Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Pilot Becomes 1st to Log 1,000 Hours in Stealth : Aviation: The milestone for flying time occurs during 20-minute training flight in the F-117.

Lt. Col. Steven A. Green was doused with buckets of ice water, covered with fire extinguisher spray and offered champagne straight from the bottle--it’s how pilots celebrate an aviation milestone.

During a 20-minute training flight Tuesday morning, Green became the first pilot to log 1,000 hours in the F-117, better known as the stealth fighter.

“This flight was as exciting as the first one,” said a drenched Green, 42, after landing the fighter at Air Force Plant 42. “It never gets old for me.”

Green, who has piloted more than 30 types of aircraft during his nearly two-decade Air Force career, first flew a stealth fighter in 1986.

“Of all the aircraft I’ve flown, this is probably the best, one of the easiest to fly,” Green said.

Following the milestone flight, besides the dousing, he received a crystal model of the F-117 from his fellow pilots and the maintenance crew at Plant 42.

Built by Lockheed’s top-secret “Skunk Works,” the twin-engine, single-seat F-117 was first flown in 1981. The Air Force now owns more than 50 of the planes, all but a few of which are based at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. The fighter was in service during the Persian Gulf War, where it was able to fly undetected past Iraqi defenses during bombing raids.

“We can put a guided bomb in the window of a building,” Green said.

Four of the fighter planes are being flight tested at Plant 42. Green is commander of the 410th Flight Test Squadron, which is responsible for those test planes.

Green, an evaluation and instructor pilot, is also the only acrobatic F-117 demonstration pilot in the Air Force.