Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk
This model is of the famous F-117A Nighthawk, the first stealth fighter. It was a result of an unclassified program who's goal was to reduce the radar cross-section of a fighter aircraft. Well, when Lockheed ploped their scale model on the radar test stand it didn't show up at all. Two things happened after that: Lockheed got the contract, and the whole thing was made Top Secret. After their Have Blue prototype, Lockheed managed to make a stealthy fighter capable of sneaking past enemy lines to drop percision guided bombs where ever the commanders wanted them.
The story is rather interesting if you ever watch a show or read a book on it. Apparently, Lockheed wasn't even invited to the initial program, but was an afterthought. DoD seemed to forget the fact that the SR-71 already had some stealthy features in it. Also, it was an electrical engineer who came up with the whole faceted surface deal. Plus, to top all that off, this was all done in the 1970's. That was 30 years ago!
Anyway, this is a Revell model, and it wasn't the greatest. It was like a mix of snap-tight and glueing. There were huge gaps at the wing roots, and fit wasn't the greatest on it in general. But I managed to patch it up to meet my standards. This isn't a show model, it's just for fun so I'm happy with it.
The main reason I got this one was that the bomb bay was done correctly. The early Testor's/Italeri models had the bomb bay doors open to the outside. The doors actually hinge in the center of the bay. Big mistake on the model makers, if you ask me. How hard is it to ask Lockheed where the doors hinge? Oh well.
So, another model in the Stealth Collection. And it looks good next to the other stealth planes.