The Nighthawk remains an odd duck. Designated a fighter, it has no air-to-air combat capabilities. It paved a path for other stealth aircraft, but its children did not resemble it in the most important particulars. Its most famous moment came at the hands of the Serbian air defense network, when an enterprising group of officers laid a trap and managed to down one of the aircraft. Nevertheless, the F-117 was one of the most consequential aircraft for the future of military aviation, demonstrating the essential viability of stealth aircraft under conditions that the United States could reliably replicate. Its absence might well have left a large hole in U.S. aerospace strategy for the twenty-first century.