A Quick Look At The F-117 Nighthawk Cockpit

Frankenstein’s Stealth Fighter

Air Zoo has blessed us with a rare and unique view of the F-117 Nighthawk’s cockpit. According to Euan, the Nighthawk’s cockpit system is similar to the one used on the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.

This has been known for a while since Lockheed had said they reused several “off-the-shelf” options when designing the F-117. For example, the Nighthawk’s landing gear is also taken from the A-10, while three IBM mission computers were derived from those used on the Space Shuttle!

In addition, the quadruple redundant fly-by-wire flight control system was based on the one found on the F-16. Even its environmental systems were taken from the Lockheed C-130 Hercules.

Lockheed did so to keep production costs low and deliver the F-117 in a very short amount of time. Because of this, Lockheed was able to build two technology demonstrators while staying under budget and on time. What a wise decision!