Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter
For those of you that follow my art, I know that this is deviating from my usual work- but besides being an artist, I have always also had an avid interest in aviation and particularly aero modeling and throughout the years, have made and flown hundreds of different types of aircraft- especially military ones. I have also designed and tested my own designs as well. Here, without further ado, are samples of them. They are not and have never been "powered" in the typical description of r/c aircraft as they are not r/c- they are free-flight gliders, although I have also tested many with solid rocket fuel engines with impressive results and my maximum distance achieved without power has been 200 ft. in a horizontal plane maybe only about a foot (12 inches) off the ground.This specific model F-117 glider, flew very fast, stable and averaged distances of about 130 feet into the wind.
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A good friend now living in Utah was first test pilot for that plane when it was top secret, and managed to land it after a tail fell off!......................Jim
Wow ! That sounds amazing ! although feasible at the same time, since this plane has 2 tails, so even though one came off, the pilot could still manage to control it (albeit very carefully) with the remaining tail. There was a story where an F-15 Eagle that had one of it's tails blown off by anti-aircraft fire and still managed to land safely.
Jose, just found this and excellent work on display here and this humble reader has read what you have said and become humbled even more that you mention solid rocket fuel engines.
I believe the late American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard would give you a thumbs up for your efforts on that front.
Let alone the gliding distances achieved without them, for you certainly have a good and well balanced design in action there.
For you to do that is great work to accomplish building from scratch and respect to you for doing so.
Cool stuff!!
And thanks for doing so and sharing :)
Hi Shaun and thank you for your kind words- I appreciate it ! Yes, besides the artwork, I had also been designing and flying my own aircraft for many years. I had started when I was about 16 years old to make my own fold and fly designs and improved a lot of the standard ones that were already available at the time (probably early to mid 80's) transitioning to full bodied gliders and then started to propel them with the Estes solid rocket fuel engines later on.
I never used the rockets for the F-117, although it did achieve impressive distances on average between 100-130 feet and always into the wind. My maximum distance on record is about 198 feet only a few mere inches off the ground with own very swept delta wing design and then 208 feet with a replica of a rocket powered Dassault Mirage 3NG prototype. They were both very fast and extremely stable in flight. I'll never forget them and am pretty sure that I have pictures of both and much more. I also built commercial airliners, although military was always my specialty. Also, dabbled with rockets. It was all great fun !