Looking for the ultimate driveway ornament or something special for your local airport’s transient parking apron? Look no further than a decommissioned Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter. If you have a government email address that permits you access to the GSAXcess.gov site, check on item FJ2353001608278. It’s an “extensively cannibalized” F-117A in “scrap” condition. The price? $42 million. Number available? “One each.” Manufactured in May of 1987, this particular F-117 carries an interesting additional description, “Hazardous: No.”
The listing points out that the “low observable coatings and classified structures have been removed” and that “aircraft will require extensive re-work including fabrication of false structures to return the aircraft to its original outer mold line.” The helpful government-surplus listing estimates restoration costs of $300,000 without taking into account shipping. And, of course, it’s located in an extremely secure area at the Tonopah Test Range in Tonopah, Nevada, so there’s no chance of a drive-by look at the goods.
The F-117 has been officially retired and its operational squadron shut down for more than a decade but, rather than being sent to a public scrapping-out, were kept in high-security storage where they could have their classified elements, including the radar-reflective coatings, removed in secrecy. No doubt what’s left of this Nighthawk is nothing you can’t already see in the handful of F-117s now in museums.
$42m for this pice of scrap (or crap)? ha
Some black paint, a couple of engines, a couple of wings, voila!