Few test pilots have had a take-off like Tom Morgenfeld’s on 27 January 1982. As the third full-scale development F-117 lifted off from the secret test site at Groom Lake, better known as Area 51, its nosewheel came off and bounced down the runway behind him. The aircraft was so secret that the US Air Force would not admit it existed for nearly seven more years.

A post on Instagram tells the story, and it is right in almost every detail. Here is what happened, according to Morgenfeld himself and to historian Peter Merlin’s account of Area 51.

A Wheel on the Runway

Morgenfeld was flying an avionics test sortie to evaluate improved cockpit displays. Right after take-off, observers saw the nosewheel come off and alerted him. The test conductor’s concern was the landing: with only a bare strut, the nose could catch on a joint in the concrete and the aircraft could flip over. The dry lakebed was considered no safer. He was told to fly to a designated area and eject.

Why He Stayed

Morgenfeld saw it differently. As a Navy F-8 pilot he had seen several nose gear failures. The F-117 landed slowly for a fighter, it tracked straight, and its drag chute produced a nose-up pitching moment that would help keep the strut off the concrete as the jet slowed. And he had a full tank of fuel and no other emergency.

About an hour later, with the fuel burned down and fire crews having laid foam on the runway, he came in to land. The bare strut threw sparks as it ground along the concrete, the drag chute came out, and even without nosewheel steering the jet held the centreline. The only damage was to the strut.

The Union Grievance

A few days later, back at the Skunk Works in Burbank, Morgenfeld was called in by his bosses, who appeared to be angry. “I heard you had a little problem this week,” Ben Rich told him. He was then handed a union grievance accusing him of grinding down the nose gear strut without proper training or engineering approval. It was a prank. Accounts differ on who handed it over: Morgenfeld has credited Ben Rich, while Merlin’s account says it was Kelly Johnson, the Skunk Works founder, with Rich in the room.

The Pilot

Morgenfeld was a 1965 Naval Academy graduate who flew 90 combat missions in the F-8 Crusader over Vietnam with VF-191 from USS Oriskany and made 560 carrier landings. He graduated from the Empire Test Pilots’ School in England in 1975, flew MiG-17s, MiG-21s, MiG-23s and Su-22s in US Navy evaluation work with VX-4, and in 1979 flew MiGs with the Air Force’s secret 4477th Test and Evaluation Flight. He joined Lockheed’s Skunk Works the same year and logged more than 1,200 hours of F-117 testing.

He went on to make the first flight of the second YF-22, the Pratt & Whitney-powered prototype, in 1990, and as Lockheed Martin’s chief test pilot he made the first flight of the X-35A on 24 October 2000. Those prototypes led to the F-22 and the F-35. We look at the competitions in El mejor luchador que nunca existió y Un avión para gobernarlos a todos.

What the Viral Post Gets Right

Almost everything: the date, the aircraft, the nosewheel on the runway, the test director’s call to eject, Morgenfeld’s reasoning about the slow landing and the drag chute, the foam, the sparks, and the prank grievance. Two small refinements. He made the first flight of the second YF-22, powered by Pratt & Whitney engines, not the very first YF-22 flight, which was made by Dave Ferguson in the General Electric-powered prototype. And the Air Force acknowledged the F-117 in November 1988, nearly seven years after the incident rather than six.

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Sources: Peter W. Merlin, Dreamland: The Secret History of Area 51 (via The Aviation Geek Club); Aerotech News, “Gathering of Eagles celebrates F-117A test program” (October 2016); Experimental test pilot biography of Thomas Morgenfeld; Wikipedia, Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk and Lockheed YF-22.