The Smithsonian Is Getting Its First F-117 Nighthawk, the Stealth Jet Nicknamed “The Overachiever”

On September 14, 2026, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum said it is adding a Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk to the national collection. The stealth attack jet, serial 85-0818, goes on display at the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, in late October.

The donation was announced at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. The US Air Force is transferring the aircraft, and Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works prepared it for display.

“The revolutionary F-117 gave military commanders options they never had before,” said Chris Browne, the museum’s director. Until now, the museum had no Nighthawk, a gap The Aviationist noted in a collection that already holds an SR-71 Blackbird, a Concorde and a Space Shuttle.

Why the Museum Chose 85-0818

The museum says 85-0818 was the only F-117 Nighthawk flown in all four major conflicts in which the type flew combat operations. Its nickname, “The Overachiever,” refers to that record.

The jet first flew in 1986 and was withdrawn from service in 2007, according to The Aviationist. That was a year before the Air Force officially retired the fleet in April 2008.

There is one wrinkle in the museum’s list. Its release names the four campaigns as Just Cause (Panama, 1989), Desert Storm (Iraq, 1991), Allied Force (Yugoslavia, 1999) and “Enduring Freedom (Iraq, 2003).”

How a Stealth Jet Gets to a Museum

The Air Force Reserve’s 512th Airlift Wing will fly the jet from Skunk Works to Washington Dulles International Airport aboard a C-5 Galaxy. It travels partly disassembled.

Crews will put it back together in the center’s Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar, which visitors can watch through a glass overlook. A dedicated taxiway links Dulles to the museum site, The Aviationist notes, which simplifies deliveries of display aircraft.

Museum Nighthawks are not quite the jets that flew. Earlier display aircraft received newly made leading edges, The Aviationist reports, because the real design and the radar-absorbent coating are still classified.

Admission to the Udvar-Hazy Center, one of the major aviation museums in Virginia, is free, and parking costs $15.

Retired in 2008, Still Flying in 2026

The F-117 first flew in 1981 and flew in secret for seven years before its public reveal. The Air Force built 64: five YF-117A development aircraft and 59 production F-117As.

The Aviationist counts 85-0818 as the 16th YF-117 or F-117 released for public display. Others sit at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, and at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.

The Nighthawk shot down over Serbia on March 27, 1999, serial 82-0806, is displayed at the aviation museum in Belgrade.

Not every Nighthawk went to a museum. Reactivated F-117s have kept flying since the official retirement as stealthy aggressors in training and as test aircraft, and the Air Force hopes to keep them flying until at least 2034.

Air Force plans reported in 2022 put the remaining inventory at about 45 aircraft, to be drawn down at two or three a year. The Aviationist found no record of 85-0818 among the reactivated jets.

The museum credits the F-117 with proving the combat value of low-observable design and shaping the military aircraft that came after it. That line runs to today’s stealth fighter jets, whose pilots now train against the surviving Nighthawks.