Military historian Allan D. English, author of the 1998 book The Changing Face of War, describes stealth technology as the 21st-century equivalent of the crossbow, musket, tank or nuclear submarine. Just as each of those technologies radically altered military strategy and tactics in their time, English and other scholars believe, so has stealth transformed the nature of war.

So far, no other nation has developed stealth technology comparable to the F-117A, but with the aircraft steadily aging — the last ones rolled off the assembly line nearly 15 years ago — there's pressure to find a replacement. Over the years, rumors of other successors have surfaced — mostly just their mysterious-sounding names, such as "Black Manta," "Aurora" and "Mothership." Meanwhile, undoubtedly, other nations continue to try to find ways to detect the F-117A. Russian fighters, for example, reportedly carry devices that attempt to track the stealth fighter-bomber's heat. So far, however, the aircraft has been tested against upward of 40 different surveillance technologies, and remained invisible to them all.