I suspect that the whole stealth thing is a dead end and a boondoggle as sophisticated adversaries like China and Russia have longer wave radars and digital signal processors that will allow so called stealth aircraft to be tracked by using a combination of frequencies to obtain a trackable target.Maybe they should just have built a second generation Harrier with modern avionics and two crew! It seems the authorities are always in thrall to the suggestion they have to have a new ship or aircraft instead of rebuilding something tried and tested to modern standards. The Harrier didn't have 'stealth' though...but is it needed?
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... alth-16936
The F-117 became obsolete overnight when an astute Yugoslav commander made some operational and technical changes that made the aircraft vulnerable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockhee ... _NighthawkOne F-117 (AF ser. no. 82-0806) was lost to enemy action. It was downed during a mission against the Army of Yugoslavia on 27 March 1999, during Operation Allied Force. At approximately 8:15 pm local time, the aircraft was acquired by a fire control radar at a distance of 13 km and an altitude of 8 km: SA-3s were then launched by a Yugoslav version of the Soviet Isayev S-125 "Neva" (NATO name SA-3 "Goa") anti-aircraft missile system. The launcher was run by the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Air Defence Missile Brigade under the command of Colonel Zoltán Dani.According to Dani in a 2007 interview, his troops spotted the aircraft on radar when its bomb-bay doors opened, raising its radar signature. One source states one of the missiles detonated by its proximity fuze near the F-117. Dani said he kept most of his missile sites intact by frequently moving them, and had spotters looking for F-117s and other NATO aircraft. He also stated that he oversaw the modification of his targeting radar to improve its detection capability.
After the explosion, the aircraft became uncontrollable, forcing the pilot to eject. The pilot was recovered six hours later by a United States Air Force Pararescue team.Photos show that the aircraft struck the ground at low speed in an inverted position, and that the airframe remained relatively intact. The Serbs invited Russian personnel to inspect the aircraft's remains, compromising the then 25-year-old U.S. stealth technology.The F-117's pilot was initially misidentified. Though the name "Capt Ken 'Wiz' Dwelle" was painted on the canopy, it was revealed in 2007 that the pilot was Lt. Col. Dale Zelko.The stealth technology from the downed F-117 may have been acquired by Russia and China.
Some American sources state that a second F-117A was damaged during the same campaign, allegedly on 30 April 1999; the aircraft returned to base, but it supposedly never flew again.
http://www.whale.to/b/stealth_countermeasures.html
Caco