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Ok, this was an interesting read. http://aviationintel.com/2012/06/10/why-is-the-stealthy-f-117-nighthawk-still-flying/
Thursday, 18-Jul-13 08:03:58 UTC from web-
@nerthos I always thought the Nighthawk was the coolest goddamn plane.
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@nerthos It and the SR71 Blackbird
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@ceruleanspark Me too, but SR71 in first place in my own personal ranking. I'm also a big fan of the F-22, but that's mostly because I grew up playing F-22 Lightning 3 on my old 225MHz Pentium. The Nighthawk sucks as a plane, is expensive, temperamental, stuff breaks, and is hell to pilot, but being THE stealth combat plane more than makes up for all of it. It's like the AK-47 of stealth aircraft.
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@nerthos Oh yeah the F117 is by all accounts a nightmare to actually operate because of its bizzare aerodynamic profile and weight balance, but as you said, it's the Alpha of the stealth fighter world. The SR71 wasn't exactly the safest, easiest thing in the world to operate either, what with the whole "Using its own jet-fuel as coolant" thing
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@rotation No, in that they're both full of really big flaws, but they're so well known in their field and kind of raised to a legend status that people overlook all those flaws and just say "it's so cool I want one"
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@rotation Yes. People on the US pay over $1000 for semi-automatic AKs when their actual price doesn't go above $15 just because they're cool and "gangsta"
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@rotation I think the AK is cool. I have an appreciation for industrial design.
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@ceruleanspark #latereply The SR71 also had the issue of leaking fluids when not flying, issue that could not be in any way solved because otherwise it would break in-flight due to thermal expansion caused by friction with the air. Even taking into account all these issues, I'd gladly pilot one if I had both the know-how and the resources to afford it, just because it would be an experience to brag about for the rest of my life, and it goes faster than basically any other conventional vehicle. How many people can say "I went over mach 3"
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@rotation I think they're particularly expensive in the US because there's a lot of national weapons on the same market.
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