F-117 Nighthawk added to Smithsonian collection

A Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk will go on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles Airport starting in October. The museum announced the move on 14 September 2026 at the Air & Space Forces Association's Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

According to the museum, the US Air Force transferred the aircraft and Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works prepared it for public display. It is the sixteenth YF-117 or F-117 gifted for public exhibition.

The airframe chosen for the Udvar-Hazy Center is serial 85-0818, nicknamed The Overachiever. The museum describes it as the only Nighthawk to have flown in all four of the type's publicly acknowledged campaigns: Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1989, Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991, Operation Allied Force over Yugoslavia in 1999, and Operation Enduring Freedom in 2003. It first flew in 1986 and was withdrawn from service in 2007.

The museum's collection already includes the SR-71 Blackbird, Concorde and the Space Shuttle, along with the 1903 Wright Flyer, Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis and the Apollo 11 Command Module. Until now it held no example of the Nighthawk, which the museum calls the world's first purpose-built operational stealth aircraft.