The U.S. Air Force is flying retired F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighters as threat-representative aircraft in Red Flag wargaming exercises, simulating China’s Chengdu J-20 and Russia’s Sukhoi Su-57 in combat training scenarios against F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II pilots. The Pentagon is preserving the aging fleet specifically for this mission.
The F-117 Nighthawk Never Really Retired
Pentagon “Red Teaming” has enabled many developmental breakthroughs by allowing platforms, emerging technologies, networks, and weapons systems to be tested against representative models of the most advanced threats.
F-117 Nighthawk in White Config. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The idea, which aligns with a form of wargaming, is to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses in weapons systems by simulating or conducting mock attacks against enemy systems.
Should specific weapons systems, such as the Chinese J-20 or Russian Su-57, be beyond the Pentagon’s reach, weapons testers and developers would manufacture surrogates or threat-representative models of the aircraft to fly against F-35s and F-22s in wargaming and “red-team” scenarios.
Developing the best and most accurate replicas or representations of advanced threats is naturally quite challenging, as there are often many unknown factors.
For instance, what kinds of mission systems, targeting, weapons interfaces, or sensors do the J-20 and Su-57 use?
To what extent are they AI-enabled and able to shorten the sensor-to-shooter curve with advanced algorithms?
F-117A Nighthawk 19FortyFive.com Image. Taken on July 2025 at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force by Harry J. Kazianis.
Red-Teaming for Vulnerabilities
The intent is to identify vulnerabilities with U.S. aircraft and determine where they might be “targeted,” “detected,” or “hit” with enemy fire.
Once these weaknesses are identified, then “fixes” or adjustments can be made to harden the aircraft and make them more survivable and resistant to advanced enemy attacks.
In some cases, aircraft such as reconfigured older F-22s can be used as enemy replicas, and the Pentagon plans to preserve its older, Gulf-War era F-117A Nighthawk to use in red-teaming and training exercises against U.S. 5th-generation aircraft.
The F-117 Nighthawk is being pushed as a threat representative aircraft designed to simulate or approximate a Chinese J-20 or Russian Su-57.
While training of this kind certainly does not seem to be “useless,” conducting war-training exercises against the F-117 NightHawk may not be the best way to test the U.S. Air Force’s ability to detect advanced enemy stealth.
There are many reasons for this, the first and most self-evident being a simple configuration.
Pilots from the 121st Air Refueling Wing of the Ohio Air National Guard based at Rickenbacker IAP, refuel a pair of F-117 Stealth Fighters from the 49th Fighter Wing based at Holloman AFB in New Mexico. The aircraft is being retired and this was the last refueling operation of The Pilots on this mission were Major Paul Hughes, Captain Danny Slater and the Boom Operator was MSgt Bob Derryberry. The photographs are by SMSgt Kim Frey of the 121st ARW. The aircraft were at Wright Patterson AFB where the F-117 program is managed for an informal retirement ceremony. The F-117 is being replaced by the F-22 Raptor which also uses stealth technologies to avoid detection.
F-117 Not Stealthy Enough
Yes, the F-117 was a pioneering aircraft in the realm of stealth to an extent, yet it is simply nowhere near as stealthy as today’s F-22, F-35, or J-20.
Current 5th-generation aircraft, such as China’s J-20 or J-35, are built with F-35-like blended wing-body configurations less likely to generate a return “ping” or electromagnetic signal to ground-based radar.
Sharper edges and contours, by contrast, create protruding angles and structures that an electromagnetic ping can bounce off more easily.
In this case, ground-based enemy radar systems can receive a more accurate “rendering” of a threat object and determine its shape, size, speed, and azimuth.
F-117. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Therefore, to prepare to detect a Chinese J-20, for example, the U.S. Air Force might be better served to red-team against more advanced threat representative aircraft which are simply more “stealthy.”
Live-fire wargaming exercises, such as the Air Force’s Red Flag, have already shown that 5th-generation F-35s can “see” and destroy groups of 4th-generation aircraft at stand-off distances from which they cannot themselves be detected.
Yet a more pressing question may be how to determine how well an F-35 or F-22 can detect or see a stealthy J-20, J-35, or Su-57.
It would not be surprising if different kinds of ultra-stealthy threat representative aircraft were developed and used for targeting, live-fire, and testing of U.S. 5th-generation aircraft, as it seems critical that the Pentagon wants to assess “stealth on stealth” scenarios.
The F-117A may certainly prove useful and relevant in testing to some extent, yet it is simply far too pointy, jagged, and angled to be anywhere near as stealthy as Chinese and Russian 5th-generation aircraft.
F-117. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin.
About the Author: Kris Osborn
Kris Osborn is the Military Technology Editor of 19FortyFive. Osborn is also President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University
