In the December 2017 issue of Aviation News, in the first of a two part feature, Major General Greg Feest (Ret) described joining the secret F-117A programme and the mission on which he dropped the first bomb of the Gulf War
It was the early morning of January 17, 1991. I had just turned on the Master Arm Switch of my F-117 stealth fighter in order to drop a 2,000lb laser-guided GBU-27 on an Intercept Operations Centre hidden in a bunker in Iraq. How did I get here?
In the summer of 1987, I had just walked back into the 27th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) at Langley Air Force Base (AFB). I had returned from flying in a four ship of F-15Cs against a four ship of F-14s from Naval Air Station Oceana. I was still pumped up after our debrief when my Squadron Commander called me into his office. He told me I was being offered a position to go to Nellis AFB to fly with the 4450th Tactical Group. I knew that they flew the A-7D Corsair and that most of their flying occurred at night. Other than that, there was little information on their mission. I drove over to the Personnel Section at Headquarters Tactical Air Command to visit wi…
