F-117A: Team Stealth 1991

Title:
Page born: April 01 2002

[Generic 'Team Stealth' patch wore by many Desert Sotrm Bandits stateside. ()]

Deployments and Combat

Team Stealth 1991-1994
February 1991 - January 1994
Operation: TEAM STEALTH #'s 1-12?
Deployment: Khamas Mushayt, Saudi Arabia
Action: Excersizes
Combat (cancelled twice): February-August 1991
Combat (cancelled): August 1992
Combat: January 13, 1993
Aircraft Rotation: July 9th-10th, 1993

[4404th WIng (P) patch. ()] When the 37th TFW(P) left Khamas Mushait at the end of Operation Desert Storm , a detachment of six F-117As remained deployed in the region. This unit, dubbed "Team Stealth" oficially was the 415th and 416th FS (P), under the 4404th Composite Wing (P) (Dhahran - activated on March 13, 1991. The 4404th CW reported directly to CENTAF in Riyadh. This commamd structure was left in place in the scenario that further action was required against Iraq.

Team Stealth Aircraft Rotation I

799	833
814	842
817	843
829	???

Personel were rotated every 90 days (3 months) from Tonopah (and later Holloman) to Khamas Mushayt. Serving in the "Khamis" became a right of passage for the stealth community in the early 1990's. Some time after April 1992, two aircraft that had received the rudder upgrade - #814 (DS vet) and #??? deployed the Khamas bringing the total number of F-117As in the region to eight.

Aborted Combat

[Another Team Stealth V patch????()] On at least two ocations between Feb 1991 and Sept 1991 pilots and maintainers readied F-117As for strikes to have the strikes called off hours before liftoff. Again, in August of 1992 at least two F-117A strikes against Iraqi military targets were called off at the last minute when Iraqi officials finally agreed to let UN inspectors into certain previously sealed buildings.

Combat

On January 13, 1993 at 9:15 Baghdad time, a GBU-27A/B crashed through the roof of Al-Amara IOC . Another F-117A hit an SA-3 SAM site radar at Ashshuaybah. The Al-Amara IOC center was extensively damaged, but four other Nighthawks carrying one bomb each did not have equivalent success. The strikes had been scheduled for the night before, but were delayed 24 hours because of weather. However, even with the delay intermittent clouds at 2,000 feet created problems, even causing two bombs to break their laser lock when attacking Spoon Rest radars at Nasiriya. Weather prevented one pilot from even finding the Tallil SOC. Bad weather also apparently caused one pilots to bomb a farmhouse a mile from the Basra radar site. However, the damage was extensive enough to collapse the air defenses and allow conventional aircraft to return the following day to finish off the damaged targets.

Aircraft Rotation

On July 7th, 1993, six of the aircraft deployed to the Netherlands for the Central Enterprise excersize left Gilze-Rijen en route to Khamas Mushayt. On July 8th. the remaining two aircraft also deployed to Khamas. This was to replace the tired, weary, and battle scarred F-117As that had been there since 1991. This allowed these eight aircraft to go through mods and receive the upgrades that had occured to the rest of the F-117A fleet, including the all new composite tail fins which expanded the F-117A's flight envelope. (F-117A #823 was the only non-DS vet aircraft in this deployment.)

Team Stealth Aircraft Rotaion II

797	823
807	830
808	836
812	839

Homecomming

On Jan. 22, 1994 the Team Stealth detachment came home from Khamas Mushait to Holloman AFB for good. Future deployments to the region were sent to a base inside Kuwait in part to the Saudi Arabian government's stance that no "attacker" aircraft be flown from its soil against Iraq.

"TS" Squadron redesignation

At some point during the "Team Stealth" deployment, the 415th and 416th FS (P) were redesignated the 4403rd FS (P). The Webmaster assumes this occured on July 30th, 1993 when the CONUS squadrons at Holloman became the 8th and 9th FS. Any TS members feel free to correct this information

**4403rd(P) FS "Team Stealth" Deployments**
Team Stealth I Feb 1991-May 1991 Commander: ???? ?????	Team Stealth II May 1991-Aug 1991 Commander: ???? ?????	Team Stealth III Aug 1991-Nov 1991 Commander: ???? ?????
Team Stealth IV Nov 1991-Feb 1992 Commander: ???? ?????	Team Stealth V Feb 1992-May 1992 Commander: ???? ?????	Team Stealth VI May 1992-Aug 1992 Commander: ???? ?????
Team Stealth VII Aug 1992-Nov 1992 Commander: ???? ?????	Team Stealth VIII Nov 1992-Feb 1993 Commander: ???? ?????	Team Stealth IX Feb 1993-May 1993 Commander: ???? ?????
Team Stealth X May 1993-Aug 1993 Commander: ???? ?????	Team Stealth XI Aug 1993-Nov 1993 Commander: ???? ?????	Team Stealth XII Nov 1993-Jan 1994 Commander: ???? ?????