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96 pages. Illustrations (color). Decorative cover with front and back flaps.

96 pages. Illustrations (color). Decorative cover with front and back flaps. The cover has slight wear and soiling. This is one of the At The Controls series. The F-117A Stealth Fighter is designed to be undetectable by radar. Developed in great secrecy during the Cold War, it spearheaded the air assault on Iraq in 1991. At the Controls investigates the secret origins of the Stealth program and how the F-117A is able to penetrate heavily defended airspace that no other plane could venture near. At the Controls takes you on a combat mission with the F-117A, revealing how to attack enemy command bunkers with laser-guided bombs and how to defeat modern antiaircraft defenses. Jon Lake specializes in Aviation, Combat Aircraft, Modern Warfare, Vietnam War, World War II. He is the author of, among other titles, B-52 Stratofortress Units in Combat 1955-73, B-52 Stratofortress Units in Operation Desert Storm, Blenheim Squadrons of World War 2, Halifax Squadrons of World War 2, Lancaster Squadrons 1942-43, Lancaster Squadrons 1944-45, Sunderland Squadrons of World War 2. The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a retired American single-seat, subsonic twin-engine stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). It was the first operational aircraft to be designed with stealth technology. Work on what would become the F-117 was commenced in the 1970s as a means of countering increasingly sophisticated Soviet surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). During 1976, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued Lockheed with a contract to produce the Have Blue technology demonstrator, the test data from which validated the concept. On 1 November 1978, it was decided to proceed with the F-117 development program. A total of five prototypes would be produced; the first of which performed its maiden flight during 1981 at Groom Lake, Nevada. The first production F-117 was delivered in 1982, and its initial operating capability was achieved in October 1983. All aircraft were initially based at Tonopah Test Range Airport, Nevada. The aircraft's faceted shape (made from two-dimensional flat surfaces) heavily contributes to its relatively low radar cross-section of about 0.0108 square feet. To minimize its infrared signature, it has a non-circular tail pipe that mixes hot exhaust with cool ambient air and lacks afterburners; it is also restricted to subsonic speeds as breaking the sound barrier would produce an obvious sonic boom that would increase both its acoustic and infrared footprints. While its performance in air combat maneuvering was less than that of most contemporary fighters, it was strictly an attack aircraft despite being commonly referred to as the "Stealth Fighter". For this reason, it is equipped with integrated sophisticated digital navigation and attack systems, targeting being achieved via a thermal imaging infrared system and a laser rangefinder/laser designator. It is aerodynamically unstable in all three aircraft principal axes and thus requires constant flight corrections via a fly-by-wire (FBW) flight system to maintain controlled flight. Even years following its entry to service, the F-117 was a black project, its existence being denied by USAF officials. On 10 November 1988, the F-117 was publicly acknowledged for the first time. Its first combat mission was flown during the United States invasion of Panama in 1989. The last of 59 production F-117s were delivered on 3 July 1990. The F-117 was widely publicized for its role in the Gulf War of 1991, having flown approximately 1, 300 sorties and scored direct hits on what the US called 1, 600 high-value targets in Iraq. F-117s also participated in the conflict in Yugoslavia, during which one was shot down by a surface-to-air missile (SAM) in 1999. It was also active during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The USAF retired the F-117...