In 1986, Squadron Leader Dave Southwood was 34, a seasoned Royal Air Force test pilot flying Jaguars and Tornados. The Cold War was deepening. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher’s special relationship was at its height, and whispers of advanced stealth technology had penetrated military circles. Then, one night, a phone call pulled Southwood directly into aviation history.
“Dave, are you available to go to the States for a month?” his Boss, Colin Cruikshanks, asked mysteriously. “The Chief of the Air Staff wants to see you tomorrow.”
Hours later, Southwood sat in a hushed office with Britain’s highest-ranking airman, learning he had been hand-picked for a top-secret assignment. The mission: evaluate America’s clandestine F-117 stealth fighter, then operating under deep secrecy in Nevada’s Tonopah Test Range and the even more secretive Groom Lake—Area 51.
“They didn’t show me a picture,” Southwood says, recalling CAS's description. “He simply said it was shaped like a faceted arrowhead, utterly bizarre, designed to vanish from radar.”
Days later, Southwood and Cruickshanks boarded a civilian airliner to Washington D.C., hiding in plain sight among tourists and business travelers. This wasn’t their usual RAF transport—it was a deliberate effort to stay under the radar, figuratively and literally.
Inside the Black World
Upon arriving in the US, Southwood was whisked into briefings in the Pentagon’s inner sanctums and even found himself at the White House. It was surreal, yet the rationale behind the unprecedented access became clear. The Americans wanted Britain, then developing what would become the Eurofighter Typhoon, to grasp fully the quantum leap represented by stealth technology.
“They wanted us to know what was possible,” Southwood says, “to make sure we didn’t limit ourselves.”
After a week in briefings, Southwood and Cruickshanks boarded an unmarked jet and vanished from the map, arriving first at Groom Lake, then Tonopah. They undertook an intense training regimen identical to that of U.S. pilots—classroom academics, rigorous simulators, and finally cockpit time in the angular, sinister-looking jet.
Their presence was so secret that, initially, the Americans suggested disguising them as CIA pilots. “We asked them rhetorically, ‘Exactly how many British pilots does the CIA employ?’” Southwood laughs. Eventually, a simpler cover emerged: they would introduce themselves merely as former British test pilots, there for consultations.
But secrecy was paramount. “We used call signs of pilots who were away on leave. On my first sortie, I checked in on the radio with a British accent, and apparently the base telephone network practically melted down.”
From then on, chase pilots made all radio calls for them, disguising their presence from even fellow stealth squadron members.
Flying the Unflyable Stealth Fighter
Finally, the day arrived. Stepping into a Groom Lake hangar, Southwood gazed upon the angular, faceted shape of the F-117. “It looked impossible, something out of science fiction,” he remembers. “You understood immediately this was a game-changer.”
Its bizarre shape, he learned, stemmed from limitations in 1980s radar modeling technology. To evade radar, Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works engineers designed a faceted shape that computers could analyze, a stark contrast to the smooth curves later made possible in stealth aircraft like the B-2.
Sitting in the cockpit, Southwood found a curious mix of familiarity and alien technology. Beneath the jet’s angular exterior lay flight control computers borrowed from the agile F-16 and avionics similar to the F/A-18 Hornet. Yet, the cockpit canopy had a solid metal band across the top, restricting vision dramatically. “Bank more than 45 degrees, and you couldn’t look into the turn,” he says. “Low-level flying felt precarious, like threading a needle.”
Despite its appearance, Southwood discovered that flying the F-117 was straightforward. Yet, there were quirks. Landings were challenging: high approach speeds meant the fighter floated stubbornly in ground effect, “refusing to land unless positively forced down.”
None of this detracted from the F-117's singular mission: penetrate enemy radar defences unseen, deliver laser-guided bombs onto pre-designated targets, then vanish.
“It wasn’t a fighter. It was a highly specialised bomber,” Southwood emphasises. “All the sorties were carefully scripted. The missions were pre-planned, targets loaded into computers on the ground. It wasn’t agile, but it was incredibly precise.”
The stealth jet was only half the intrigue.
During their evaluation, Southwood and Cruickshanks were also read into the “Constant Peg” program, another black-world secret—America’s clandestine MiG squadron, the 4477th TES Red Eagles. They were allowed to visit the squadron’s briefing rooms, and watch the surreal sight of Soviet-built MiG-21s and MiG-23s landing in the Nevada desert, but they never saw inside the hangars. Within secret programmes, even more secret compartments existed.
After weeks immersed in a hidden world, the two pilots returned to the UK.
Writing their classified report became an exercise in clandestine creativity. They typed their findings onto early word processors, referring to cryptic notes they had taken that were understood only by themselves. Once submitted, only five people in Britain—including the Prime Minister and Chief of the Air Staff—were permitted to read their conclusions.
Ironically, the two men who authored the report were not on the distribution list, and Southwood never saw the report again.
Legacy and Lessons
The F-117 evaluation profoundly impacted British aviation thinking. Though ultimately the RAF did not buy stealth fighters, their report informed decisions about stealth integration into the Eurofighter program. It also led to an enduring exchange program, embedding RAF pilots into U.S. stealth units, creating a pipeline of shared knowledge that continues to this day.
Reflecting years later, Southwood remains in awe of the F-117’s achievement. “It was incredibly successful at its role. The stealth technology changed air warfare forever,” he says, noting how the lessons learned in Nevada permeated aviation strategy worldwide.
But for all the nostalgia around his brief participation in the intense secrecy and isolation of the black program world, Southwood is pragmatic about its longer-term practicalities: “It was fascinating, but would I have wanted to live that life for years? Probably not,” he muses. “The secrecy made it a lonely, constrained existence.”
Today, retired from RAF service and until recently still actively flying vintage fighters and training aircraft, Southwood looks back on his stealth adventure with a quiet pride. He remains amazed by the discipline of the hundreds of people who made the program possible, from pilots to cooks, mechanics to administrators, all united by secrecy.
“No one leaked anything until the airplane finally emerged into the public eye,” he marvels. “To me, that culture of absolute secrecy remains as impressive as the airplane itself.”
And what of the small plaque and odd shaped wooden block, both gifts from the US Air Force to commemorate his participation in the F-117 programme? Southwood keeps them stored away at home — discrete reminders of a moment in history when knowledge of a "game changing" leap in aviation technology passed quietly into British hands.
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