The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the peak of the development of American military aircraft (especially fighter planes). Almost all the main fighters in active service of the US Air Force and Navy were developed at that time. For example, F- 14, F- 15 and F- 16 fighters all came out in the early 1970s, and only F/A- 18 came out later. When developing military aircraft, Americans often begin to consider their successors as soon as a new model appears, sometimes even in advance. The development of stealth fighters began to sprout at this time. Later, the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense put forward a stealth fighter research plan called "Hefland", which required five contractors to participate. At first, Lockheed Aircraft Company was not among these five companies. The reason is that the company lacks the design experience of modern fighters.

In fact, Lockheed is an old aircraft company, established in 19 16, and has successively developed a series of excellent military aircraft, such as P-38, F-80, F- 104, C- 130, SR-7 1, etc.

Although there are no more fighters developed, they have been independently researching stealth technology. Because of Lockheed's strength and the first step in stealth aircraft research, after hard work, it finally squeezed into the "Heiferrand" plan and finally won the prototype competition. F- 1 17A was established on 1973, and the Lockheed Advanced Development Plan (the famous "Skunk Factory" in burbank, California) was finally awarded the contract. The person in charge of this project is Ben Ritchie.

The "haviland" project began in the mid-1970s, and two small prototypes were used for feasibility testing. These two small prototypes, also called "haviland", are equipped with two engines and adopt strange polyhedral shapes. The foundation of this shape design mainly comes from a mathematical model for calculating the RCS of aircraft radar. Because it is easier to calculate radar reflection cross section, plane shape is easier than curved shape. I didn't expect this mathematical model to be really applied.

The enlarged model of "haviland" prototype is F- 1 17A, which was developed by Lockheed Skunk Works in 1978. The development is progressing smoothly, and the first flight of 198 1 was successful in June. 1983 10 entered the 4450th tactical brigade of Tonopa test flight base and served (now the 37th tactical fighter wing). The US Air Force ordered 59 aircraft, all of which have been delivered, and there is no follow-up procurement plan. Four of the 59 planes crashed in 1982, 1986, 1987 and 1997 respectively. The total cost of 59 F- 1 17A aircraft will reach 6.6 billion US dollars, and the planned price is1.1.2 billion US dollars.

In 1977, Lockheed was awarded a contract for a low-detectability aircraft, including the construction of two prototypes that can actually fly, one for evaluating flight performance and the other for testing the response to radar signals. These two prototypes are called Have Blue. In order to save time and money, Have Blue adopts two J85 afterburner jet engines of General Electric, the main wheel is transplanted from A- 10 of Zichilde, and the fly-by-wire system is extracted from F- 16. F- 1 17 made its first flight on 1977, and it took only 3 1 month from the planned start to the first flight. 1981June 15 was finalized. The first F- 1 17A was delivered in 1982, put into production in 1983+00, and the last batch was delivered in the summer of 1990. Before 1988, the Air Force never acknowledged the existence of this type of aircraft. 1990 In April, the Air Force publicly exhibited one in nellis afb, Nevada, which attracted tens of thousands of spectators.

A few months later, the skunk factory produced the first prototype. The new plane has a strange shape, no circular surface at all, and the whole fuselage is flat. In fact, it is very similar to F- 1 17, and the obvious difference in appearance is that it is smaller than F- 1 17, and the fuselage surface is not coated with special paint that can absorb radar waves. Blue cannot carry any weapons. Obviously, this is just an experimental plane. The flight test was very successful. Because of the fly-by-wire flight control system, it flies quite well. The airborne early warning aircraft and ground-to-air missile positions can only be detected at a very close distance, and even if they are detected, they cannot lock the attack. The final test shows that the radar reflection area of Lan Yi is the smallest when the nose is facing the radar radiation source. In other words, it is the safest way to point the blue commander's nose at the source of radar waves.

Two prototypes (No.100 1, 1002) crashed due to two accidents, such as heavy landing of engine and hydraulic system line and fire, but the blue flying has proved that it can avoid the detection of enemy radar and fly stably. Due to the success of blue support, F- 1 17 was born. After the crash of plane 2, the blue-holding plan ended.

F- 1 17 * * produced 54 aircraft, of which 36 were in combat readiness and the rest were used as training aircraft.