who worked with LM on the project really well and I'm much more inclined to believe him than you, or any source on the internet. Considering there was an entire book the size of an unabridged dictionary full of misinformation and disinformation for this project a lot of what is in the public isn't entirely accurate. Even some of the people who worked on the project weren't entirely sure what was true or not. There were even several false airframes built for people to work with to keep the final designs secret. Several of the other prototypes designed in conjunction with the project were classified and put on the backburner until technology had advanced to a point where they could become viable. Some say only about 40% of the truth surrounding the stealth projects was ever made public and the other 60% was organized disinfo to keep the competition from getting the upper hand.

reply to post by boomer135


It is the angle that you're viewing it from.



Edit: Have Blue had a higher sweep than the F-117, but it was much different than the low-vis F-117 in your picture.

Originally posted by EViLKoNCEPTz
reply to post by Shadowhawk

 

It would be helpful if you listed your source(s). And please don't link wiki, I'll laugh at you. I know someone who worked with LM on the project really well and I'm much more inclined to believe him than you, or any source on the internet. Considering there was an entire book the size of an unabridged dictionary full of misinformation and disinformation for this project a lot of what is in the public isn't entirely accurate.

Um, Shadowhawk is the source. He's written the book on the SR-71 among other planes, and has more knowledge about skunk works than any of us on the site. I'll go with what he's saying here.

reply to post by boomer135


If there is one person you don't question, it is Shadowhawk. ;-)

You can probably tweak a plane a bit, but making significantly different versions would require a custom set of tooling. Certainly true for the wings. Changing the center of gravity would effect the control system. In a modern aircraft, that could be a software hack, but somebody has to do it, check it, tweak it, approve it, fill out the paperwork, yada yada yada. It was like that rumor about the supersized F117 flying around the range. A similar but larger aircraft would have some differences if optimized.

Every once in a while you read about the tooling for some type of aircraft being destroyed, as in they aren't going to make another. I can't believe it is a storage capacity issue, but who knows. Often things are destroyed just to get the asset off the books to make the bean counters happy.

I recall reading that they did a study for daytime stealth and pink was the winner. Well except the USAF would never fly a pink plane. Not a very saturated pink. More like gray with a pink tint, but still......

reply to post by EViLKoNCEPTz


Shadowhawk dos'nt need Wiki in any form. Writer and many contacts within the Black world.

Originally posted by boomer135
Shadowhawk is the source.

This.

Originally posted by boomer135
And sorry if you think we are embracing ignorance with our questions.

Nobody was embracing ignorance with asking questions. There were a couple people in this thread claiming that the grey F-117A and black F-117A are "definitely different" without any sources or proof at all.

Shadowhawk confirmed what I had said about there being only one designation for both the grey and black F-117's, just in much more detail.