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Colonels pilot Nighthawks into the sunset

Four colonels with ties to the F-117A Nighthawk piloted the final four operational jets out of Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., at a retirement ceremony Monday for the world’s original stealth fighter.

The jets’ departure was the final event of a three-day ceremony dubbed “Sunset Stealth.” In attendance were many of the former pilots with the once-mysterious 4450th Tactical Group, which operated the jet when its existence was classified through much of the 1980s, and the 49th Fighter Wing, which claimed the jets in the early 1990s.

William Perry, a former Secretary of Defense who pushed the Pentagon to develop the Nighthawk and other cutting-edge weapons during the Cold War, also spoke at the ceremony.

Col. Jack “Ripper” Forsythe, the 49th Fighter Wing Operations Group commander, flew a Nighthawk emblazoned with an American flag pattern on its belly. Lt. Col. Todd “Meat” Flesch, Lt. Col. Ken “Tot” Tatum and Lt. Col. Mark “Drink” Drinkard flew the other three Nighthawks.

They stopped briefly at the jet’s birthing grounds, the defense firm Lockheed Martin’s experimental “Skunk Works” facility in Palmdale, Calif., and then to the final resting place, the heavily guarded Tonopah Test Range in Nevada’s desert.

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