After 27 years in the Air Force arsenal, the world’s first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology will be put in mothballs next month in Nevada.

The Air Force is retiring the F-117 Night Hawk to save the expense of its daily maintenance for buying new planes that have advanced stealth capacity and firepower, according to General Bruce Carlson, commander of the Air Force Materiel Command located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

An informal, private ceremony was held on Tuesday at Wright-Patterson with military leaders, base employees and representatives from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

The remaining F-117s at Holloman will leave the base on April 21, stop in Palmdale, California, for another retirement ceremony, and arrive on April 22 at Tonopah Test Range Airfield in Nevada, where the jet made its first flight in 1981.

The F-117 made its flights in secret for years, and the Air Force didn’t publicly acknowledge the aircraft’s existence until 1988. The F-117s will be replaced with F-22 Raptors, which have defensive systems and longer-range weapon delivery capability along with advanced stealth technology, Air Force officials said.