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Sun setting for Nighthawk aircraft

One of the Air Force’s most mystifying jets, the F-117A Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft, will be feted March 11 with a ceremony and flyover.

The Nighthawk — known for its black, bat-like design — is being replaced by the latest stealth aircraft, the F-22 Raptor fighter jet.

The last Nighthawks of the original 59 created since 1981 will be formally retired after another ceremony in late April at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico.

The Nighthawk’s retirement has been accelerated to shore up money for more Raptors.

“With aging aircraft fleets and infrastructure, senior Air Force leadership has made hard choices to pay for modernization,” said Diana Filliman, director of the 650th Aeronautical Systems Squadron, in an Air Force release.

The Nighthawk, which secretly flew for seven years before its public acknowledgement in 1988, first entered combat when two jets struck Panamanian targets in advance of Army Rangers’ 1989 assault.

It played a more crucial role in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Nighthawks routinely took out anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missile launchers in and around Baghdad.

The pre-retirement ceremony at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is open to base employees, retirees and others with base access, but not the general public. It begins at 10 a.m. inside an operations hangar and concludes with a flyover.