As the title says, the US is to retire the USAF F117 Nighthawks. Full story can be found here.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/conte...rs_retired.html

Apart from the F22 Raptors what else have they in the pipeline?

The US Air Force has a new fighter on the way, The Joint Strike Fighter. The new plane will also use Stealth Technology. http://www.jsf.mil/

Glad to see the US is upgrading their fighter fleet. The F35 looks like it is a good workhorse for the future.

X-02's are out yet?

If the Stealth Fighters were retired, would we know??

The F117 is not a fighter. Its a tactical bomber with no air to air capability at all, relying on stealth and mission planning to avoid hostile air defences.

A direct replacement is unlikely since the strategic bomber force (B1 B2 B52) is extremely effective in the tactical bombing role.

The new JSF will be a multi function aircraft. The F-117 might no be replaced, but the new fighters will be a to deliver a very lethal Air to Ground package.

With there being multiple variants of this aircraft being designed right form the start, wonder what sort of impact this will have on aircraft carriers of the future for the US. One of the version will have VTOL capabilities, will this have an effect on the size of aircraft carriers in future? As current US carriers are rather large what sort of changes will be made to them to accommodate the JSF.