UFO spotters will have one less distraction by April.

The venerable F-117 Night Hawk — popularly known as the Stealth Fighter — is heading for retirement. A creature of the Cold War, the inky black, bat-like craft was a closely guarded military secret until 1988.

But time has passed by the F-117. While still a front line weapon through Operation Desert Storm,  the Night Hawk’s radical geometry and radar-evading design restricts the jet to subsonic operation. It’s also not technically a “fighter,” carrying no defensive capability beyond its stealthy characteristics. The F-117 was intended as a light bomber, designed to slip through an enemy’s radar network to deliver precision armaments in the dark of night.

The last of the operational F-117s will be flown to Nevada’s Tonopah Test Range on April 22nd. The 52-plane fleet with be mothballed at the same restricted military facilities where they were first tested in the early 1980s.

There’s no doubt the Stealth Fighter was cool to look at. Its lines have influenced a generation of sci-fi movie art directors and auto designers.

As with technology, fashions change. Stylists looking to the military-industrial complex for inspiration have already turned their attention to the F-117’s successor, the F-22 Raptor. After a decade of angular auto bodies clearly patterned after the Night Hawk, Cadillac’s new Cien concept car points the way to the future for monied, road-bound, wannabe fighter pilots. It’s a future of curvy lines, smooth surfaces, and concert-worthy mobile entertainment systems — without the bother of actual combat missions.

Stealthy looking cars will also be a tad cheaper than their archetypes. The F-117’s official unit cost was about $45 million a copy. Each F-22 Raptor will set taxpayers back about $361 million per aircraft, based on program costs reviewed by the U.S. General Accounting Office.

Link: KFOX-TV