In 1992, the 7th Fighter Squadron retired its F-15A Eagles and received the Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighters and personnel of the 37FW’s 415FS, 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 UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, to enforce the no-fly zone over the southern part of that country to deprive Saddam Hussein of his WMD programs and to force his compliance with the UN monitoring regime. 7FS F-117s fighters deployed to the Gulf in 1998 during Op 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 (CTS). 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. This was the yellow version of the squadron patch for the 7CTS and does not come with velcro attached.
