You’re right on Chief. They always were, and still are, very pristine externally. The ground crews had to wear white cloth booties whenever working on the Hawk. Weathering will not be very familiar to the guys who have been close to the F-117 during it’s deployment years. Frankly, I much prefer mine without the so called weathered look, even though a few might look that way now. Still a good number of the flying for training and aggressor purposes.
there is an active squadron still flying these - possibly modified by DARPA - at Area 51
Guys, the mat colour, even black ALWAYS has weathering effect. You can notice the same on Blackbird, its not only black, but mix of different tone of black and dark grey. Its possible to achive here by PBR textures but thanks to different coulor on texture too. Then the model will look natural.
Few examples IRL if someone thinks that it has to be black only:
(the last one is from museum from sure and effect is too strong, however it isnt using outside now so it’s good as well to see some external effect).
This is too strong, but real picture too (check the place behind the valve for aerial refueling)
This is interesting and good effect on the kit model:
Personally I dont like factory fresh and never used plane, I hope some of those effects will be present too.
But according me the author will do it due what I saw what he did in the cockpit
and the last sentence “These screens don’t have any textures, its just the raw model and decals”, so he knows about it and we will get a very high quality product (which I have no doubt from what I see)
Thank You!
I have a feeling this will have a place in my FS2020 installation. ![]()
I also hope you might be able to get the flight model to a good degree of realism - although the plane is still fairly secret (and is still flying). I hope to get to see a real one in flight before they stop it completely.
There are actually only base textures in those images, no COMP or normal textures because I broke them without realising
Here are the fixed ones, not happy with the cavity dirt so ignore that, and still have other filth and dust to add + oil stains + fix baking issues. Other livery plans include US flag scheme, one that’s had fuel spilt all down its back, the pastel and greys, and the current Tenopah birds cause I like the red
maybe even that rumoured mirrored one ![]()
WIP Images, lots of bits still untextured, but feel free to give feedback, because it’s much easier to make changes now.
Wow! Nice, nice and nice, I take all! ![]()
I could stare at that in sim for quite a while!
Especially while having to watch a chic flic with my wife.
I would just have this open on my screen which is right under our tv. ![]()
Those look very good.. As a side note, all the F-117’s that I saw, around 30, were Flat Black, just like screen shot 167, the second image above.
One Black one for me, the others are ok, just provide them all as liveries and probably most will be happy.
You definitely have a winner here, but ultimately, at the end of the day, it also has to fly well.
Btw. @ AerialSim, you are really fast man!
The progress is going very well and each 1-2 days we see serious progress, crg!
Id like to ask about the main TV screen in the cockpit. Does MSFS SDK allow to do something with this screen?
The SDK does, whether I can is another question. I will try but I know next to nothing about Javascript.
Probably take a look at the Darkstars coding from the Top Gun DLC - it has a working surveillance screen in place, so maybe you can create some FLIR lookalike out of this or just reuse the colored live view ![]()
Oh ive looked at it for hours, and the pelican camera, but still haven’t deciphered them ![]()
I hope you know that this thing is not really that stealth?
When I was a child I remember the fighter jets coming from Germany constantly flying above us down to Serbia or Yugoslavia or whatever it is called, and some day an F-117 was shot down with a Stinger or bazooka (I don´t know if it was a radar or heat seeking missile).
The local primitives were dancing on the F-117 wreck and this picture was in all newspapers in Europe.
That was the day I lost confidence in everything Americans considered as “stealthy”
and common jets like F-14 were suddenly cool and good enough again because it became clear that there is no real mysterious invincible “stealth fighter”.
But this is still an interesting and legendary airplane, never before was a good Nighthawk ever developed for any flight simulator.
Are any special features planned common aircraft don´t have like that front camera showing the ground in infrared, and other awesome eighties tech?
Truly a fascinating design, similar to the USS Sea Shadow. It is fly by wire with computer-assisted stability control, and has full night vision equipment.
I wonder if these F-117 Nighthawks are still in use, or also already parked forever on the airplane cemetary in the desert like many other cool 70ies to early 90ies planes.
I would love to see one in real but for thaha “stealth” reasons the Nighthawks are never presented in any airshows.
Then you know nothing about aircraft stealth: the meaning of “stealth”, the development of the F-117, radar cross section, etc…
If you want to bring your knowledge up par read “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed” from Ben Rich - then you get all the information on the F-117, its developement, what stealth is all about… it also describes the shoot-down event in Serbia back in the days.
That sounds interesting, but a whole book about the F117 is maybe a bit too much… Is there a summary somewhere on Wikipedia?
And yes I know almost nothing about military stealth aircraft, only that the radar waves are mostly distracted and reflected only from small surfaces, and the infrared signature coming from the turbine exhaust is mixed with cold air.
They are stealth, not invisible. Here is a good article on the event but in a nutshell, they knew where it was going to be and got the lock when the plane opened its bomb bay doors which basically knocks it “out of stealth” for the time it is open. An In-Depth Analysis of how Serbs Were Able to Shoot Down An F-117 Stealth Fighter during Operation Allied Force - The Aviation Geek Club
Also, the plane has made many an airshow appearance in the past. Some are still flying from time to time.
Even Raport isnt Invisble, dont mix those two words, the “stealth” its technology and it doesnt mean invisible.
Try this book, its not only about the F-117 but also about Skunkworks, their work, F-117, SR-71, the “founding” of Area-51, etc…
There is so many precious information in this book and on top: it reads extremely well!
It wasn’t a Stinger or bazooka that shot down the F-117 but a S-125 air defense system
There was a lot of reasons why the F-117 got shot down. This article covers it pretty well An In-Depth Analysis of how Serbs Were Able to Shoot Down An F-117 Stealth Fighter during Operation Allied Force - The Aviation Geek Club
It was a mix of American complacency, Serbian’s being quite smart, some security leaks and luck. And as others have mentioned stealth doesn’t mean invisible, it means an incredibly small radar signature. It’s incredibly difficult for radar to pick up but not impossible.





