World War I and World War II prototype, an experimental German World War I bomber covered with transparent covering material (1917–1918) During
World War I, the Germans experimented with the use of
Cellon (
cellulose acetate), a transparent covering material, in an attempt to
reduce the visibility of military aircraft. Single examples of the
Fokker E.III Eindecker fighter
monoplane, the
Albatros C.I two-seat observation
biplane, and the
Linke-Hofmann R.I prototype heavy bomber were covered with
Cellon. However, it proved ineffective, and even counterproductive, as sunlight glinting from the covering made the aircraft even more visible. The material was also found to be quickly degraded both by sunlight and in-flight temperature changes, so the attempt to make transparent aircraft was not proceeded with. In 1916, the British modified a small
SS class airship for the purpose of night-time
aerial reconnaissance over
German lines on the
Western Front. Fitted with a silenced engine and a black gas bag, the craft was both invisible and inaudible from the ground, but several night-time flights over German-held territory produced little useful intelligence, and the idea was dropped. Nearly three decades later, the
Horten Ho 229 flying wing fighter-bomber was developed in
Nazi Germany during the last years of
World War II. In 1983, its designer Reimar Horten claimed that he planned to add charcoal to the adhesive layers of the plywood skin of the production model to render it invisible to radar. This claim was investigated, as the Ho 229's lack of vertical surfaces, an inherent feature of all flying wing aircraft, is also a key characteristic of all stealth aircraft. Tests were performed in 2008 by the
Northrop Grumman Corporation to establish if the aircraft's shape would have avoided detection by top-end
HF-band, 20–30 MHz primary signals of Britain's
Chain Home early warning radar, if the aircraft was traveling at high speed (approximately ) at extremely low altitude—.
Modern origins , the first operational aircraft explicitly designed around stealth technology. It used facets for diverting radar.Modern stealth aircraft first became possible when
Denys Overholser, a mathematician working for
Lockheed Aircraft during the 1970s, adopted a mathematical model developed by
Petr Ufimtsev, a Soviet scientist, to develop a computer program called Echo 1. Echo made it possible to predict the radar signature of an aircraft made with flat panels, called facets. In 1975, engineers at Lockheed
Skunk Works found that an aircraft made with faceted surfaces could have a very low radar signature because the surfaces would radiate almost all of the radar energy away from the receiver. Under a 1977 contract from DARPA, Lockheed built a proof of concept demonstrator aircraft, the
Lockheed Have Blue, nicknamed "the Hopeless Diamond", a reference to the famous
Hope Diamond and the design's shape and predicted instability. Because advanced computers were available to control the flight of an aircraft that was designed for stealth but aerodynamically unstable such as the Have Blue, for the first time designers realized that it might be possible to make an aircraft that was virtually invisible to radar. The F-22 puts a focus on
air superiority, with
supercruise, high thrust-to-weight ratio, integrated avionics and stealth capabilities. On 20 December 1989, during
Operation Just Cause in
Panama, two
United States Air Force F-117s bombed a Panamanian Defense Force barracks in Rio Hato, Panama. In 1991, F-117s were tasked with attacking the most heavily fortified targets in
Iraq in the opening phase of
Operation Desert Storm and were the only coalition aircraft allowed to operate inside Baghdad's city limits and over its airspace. The F-117 while having sufficient stealth, also had a low visual signature. Even still, if the F-117 was visually acquired, it, like all aircraft, were subject to visual air-to-air interception. This was easily circumvented by flying at night. , is an American fifth-generation stealth air superiority fighter The U.S., UK, Israel, and Russia are the only countries to have used stealth aircraft in combat. These deployments include the
United States invasion of Panama, the first
Gulf War, the
Kosovo conflict, the
war in Afghanistan, the
war in Iraq and the
2011 military intervention in Libya. The first use of stealth aircraft was in the U.S. invasion of Panama, where
F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft were used to drop bombs on enemy airfields and positions while evading enemy radar. F-117s flew approximately 168 strikes against
Scud-associated targets while accumulating 6,905 flight hours. Only 2.5% of the American aircraft in Iraq were F-117s, yet they struck 40% of the strategic targets, dropping 2,000 tons of precision-guided munitions and striking their targets with an 80% success rate. The aircraft is said to have returned in a damaged condition to
Spangdahlem Air Base, The event was later corroborated by another F-117A pilot in 2020; however, the incident remains classified, and only limited details have been disclosed. Russian officials confirmed they had examined the wreckage, contributing to the development of the
Sukhoi Su-57 fighter and under development
Tupolev PAK DA bomber. China also allegedly purchased wreckage parts, contributing to the
Chengdu J-20 fighter. The then-new B-2 Spirit was highly successful, destroying 33% of all Serbian bombing targets in the first eight weeks of U.S. involvement in the war. During this war, B-2s flew non-stop to Kosovo from their home base in Missouri and back. In the
2003 invasion of Iraq, F-117 Nighthawks and B-2 Spirits were used, and this was the last time the F-117 would see combat. F-117s dropped satellite-guided strike munitions on selected targets, with high success. B-2 Spirits conducted 49 sorties in the invasion, releasing more than 1.5 million pounds of munitions. Stealth aircraft were used in the
2011 military intervention in Libya, where B-2 Spirits dropped 40 bombs on a Libyan airfield with concentrated air defenses in support of the UN no-fly zone. From February 2018, Su-57s performed the first international flight as they were spotted landing at the Russian
Khmeimim Air Base in Syria. These Su-57s were deployed along with four Sukhoi Su-35 fighters, four Sukhoi Su-25s, and one Beriev A-50 AEW&C aircraft. It is believed that at least 4 Su-57 are deployed in Syria and that they have likely been armed with cruise missiles in combat. In 2018, a report surfaced noting that Israeli F-35I stealth fighters conducted a number of missions in Syria and even infiltrated Iranian airspace without detection. Another fifth-generation stealth multirole fighter from China, the
Shenyang FC-31 is also under flight testing.
Australia operates a fleet of 72 F-35A stealth strike fighters, and is also developing and producing an unmanned stealth aircraft, the
MQ-28 Ghost Bat, with Australian industry, Boeing Australia and BAE Australia. The MQ-28 is a
Loyal Wingman collaborative combat aircraft, with the aircraft's first flight taking place on 27 February 2021. Eight aircraft (
Block 1) were delievered by 2024; more aircraft (
Block 2) are in production with some delievered. On March 4, 2026, during the
2026 Iran war, the Israeli Defense Forces announced that an
F-35I "Adir" shot down a Russian-manufactured Iranian
Yak-130 fighter jet over Tehran, marking both the first F-35 air-to-air kill, and the first ever air-to-air kill made by a stealth fighter. ==List of stealth aircraft==