Retired But Still Flying, the F-117 Nighthawk May Soon Fade to Black

And they actually paid me to do it! Our wing had an exchange program with RAAF F-111 crews for quite a few years. We would send 2 crews to fly with them and they would send 2 crews to fly with us for 6 months. Learned a lot about how different countries operated essentially the same aircraft, and this was back in the 70s, not like today when that type of exchange is fairly common. Best part was when the RAAF crews swapped out. The coming to the US crews would load up with cases of Foster's and the returning crews would load up with cases of Coors. Obviously there were squadron parties when the aircraft arrived!

Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen - Ah Yes Memories of RAF Lakenheath.

Believe it or not I never got there but one of my CCTS buddies spent several years flying from Lakenheath.

It seems to me in terms of capabilities the F111 and the F117 carried out nearly the same type of mission except the F111 was without the stealth feature. I can see why they deccomissioned the F117 but the aircraft itself seem too much of an expensive aircraft to fully decommission.

Ya my thought as well but it's the victim of small fleet size and cost to maintain. That's done a lot of capable aircraft in including the F-111s that I flew. Actually F-117 was around and flying since 1981 but it's existence never became public until around 1988 so it's older than most people realize.