page_title: 7th Fighter Squadron
section_title: F-117 Nighthawk era
hierarchical_section_title: 7th Fighter Squadron / History / Holloman Air Force Base / F-117 Nighthawk era
caption_attribution_description: English: 7th Fighter Squadron F-117A crew chiefs prepare an aircraft for flight at Holloman AFB
context_page_description: The 7th Fighter Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit, last assigned to the 49th Operations Group. It was last stationed at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. On 2 May 2014, the 7th Fighter Squadron was inactivated.
context_section_description: In 1992, the 49th Wing underwent a number of transitions.  As a result of the end of the Cold War, reduced defense budgets were the order of the day.  As a result, the 7th Fighter Squadron retired its F-15A Eagles and received the Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighters and personnel of the 37th Fighter Wing's 415th Fighter Squadron, which was inactivated.
  After conversion to the F-117A in May 1992, The 7th deployed fighters and their crews to Southwest Asia during the 1990s as part of Operation Southern Watch to support United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq, to enforce the no-fly zone over the southern part of that country to deprive Saddam Hussein of his Weapons of Mass Destruction programs and to force his compliance with the UN monitoring regime.  7th F-117s fighters deployed to the Gulf in 1998 during Operation Desert Fox to upgrade the strike force's capability to attack high-value targets. But the 18-hour flight from Holloman AFB to Kuwait meant that the operation was over before the F-117 aircraft arrived in the Gulf.
  In June 1999 the 7th took over the pilot transition training mission to the F-117A and the Northrop AT-38 Talon trainers, being redesignated as the 7th Combat Training Squadron.   The 7th became the mainstay of developing combat capability for the F-117, with its T-38s providing both transition training as well as dissimilar air combat training as "aggressors" against the Nighthawk.  The training mission with the stealth fighters continued until 2005 when it was announced by the Air Force that the Nighthawk would be retired in favor of the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor stealth superiority fighter.   The 7th was inactivated on 15 December 2006 after 65 continuous years of active duty.
caption: 7th Fighter Squadron F-117A crew chiefs prepare an aircraft for flight at Holloman AFB
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