[Stealhead]

That is true if Aurora was active which I assume that it might have been it was likely in use from sometime in the mid 70's or so just looking at other Skunk Work jobs from the time they where "known" to the time they where actually active (when that data is made public) is often 10 or 15 years.

The F-117 for example acknowledged in 1988 but it was active at least as early as 1978 and before that you had Have Blue which was of course the test program that lead to the F-117.That was active supposedly from 1977-1978 but i kind of suspect that it may have be active before 1977.

As I recall Aurora got exposed in the mid 90's 94 or 95 so I recon that it must have been around about 10 years prior.

Or was the whole thing a distraction to make observers chase a ghost that was never there in the first place?

Interesting thing about the F-117 first it was given number of 100 to throw off any Soviet spies the 100 numbers had been abandoned of course by the mid 60's and they did that to make the Soviets think that it was an improvement on a 100 series aircraft and thus of little real interest.You have to remember they are trying to hide this from intel analysts who might be able to figure things out based on looking at the paper trails.and i am sure that the Soviets where aware that the US was going to develop low observable technology so they would be looking and listening.

The other interesting bit was that the F-117 had to be produced from existing stock where ever possible.Again this was done to fool any spies and make them think that the F-117 was not so special.These like parts where produced as "spares" for what they came from (F-16,F/A-18,and F-15)

Another interesting tidbit in popular culture there was the F-19 which sort looked like an F-117 well when rumors of the F-117 first circled (but not its 117 number) the general assumption was that it would get the number 19 as that was the next number the most recent design having been the F/A-18.But they skipped 19 and it was never used and thus the myth of the F-19 stealth fighter was born.

Some think that the 117 number indicates that the project was first slotted in 1963 because the last 100 series aircraft to see the light of day the F-111 was slotted in 1963.I doubt this some what and even if they did keep a 117 allotment from 1963 they could not have known at that time that stealth technology would have for certain worked though they did known that the SR-71/A-12 had a low return but a low return and nearly no return are miles apart from a technological stand point.