A new commission from  Graue_Wolfe featuring Shane in a more modern setting than his usual. Here he's a Lt Col in the USAF flying the Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk.

Shane is assigned to the 7th Fighter Squadron, 49th Operations Group based at Holloman AFB, New Mexico, and is shown here during deployment to Aviano Air Base, Italy in early 1999 as part of the 31st Air Expeditionary Wing supporting "Operation Allied Force". Shane is posing with a very specific jet - tail number 82-806 - which bore the nickname "Something Wicked". This aircraft had the distinction of being the only F-117 to ever be lost in combat. I imagined Shane in the role of Lt Col Dale Zelko, the real life pilot who flew this jet on its final mission under the callsign "Vega-31".

In its day, the F-117 was something of a superweapon that represented the cutting edge of military air power, built to be stealthy to radar, to infrared and thermal imaging systems, and even to the human eye - as the jets were all painted black and flew combat missions only at night. The product of a top-secret program by the Lockheed Skunkworks, it first flew at Groom Lake, Nevada in 1981. The first production jets were delivered the to USAF's 4450th Tactical Fighter Wing the following year, with initial operational capability being achieved by 1983. The F-117 was the Pentagon's secret weapon against the Soviet Union's formidable integrated air defense network. In the event the Cold War went hot, it could fly into Soviet airspace undetected and deliver a pair of 2,000 lb laser-guided smart bombs with surgical precision onto high-value strategic targets. Although it had seen limited action over Panama during "Operation Just Cause" in 1989, the F-117 had its first true test in combat during the 1991 Gulf War, where it served an instrumental role in the coalition air campaign and the defeat of Iraqi forces. It was the only plane the war planners dared to send over Baghdad, which was defended by as many as 4,000 triple-A guns and surface-to-air missile batteries. Forty-two F-117s carried out more than 1,270 strike missions across Iraq, dropping 30% of all the precision-guided bombs used over the course of the conflict, and without a single aircraft being lost.

The stellar success of the Nighthawks in Desert Storm gave them something of a legendary status, and they became a potent tool of American foreign policy during the '90s. But as good as the plane's stealth technology was, it was not infallible. Stealth aircraft were not invisible to radar, but only very difficult to detect.

On the night of March 24, 1999, following failed peace negotations, NATO commenced Operation Allied Force in response to Serbia's war in Kosovo and the ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars. The aim was to force Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to cease hostilities and withdraw his forces from the province, using military air power to destroy as much of his war-making capability as possible. Air forces from eighteen different nations took part in the operation, with strike aircraft and cruise missiles launching from Aviano Air Base in Italy and ships in the Adriatic Sea. However, Serbian air defenses proved to be much more effective than what had been encountered over Iraq, and the operation was dogged by poor weather, difficult terrain, and complications in coordinating the efforts of the NATO forces.

Twelve F-117s had deployed from Holloman AFB to Aviano the previous month, and during the first four nights of the campaign, NATO war planners had made the careless decision to have the jets fly the same routes into Serbia at the same predictable times. Furthermore, Serbian spies in Italy were posted outside the base perimeter, observing activity on the ground and calling back to Serbia via satellite phone to report what aircraft were departing the base, with estimated times of arrival. This enabled the commanders of Serbia's air defense units to have a better idea of how best to prepare for and intercept the strike packages that were being sent out.

On the night of March 27, Lt Col Dale Zelko took off once again from Aviano along with three other F-117s. His assigned target was a military command center near the Serbian capital of Belgrade, but due to poor weather that night, Navy EA-6B Prowler and F-16CJ "Wild Weasel" jets were grounded. The F-117s had to carry out their strike sorties without the aid of electronic countermeasures or enemy air defense suppression. Zelko successfully managed to reach the city, carry out his attack run, and destroy his target. He turned and headed for home, unaware that Lt Col Zoltan Dani of the Yugoslav Army's 3rd Battalion/250th Air Defense Missile Brigade had been tracking him. The S-125 "Neva" SAM system manned by Dani and his crew was old and dated back to the 1960s, however they had just barely been able to pick up Vega-31 with their P-18 early warning radar at its lowest frequency, and follow its flight path.

Seeing Vega-31 on radar was one thing, but achieving a radar lock on it was another matter. Lt Col Dani ordered the crew of his missile battery to flip on the fire control radar and paint the the target. Two attempts were made to achieve a radar lock, both of which failed, but by coincidence, Zelko had happened to open his bomb bay doors right during a third attempt. Opening the F-117's bomb bay doors, even if only for a moment, lit the plane up like a Christmas tree on radar. This was just long enough for Dani's crew to get a lock.

As Zelko egressed from the target area, he looked outside his cockpit and saw two missiles barreling up through the dark sky at him. The first missile missed him, passing above the jet but coming so close that it buffeted and rocked the aircraft. The second missile scored a hit, instantly forcing the plane into a violent, uncontrollable left roll. The negative G-forces lifted Zelko up toward the ceiling of the canopy, and he strained to reach his ejection handles. Finally, he managed to grasp and pull them, and he shot out of the aircraft. As Zelko would later describe that moment in interviews and public presentations, time stood still, and he looked down and could see the flashing green, red, and orange warning lights on the instrument panel as the stricken jet fell away from him and "it went from extreme violence to instant calm, like someone flipped a switch".

Drifting down through the quiet, nighttime sky under his parachute, Zelko reached for his handheld radio. Against procedure and knowing that the Serbs would be looking for him, he began making mayday calls - trying to make contact with friendly forces to report his position and initiate a combat search and rescue effort. Zelko landed in a farm field outside of Belgrade, near the village of Budanovci. For the next several hours, in that dark of that cold spring night, he evaded capture by Yugoslav Army troops who were on the ground searching for him - hiding in an irrigation ditch until he could make contact with a USAF pararescue team that had been sent in on a high-risk mission to recover him and bring him home.

Years later, Zelko returned to Serbia as a civilian and met face-to-face with then retired Col Zoltan Dani, and the two former enemies became close friends. The shootdown of Vega-31 was the subject of an episode of the National Geographic TV series "No Man Left Behind". Today, Vega-31's canopy, ejection seat, and part of a wing can be seen on display at an aviation museum in Belgrade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axFaYCc9D4Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGaqByxE3Mc

Cockpit recordings of the radio trasmissions from the Vega-31 shootdown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmqLyn4Q15U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjbnyNGz4j8