COBI Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk Set 5903

COBI's Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a 1:48 model built from 795 blocks, 41 cm long, produced under licence from Lockheed Martin. The cockpit opens, the ailerons adjust, the wheels turn on rubber tires, and the weapons bay opens to take the two GBU-27 Paveway II bombs included. A pilot figure in period flight gear, a black display base with adjustable locking pins — the first of its kind in the COBI range — and a white nameplate complete the set.

The F is a lie

F stands for fighter in American military designations. The F-117 is not a fighter. It has no radar, no air-to-air missiles, no gun, and it is subsonic — it is a light bomber and nothing else.

The designation is generally understood to have been a recruiting decision. The programme needed experienced pilots, and experienced pilots in the US Air Force wanted to fly fighters. Calling a secret subsonic bomber F-117 made it possible to attract people who would not have volunteered for B-117.

Why it looks like that

The faceted shape — flat panels meeting at sharp angles, no curves anywhere — is a consequence of 1970s computing. A Lockheed mathematician found a Soviet paper by Pyotr Ufimtsev on predicting radar reflection from geometric shapes, and the available computers could only calculate returns from flat surfaces.

So the aircraft was built from flat surfaces, each angled to bounce radar energy away rather than back. It was aerodynamically dreadful — unflyable without computers — and it worked. Later stealth aircraft are curved because by then the computing existed to model curves.

One was shot down

On 27 March 1999 a Serbian missile battery brought down an F-117 over Yugoslavia, using an old Soviet system and patience: the crew watched for the brief moments when the bomb bay doors opened and the aircraft became visible, and fired. The pilot ejected and was rescued.

It remains the only F-117 lost to enemy action, and pieces of it are in a museum in Belgrade.

Specifications

Pieces: 795 · Figures: 1 pilot · Scale: 1:48 · Licensed by Lockheed Martin · Two GBU-27 bombs, adjustable display base
Model dimensions: 41 × 28 × 8 cm (16.1 × 11.0 × 3.1 in), plus 10 cm base