When I was a kid in the 1980’s, I loved airplanes and flying, especially fighter aircraft. I used to write to the Air Force and ask for any pictures or anything else they would send me. They sent me all kinds of pictures and an entire set of really nice posters for free. One time I got a magazine that had Chuck Yeager’s contact information in it and I wrote to him asking for his autograph. He sent me a color picture of him standing on the ladder of a F-20 Tigershark and signed it with a short note on the picture. It wasn’t something that was mass produced but a picture that he personally wrote on and signed for me. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and put it in a frame to keep. I think I was about 10 years old at the time. I don’t know what ever happened to that picture. It’s been almost 35 years now. I’m hoping my mom has it packed away somewhere and it didn’t get thrown away. Looking back on it, I can’t believe all the stuff the Air Force used to send me for absolutely nothing. All I did was write to them and ask. Some of the posters they sent me would easily cost $20-$30 each today and they sent me dozens over a couple of years. I doubt they’d still do that today. I’ll never forget the F-20 Tigershark because of that autographed picture from Chuck Yeager.
TheDubstepAddict no, my mom has a box of my stuff from when I was a kid stored away somewhere at their house. I’m hoping it’s with that stuff. Who knows what’s in there. It’s been 25 years since I lived at my parents and they’ve moved from Alaska to Colorado since then so I hope it wasn’t lost. I’d love to give it to my youngest son or at least hang it back up on the wall in my house.
" I doubt they’d still do that today" - yes they would....they want to recruit young soldiers (AND your friends, who also see this propaganda), so why WOULDN'T they do it?. It's great recruitment advertising for them. I say this as a huge fan of the F-20 (such a beautiful aircraft).
I love the F-20. As a kid, it quickly became my favorite fighter plane. On the cover of Chuck Yeager's autobiography, a dark, stealthy F-20 sits in the background - I loved that picture. All started when I saw the Thunderbirds perform an airshow flying T-38's, the Northrop design really captured me. Even though my pop worked for General Dynamics, I always wanted to see the USAF buy the F-20. You really have to wonder... at the time it was state-of-the-art. Had technology more advanced than the F-16A (until the F-16C came along). Also had a better, more durable air frame. It's my understanding that not a single F-16A still flies - stress fractures to the early model F-16's mothballed ~ 500-600 aircraft. However, I see F-5's and T-38's flying around my house daily in North Texas..... 40+ year old airplanes that don't miss a beat. Also bugs me that young USAF and NAVY pilots flying advanced multi-million dollar Gen 4+ fighters are routinely shot down by their instructors flying... ahem... lowly F-5's! Even those in Aggressor squadrons! If they were to build the F-20 today with the latest avionic, AESA radar and weapons systems, it would be a NASTY little beast.
F-5 was an excellent and rugged design. It was even built to handle very rough-field take offs from dirt airstrips. When considering wing stress fractures, it can likely be attributed to 1) the F-16's greater reliance on LERX-developed vortex lift 2) greater wingspan relative to the actual fuselage (not the blended area), creating higher leverage and more flex at the wing tips 3) higher thrust to weight ratio that allowed for more sustained G-pull. The F-20, retains the F-5's considerable body lift area by use of the "shelves" between the stabilizers and the rear fuselage, despite the more trim body width, and therefore does not retain the same kind directly attached rectangular box structure of the F-5 and T-38 once you get rear of the CG. With the F404, the F-20 would see the kind of lifetime sustain G-loading of the F-16, and arguably would likely see the stress fractures at similar rates as well. The F-20 had even larger LERX than the F-5E. My bets are that Northrop knew this could be an issue. What I think is more interesting however, is how many variations on the F-5 Northrop looked at. The YF-17, and therefore the F/A-18 and F/A-18E are themselves descendants of Northrop's work on improved F-5 variants.
Back in early 1990, I was standing behind 2 USAF generals while standing in line to get to the United ticket counter at Washington National Airport (now known as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) and was close enough to eavesdrop on their conversation. They were chatting about the fact that Northrup was not going to get awarded the "FX" contract, even though the F-20 was ready, on time, under budget and exceeded all of the USAF requirements for the fighter jet program. This was when the F-20 was ready for USAF flight testing, but the USAF stalled the flight test program because the F-16 development was 6 months behind... and not to forget that Northrup had the B-2 contract and was under development.
The F-20 Tiger Shark was a great airplane!. The not so Smart Air Force never bought. I read a article that said the F-20 was not a new Aircraft just a reworked F--5. I wrote Northrop.They sent me lots of information and photos explaining the Tigershark was a new Aircraft it was great of Northrop.
No. Unlike the F-16… the F-20 was an F-5 at the absolute limits of its developmental cycle. Even Northrop knew that, which is why they designed the YF-17 and F-18 as the successor. The F-20 was a Fighter Mafia formula aircraft.. but could never be a true multirole fighter like the F-18 was designed to be and the F-16 evolved into. It’s like the MiG-21BIS. Amazing performance but that’s about it.
Northrop did not schmooze the USAF/USN brass, politicians, nor Pentagon sufficiently, and therefore was out of favour. This little fighter never stood a chance. However, don't overlook the fact that this video was a promotional ad for Northrop. Everyone loves flying a powerful, agile, lightweight aircraft....but the need for a supersonic bomb truck with powerful avionics and long range while maintaining decent air to air efficiency was beyond the capability of the F-20. Without room to grow, its small size that made it a joy to fly was also its Achilles heel.
The F-20, as was the YF-23, were doomed to not be purchased by the USAF because Northrup had the B-2 bomber contract. No one on the outside knew that. Rumor has it the Japanese AF is building a YF-23 clone. That is one beautiful airplane.
@@gregkatz5874 It's not a YF-23 clone. It appears they're just taking what is known about stealthy planform design and other technology and making a new plane. It looks more like an F-22 than a YF-23, but it really doesn't look like either.
A couple of other things are that all the spare parts needed could be hauled in two pickup trucks. The F20 was proposed to the AF Reserve as "fly-as-a service" for $300 a flying hour including all support. It was not accepted. The last chance was to sell it to Taiwan but Reagan would not approve because we were trying to improve our relations with China and it was an issue. There are some other good videos somewhere with Chuck Yeager who was the sales pilot and who actually flew circles around a squadron of F16's
The F-20 is the polar opposite of the F-35. It would be easy to maintain, cheap to operate, and it would last a long time. I wish we could buy some now. If they brought it back they could tweak some of the electronics, and it would really be lethal. I think I heard that it has range issues, so we could assign the nearby targets to this plane, and let our F-16's take out more distant targets.
Canada should have been smart and bought the F-20, and kept the F-5's as trainers. We probably could have even gotten a deal if they ordered 100 of them instead of F-18's.
The RCAF would strongly disagree with you. They didn't want the F-5 and many of them went into storage. The F-20's short detection range of the radar set would have been a real liability for defending Canada's borders (as opposed to the F-18) and the single engine would have put our pilots at greater risk over the arctic. I like the F-20 for its flight characteristics and its durability but it just wasn't the fighter for Canada.
The South Korean AF wanted to purchase a lot of F-20s and the USAF would not allow it to happen. I had head Northrup has been vilified by the USAF ever since Jack Northrup told Stuart Symington, USAF Secretary to go screw himself when he wouldn't merge Northrup with Consolidated back in the 50s. That's when the Flying Wing program was abruptly canceled and over 300 Flying WIngs were destroyed and cut up.
F-5 and F-20 is an excellent platform. We really do not anything more than that! Who is going to attack Canada? China already owes the Liberals and we are no longer the colonial power house that burnt down The White House. Grippen NG mixed a few Super Hornets is more than Canada needs!
This great plane and the YF-23 were examples of favoritism, and prejudice against Northrup Aircraft. I had the privilege of touring the Northrup assembly line for this aircraft, in El Segundo back in 1981. It was amazing. LIttle known fact is that it flew the wings off of the F-16 and at a fraction of the cost, but USAF complained it was "not built do AF standards". Bullshit. This would have been a winner. Instead supposedly the advances were incorporated into the F-18. We will never know.
I once saw a great quote about the F-20 "it's the right airplane for the wrong time." As much as I wish the USAF would have bought the F-20, the production of the F-16 was well under way when the F-20 was released. I don't think it ever stood a change against the momentum of the F-16 program, no matter how much those of us who supported the F-20 wished so.
Perhaps the YF-23 was, but the F-5G/F-20 really wasn't the answer to the USAF's requirements. NG should just have offered the F-20 as an upgrade package to existing F-5s in allied nations' inventories, when they sent them in for SLEP or something.
You are 100% correct. Dumb politics ruined this planes future. Imho they made it better than they were supposed to and our government didn't want it in enemies hands. Great airplane.
Worked the F-5 E&F and T-38s at Nellis AFB, NV. Best I worked on at the 57th. Also worked on A-7s, which the Air Force officially didn't have starting several years before '83.
In 1985, I was in Basic Training at Ft Sill, OK. We were A Btry, 1st Cannon Training Battalion. and were the First Barracks in a row of maybe 20 other units. Across the highway, were T-38's taking off and landing all day and night! was cool to wtch.
F-20 Tigershark was an advanced version of F-5 Tiger and PAF was interested in it. PAF wanted to adopt it for its own design of fighter aircraft. If a pilot has to be named who evaluated it, it would be Shahid Latif.
Indeed it's a great aircraft w/c had been the successor of reliable F-5 variant and the take-off design for YF-17 w the leading edge extension w/c is now F18 hotnet but w 2 x f404 in the power plant. Now Korean Aerospace Inc partnered w Lockheed Martin incorporated most of the designs of Avionics, Airframes and even the power plant of FA-50 so we can say that F20 has been reincarnated to FA-50. Unfortunately, Northrop started the 2 programs, YF17 & F20 but it was McDonnell Douglass & KAI/LM got the sales for FA18 & FA50 respectively.
in hindsight, seeing this is the same engine powering the grippen, they could have supersized the f20 in the same way they did the f18. would have had more places to hang stuff from and also longer range. however that would have essentially made it . budget f16 and im sure there were some who that was going to rub the wrong way.
Thrust vectoring is much less useful than you think it is, and is antithetical to the entire point of the F-20 because it adds weight and complexity while providing something that isn’t really that useful.
We still have a use for high performance air craft without stealth capability this aircraft could still be viable today. It’s a improvement on the f-5 / t-38 and it’s a design that has been improved and refined over the years. It’s sad that it never found a market. It was my understanding that not only was it cheaper and more simple to operate, but it could kick a F-16’s ass hands down.
Except it would get BVR'd immediately by an aircraft with twice its range and Armament. The F16 is more than a dancer. And dancing isn't the only ability a fighter needs
First time I'd heard of supersonic speeds in "military power". Sounds a lot like "supercruise". If that's true, it had to be one of the first (if not the first). Shame she never got picked up by anyone (including the USAF)...
The ability to go supersonic using military power, with a single, GE F404 (not a big engine by any stretch) - talk about another testament to the superior aerodynamic qualities of that Northrop airframe.
... no, lots of jets can "supercruise" (what, really is the difference between 1.0M and 0.9M?) when clean, which is what was in the video. Unremarkable, and not particularly useful.
i remember in the 80s when the mantra from the top was "if it cant supercruise its dead in todays battlespace". well looks like they forgot all about that.
@mandellorian Aye, the Lightning could, and the TSR2 was designed to supercruise from the get-go. But we're all forgetting the aircraft that supercruised the best of of them all...Concorde!
Let's be honest, it could shoot down the F-16 at 1/3 the cost. Eventually the F-16 would use similar electronics. Isn't that a hoot? Only crooks kept it from being the front line fighter. Amazingly Lockheed used similar design criteria to build the F-35. Both are small light aircraft that use their lighter airframes to out perform heavier fighters.
It is a hoot because Northrop had the benefit of building the YF-17 for the F-X program AND the benefit of the already in production and service F-16. I'm not trying to downplay how good the F-20 was, but it stands to reason that an airplane that first flew a decade after another will be better than the first.
Brooks Butler The AT-29 Super Tucano is a formidable plane. It has the lowest cost of operation of any attack trainer in production, with a per flight hour cost b/w 500-700 dollars, can be operated from dirt or grass airfields, or from a highway. turn around time is 10 min. It can loiter for around 6+ hours, It’s pt6 engine has 8000 hours lifespan, the cost of operations for the Scorpio is $3000 which is ludicrous, the tigershark cost of operations would have been 1700/hour in 2015 dollars With an engine lifespan of 4000 hours. So the AT-29 is better suited for counter insurgency, reconoce, low intensity missions, anti-drugs trafficking, border patrol, anti artillery or air to air drone fighting.
We - the US should have just bought lots of these and the A-7F, no F-16s, and just a few or no F-15s, beyond the 2nd delivery year of the F-15C. No F-15E, just A-7F/G for penetration strike. lots of them. You shouldn't compete in a climbing cost vs fielded numbers game- you need to play your _cheap_ advantage not your expensive million dollar gold plated super Air-superiority fighter. The US in the early 80s had _superior_ ability to make small very economic turbofans like the F-404, that outperformed anything else in the world. That is a plus. Plus the US had the ability to miniaturize combat avionics, such as radar, and create the first widely fielded smart weapons - easy/cheap- those are advantages that no other peer at the time could match. That was where we blew the Communist nations out of the water. The US didn't win WWII with the "best", the US won the war with "good enough", and LOTS of it. The US and the west should've built heaps of F-20s, and trained lots of flight crew to fly them, and use our smart weapons to keep sorties per mission objective low. Sure we'd take losses, but with a thousand F-20s, who cares. By that time the economics of scale would have been mind blowing, and you're rolling off $6 million dollar fighters that can smoke everything in visual range, and beat parity at BVR with the AMRAAM. The west could've been just as effective up to this very day, at 1/2 the actual @#$@#$ defense dollars spent, which could've been used for lots better things. But no, that wouldn't make the big Military Industrial Complex so much money.
You're walking into a paradigm of cost-benefit analysis. I'll agree the F-20 was a significantly cheaper alternative to the F-16, and as an A2A aircraft, about 90% as effective. However, the F-16 was a clean sheet design, at the pinnacle of dedicated day fighter technology when it was developed, and got even better when 30,000 lbst engines were put in the airframe. The F-20 didn't exist yet, but the F-5 already was an excellent airframe that was always begging for more power, which it of course got with the F404 shoved up it's ass. Trying to maintain so much commonality with the F-5 had it's issues however, and I certainly believe that many more improvements could've been made to the F-20 that would've put it even more in-line with the F-16. It would've cut out more of the operational commonality that made the F-20 such an attractive deal to prospective buyers who already had the Tiger. When it comes to A2G, you run into an ordnance carrying comparison that falls fully into the F-16's favor, and even further such when considering the F-16XL. I'm in the camp that thinks the XL should've been produced over the F-16C because of it's enormous improvements in fuel efficiency, ordnance capacity and range, despite the acceptable loss in A2A dogfighting performance. The F-16 got turned into a strike fighter anyways, of which the XL was by far more appropriate for the task. With the TX competition, the shot of Northrup Grumman's design as so far been limited to a downward looking cockpit shot that looks just about the exact same as an F-5, it even has similar looking LERX and side mounted intakes. It might be the second coming of the F-20, this time with two seats like an F-5B/F. Ironically it's biggest competition is Lockheed/KAI's own T-50, itself an F-16 semi-derivative. It's Tigershark vs Viper Ep2.
Peter Bednar maybe that's true if you want to mimic the Soviet model, but the USAF's requirements were and are totally different. The F-16 was the right choice, and allied nations lucked out when Reagan decided to let them be sold.
Well....we did have the best by the end of WWII. We had the absolute best main battle rifles to start the war. You could argue about tanks and which were the best (different philosophies of use). In planes we had the best by the end of the war in many respects. The margin may not have been very wide but it was there. Also, in hindsight especially, the F-16 has been and is a very solid and stable aircraft that was already in production. Also as a side note, the pilots care if we take losses...and when we're talking about attrition in a BVR fight the side with the most missiles in the air wins. The F-20 couldn't carry enough and couldn't carry a big enough RADAR to suit the needs of the Air Force. So in the end it doesn't matter how many of them you can afford if you're having to go pick your pilots up because they ran out of missiles or couldn't detect the enemy far enough out.
The time has come for the Army to buy this plane for both close combat, and also escape a modern enemy or fight if need be. It is less expensive and more capable than after market junk from around the world.
The F20 was a good platform but it was no F16. The Viper was the first modern plane. So many firsts in its design alone. Everyone keeps making the F20 to be more than it was. Just because one for-hire test pilot favored it, it doesn’t mean much. Even if that pilot was Chuck Yeager. Talk to any company pilot, they will all tell you that their plane was the best. It happens all the time. The F16 was the right choice, it has proved itself to be incredible even to this day.
While politics is what killed it the fact that 2 out of the 3 that were built before it was cancelled crashed killing their pilots didnt do it any favours.
Okay, so I've sorta reevaluated my stance on the Tigershark's crash(es) While aircraft fault was ruled out, the F-20 prototypes lacked something major that the F-16 had: a G-limiter This G-limiter would've prevented the pilot from blacking out during such a high-G turn, as it wouldn't have allowed the pilot to pull the maneuver in the first place
So, this video mentions how the F-20 could (and would) carry the AN/ALE-40 Countermeasure Dispenser, but where would it carry them? Is it built-in, or would it be bolted on (like the dispensers on the F-5A/F-5E)?
America's problem used to be that we create too many great aircraft. Upper-ups hack off programs that have proper roles and markets. Nowadays, our problem is that we have the four F-35s and are forced to continue building other airframes that have reached their maximum potential because of the shortcomings of the F-35 series.
There has to be two seater train-light combat version of that plane. Would continue the T-38 legacy. Well Korea filled that space by T-50. Lets see what will Saab T-X will do.
As part of a nonproliferation policy, and afraid that advanced US technology would fall into the hands of the Soviets, the Carter administration did not allow first tier US weapons to be sold abroad. There were some exceptions made, but largely we were to keep the juicy stuff for ourselves. This meant the F-16 could be exported only to a few select allies. The Department of Defense created the FX program to develop and sell lesser capability fighters that could be sold to many allies abroad. This is what the F-20 was developed for, along with the F-16/79, which was a downrated F-😮16 with a the less powerful J79 engine and lesser performance. Some nations eventually made orders for the F-20.😮 As time went on the Soviets got frisky, provided their first-line fighters to allies, the Reagan administration came into power, and the policy became to provide our allies equipment to overmatch the Soviets. The standard F-16 was a better all-round fighter, didn’t cost all that much more than the F-20 in the unit price, and the estimated low operations costs by the Northrup were thought by some to be a bit optimistic. The F-16 also provided much more growth potential as a multi-role fighter. Nations canceled their F-20 orders and re-ordered F-16s. US Congress directed the US Navy to look at the F-20 for the dissimilar aircraft Aggressor role … and the Navy chose the F-16. Northrup saw the writing on the wall and pulled the plug. The F-16 became the second most produced western jet fighter, second only to the F-4 Phantom. But the F-16 is still in production and only needs about 600 more units to surpass the F-4, I think.
As a country.. on the world stage.. we could have produced 3 F-20's to 1 F-16...! The data shows.. the F-20 and the F-16 are similar in flight characteristics..! At this same time.. we developed the best ground attack aircraft.. The A-10.. and is still the preeminent ground attack aircraft..! Why was the F-20 relegated to a has been? F-16's are now being consigned to "Death by drones" Please give me 3 F-20 TigerShark II's against an F-16 anytime!!
Said that it was not bought by the air force and maybe a back up plain to the f-16 or maybe just by fewer f-16. This looks like a good replacement for the f-35. I wonder how many we could by for the cost of one f-35 four maybe 5 and still have some money left over to train a pilot or two.
+Adam Goatfish About 30 years to late. The F-20 was a great aircraft but it came out at the same time as the F-16, F15, and the F-18, and the F-14. No overseas buyers would go near the F-20 unless the US bought it, and the Air Force simply didn't need it. It's a real shame, it has about the same capabilities as the F-16 but at a much lower cost.
Had the USAF bought in the F20's US would have spent 50% of everything. But I guess spending all those precious green bucks on an expensive F16's seems logical to the decision makers who only decides to spend but never uses their own money for it.
Sure consider that the the US SOCE (civil Engineers) estimates that the US now needs 3 trillion dollars in infrastructure repairs. A lot of that is critical repairs, to roads, bridges, the grid, etc, etc, etc.
Am I right when I remember that Northrup put a lot of their own money into the F5 development? I remember thinking years ago that it would be just right for smaller, less developed, less wealthy nations, but apparently it didn't sell.
I can see in this video philipins and mexican airforce officials whom were interested in buy the aircraft but the american goverment refused to sale because suppostly this it would meaning a menace in F-16 sales. That it was a serious mistake by the american goverment because the F-20 had a good market to sale in replacement or upgrade of the global fleet of F-5 and for that it would not cause problem for the sales of the F-16.
yeah the f20 vs the f16 interesting debate many, and i am one of those, root for the underdog the tigershark and suspect northrop got screwed by the af and dept of state bureaucracy but this now is only a historical bebate a word for the wise however-the perceived superiority of the tigershark large stems from sales videos-usually the sales videos are the only easily accesable historical documents that have information about the performance of the tigershark but remember these are SALES videos, the purpose of such videos is to sell a product as such they tend to exaggerate the performance of the tigershark and minimize the strenghts of thef16 in these videos the tigersharks are under highly trained expert crews employed by northrop, the data is also provided by northrop because it was a private project furthermore although the tigershark was suppossed to cost only a half of the f16, i wonder if that was really true most such weapons systems promise one cost at tne beginning which turns out to be two or even three times higher in the real world- cost escalation precedes the tigershark and certainly is present after the tigershark furthermore northrop did a great job with the hiring of chuck yeager who in the eighties was at the peak of his right stuff fame-his fame was in the eighties probably even higher than when he broke the barrier fans of chuck naturally gravitated to any aircraft chuck liked dont get me wrong, i like the f20 but i just wonder if the performance was really that exceptional-after all the tigershark was basically a fifties design while the f16 was designed using technologies not available to the original talon freedom fighter
I was there the first fly years ago in calf.is a beauty airplane. To bad never get in production .is a great plane like the f16,maybe could be much much better compare. To f16
The radar specs on this F-20 were not very impressive even for a 1980's vintage fighter. I guess the narrow nose didn't allow for a bigger radar set and probably explains why the F-16 won the competition.
It out performed the F-16s & F-18s which was why the US government blocked it's sale to us and any other country. They had to buy the over priced and less reliable 16s & 18s.
If the F-20 had been built, you would see Switzerland, Brazil, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Bahrain, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, perhaps Spain and Austria flying them. Most of these nations were (and some STILL ARE) flying F-5s. The F-16 has not gone on to fill in for all these national air forces. Most of them are keeping F-5s alive as much as possible. So, what's the argument again?
F-20 wasn't successful because small countries want the best performance, capabilities and payloads too, so they went with the F-16 etc even tho more expensive. The latest wizbang tech didn't compensate for those. A good lesson to companies to rely on good marketing intelligence. Raytheon made the same mistake also in the '80's with their Starship. A big expensive flop.
I worked with 16s and this was in '85. Most difficult and wimpiest aircraft we had at the 57th FWW. Old Maj's, Lt. Col's and some Col's flew their F-5's all up in the butts of the 16s & 18s at Nellis.
When I was a kid in the 1980’s, I loved airplanes and flying, especially fighter aircraft. I used to write to the Air Force and ask for any pictures or anything else they would send me. They sent me all kinds of pictures and an entire set of really nice posters for free. One time I got a magazine that had Chuck Yeager’s contact information in it and I wrote to him asking for his autograph. He sent me a color picture of him standing on the ladder of a F-20 Tigershark and signed it with a short note on the picture. It wasn’t something that was mass produced but a picture that he personally wrote on and signed for me. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and put it in a frame to keep. I think I was about 10 years old at the time. I don’t know what ever happened to that picture. It’s been almost 35 years now. I’m hoping my mom has it packed away somewhere and it didn’t get thrown away. Looking back on it, I can’t believe all the stuff the Air Force used to send me for absolutely nothing. All I did was write to them and ask. Some of the posters they sent me would easily cost $20-$30 each today and they sent me dozens over a couple of years. I doubt they’d still do that today. I’ll never forget the F-20 Tigershark because of that autographed picture from Chuck Yeager.
Have you found that autograph?
TheDubstepAddict no, my mom has a box of my stuff from when I was a kid stored away somewhere at their house. I’m hoping it’s with that stuff. Who knows what’s in there. It’s been 25 years since I lived at my parents and they’ve moved from Alaska to Colorado since then so I hope it wasn’t lost. I’d love to give it to my youngest son or at least hang it back up on the wall in my house.
That is unbelievably cool.
@@porscheguy09 be sure to check when you visit them!
" I doubt they’d still do that today" - yes they would....they want to recruit young soldiers (AND your friends, who also see this propaganda), so why WOULDN'T they do it?. It's great recruitment advertising for them. I say this as a huge fan of the F-20 (such a beautiful aircraft).
I love the F-20. As a kid, it quickly became my favorite fighter plane. On the cover of Chuck Yeager's autobiography, a dark, stealthy F-20 sits in the background - I loved that picture. All started when I saw the Thunderbirds perform an airshow flying T-38's, the Northrop design really captured me. Even though my pop worked for General Dynamics, I always wanted to see the USAF buy the F-20. You really have to wonder... at the time it was state-of-the-art. Had technology more advanced than the F-16A (until the F-16C came along). Also had a better, more durable air frame. It's my understanding that not a single F-16A still flies - stress fractures to the early model F-16's mothballed ~ 500-600 aircraft. However, I see F-5's and T-38's flying around my house daily in North Texas..... 40+ year old airplanes that don't miss a beat. Also bugs me that young USAF and NAVY pilots flying advanced multi-million dollar Gen 4+ fighters are routinely shot down by their instructors flying... ahem... lowly F-5's! Even those in Aggressor squadrons! If they were to build the F-20 today with the latest avionic, AESA radar and weapons systems, it would be a NASTY little beast.
F-5 was an excellent and rugged design. It was even built to handle very rough-field take offs from dirt airstrips. When considering wing stress fractures, it can likely be attributed to 1) the F-16's greater reliance on LERX-developed vortex lift 2) greater wingspan relative to the actual fuselage (not the blended area), creating higher leverage and more flex at the wing tips 3) higher thrust to weight ratio that allowed for more sustained G-pull. The F-20, retains the F-5's considerable body lift area by use of the "shelves" between the stabilizers and the rear fuselage, despite the more trim body width, and therefore does not retain the same kind directly attached rectangular box structure of the F-5 and T-38 once you get rear of the CG. With the F404, the F-20 would see the kind of lifetime sustain G-loading of the F-16, and arguably would likely see the stress fractures at similar rates as well. The F-20 had even larger LERX than the F-5E. My bets are that Northrop knew this could be an issue.
What I think is more interesting however, is how many variations on the F-5 Northrop looked at. The YF-17, and therefore the F/A-18 and F/A-18E are themselves descendants of Northrop's work on improved F-5 variants.
I was 14 back then. Love it too. Kept a poster of it in my room.
I miss the 80's and early 90's really bad.
Back in early 1990, I was standing behind 2 USAF generals while standing in line to get to the United ticket counter at Washington National Airport (now known as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) and was close enough to eavesdrop on their conversation. They were chatting about the fact that Northrup was not going to get awarded the "FX" contract, even though the F-20 was ready, on time, under budget and exceeded all of the USAF requirements for the fighter jet program. This was when the F-20 was ready for USAF flight testing, but the USAF stalled the flight test program because the F-16 development was 6 months behind... and not to forget that Northrup had the B-2 contract and was under development.
The politics of the Military Industrial Complex are frustrating to say the least. The F-20 was excellent.
@banacekishere3857 it was a dead platform
The F-20 Tiger Shark was a great airplane!. The not so Smart Air Force never bought. I read a article that said the F-20 was not a new Aircraft just a reworked F--5. I wrote Northrop.They sent me lots of information and photos explaining the Tigershark was a new Aircraft it was great of Northrop.
I love the F5/F20 & the F 104
The best fighter jet never to be sold
The last remaining prototype is preserved in the L.A. Science Center, beautiful bird. Worth a visit if you're ever there.
3000 of these would come in real handy for the USAF today.
*Ukraine*
No.
Unlike the F-16… the F-20 was an F-5 at the absolute limits of its developmental cycle. Even Northrop knew that, which is why they designed the YF-17 and F-18 as the successor.
The F-20 was a Fighter Mafia formula aircraft.. but could never be a true multirole fighter like the F-18 was designed to be and the F-16 evolved into.
It’s like the MiG-21BIS. Amazing performance but that’s about it.
Air force had something against Northrop as far back as the late 40's started with the flying wing.
Northrop did not schmooze the USAF/USN brass, politicians, nor Pentagon sufficiently, and therefore was out of favour. This little fighter never stood a chance.
However, don't overlook the fact that this video was a promotional ad for Northrop. Everyone loves flying a powerful, agile, lightweight aircraft....but the need for a supersonic bomb truck with powerful avionics and long range while maintaining decent air to air efficiency was beyond the capability of the F-20.
Without room to grow, its small size that made it a joy to fly was also its Achilles heel.
How about contortional fuel tanks and avionic pods. Do you think would've made a difference?
Thankyou. The first informed comment to this video.
hubergeek do you mean conformal?
The F-20, as was the YF-23, were doomed to not be purchased by the USAF because Northrup had the B-2 bomber contract. No one on the outside knew that. Rumor has it the Japanese AF is building a YF-23 clone. That is one beautiful airplane.
@@gregkatz5874 It's not a YF-23 clone. It appears they're just taking what is known about stealthy planform design and other technology and making a new plane. It looks more like an F-22 than a YF-23, but it really doesn't look like either.
A couple of other things are that all the spare parts needed could be hauled in two pickup trucks. The F20 was proposed to the AF Reserve as "fly-as-a service" for $300 a flying hour including all support. It was not accepted. The last chance was to sell it to Taiwan but Reagan would not approve because we were trying to improve our relations with China and it was an issue. There are some other good videos somewhere with Chuck Yeager who was the sales pilot and who actually flew circles around a squadron of F16's
The F-20 is the polar opposite of the F-35. It would be easy to maintain, cheap to operate, and it would last a long time. I wish we could buy some now. If they brought it back they could tweak some of the electronics, and it would really be lethal. I think I heard that it has range issues, so we could assign the nearby targets to this plane, and let our F-16's take out more distant targets.
Best Air Defense aircraft ever built.
Dumbest idea ive ever heard
Canada should have been smart and bought the F-20, and kept the F-5's as trainers. We probably could have even gotten a deal if they ordered 100 of them instead of F-18's.
The RCAF would strongly disagree with you. They didn't want the F-5 and many of them went into storage. The F-20's short detection range of the radar set would have been a real liability for defending Canada's borders (as opposed to the F-18) and the single engine would have put our pilots at greater risk over the arctic.
I like the F-20 for its flight characteristics and its durability but it just wasn't the fighter for Canada.
The South Korean AF wanted to purchase a lot of F-20s and the USAF would not allow it to happen. I had head Northrup has been vilified by the USAF ever since Jack Northrup told Stuart Symington, USAF Secretary to go screw himself when he wouldn't merge Northrup with Consolidated back in the 50s. That's when the Flying Wing program was abruptly canceled and over 300 Flying WIngs were destroyed and cut up.
South Korea wanted to purchase 100s of the F-20 and the USAF blocked the deal.
I have the Northrup marketing video they used at the Paris Airshow and in Seoul. Awesome aircraft.
F-5 and F-20 is an excellent platform. We really do not anything more than that! Who is going to attack Canada? China already owes the Liberals and we are no longer the colonial power house that burnt down The White House. Grippen NG mixed a few Super Hornets is more than Canada needs!
wow almost a perfect platform.seems Saab learnt a few things from this
nomis777 Absolutely, henceforth the Gripen.
Yes! My thoughts exactly!
What an amazing aircraft ...
This great plane and the YF-23 were examples of favoritism, and prejudice against Northrup Aircraft. I had the privilege of touring the Northrup assembly line for this aircraft, in El Segundo back in 1981. It was amazing. LIttle known fact is that it flew the wings off of the F-16 and at a fraction of the cost, but USAF complained it was "not built do AF standards". Bullshit. This would have been a winner. Instead supposedly the advances were incorporated into the F-18. We will never know.
I once saw a great quote about the F-20 "it's the right airplane for the wrong time." As much as I wish the USAF would have bought the F-20, the production of the F-16 was well under way when the F-20 was released. I don't think it ever stood a change against the momentum of the F-16 program, no matter how much those of us who supported the F-20 wished so.
Perhaps the YF-23 was, but the F-5G/F-20 really wasn't the answer to the USAF's requirements. NG should just have offered the F-20 as an upgrade package to existing F-5s in allied nations' inventories, when they sent them in for SLEP or something.
I totaly agreed!
NORTHROP.
You are 100% correct. Dumb politics ruined this planes future. Imho they made it better than they were supposed to and our government didn't want it in enemies hands. Great airplane.
Worked the F-5 E&F and T-38s at Nellis AFB, NV. Best I worked on at the 57th. Also worked on A-7s, which the Air Force officially didn't have starting several years before '83.
God bless you for your service to our great nation.
please USA, restart the f20 program
In 1985, I was in Basic Training at Ft Sill, OK. We were A Btry, 1st Cannon Training Battalion. and were the First Barracks in a row of maybe 20 other units. Across the highway, were T-38's taking off and landing all day and night! was cool to wtch.
10/10 Would recommend! - Shin Kazama
F-20 Tigershark was an advanced version of F-5 Tiger and PAF was interested in it. PAF wanted to adopt it for its own design of fighter aircraft. If a pilot has to be named who evaluated it, it would be Shahid Latif.
Weapons, they're FAAAANTASTIC
I'm sold! Put me down for about 2000 planes!
- nobody, unfortunately
Just finished building a model from hasegawa 1/72 scale F20 and it a great looking jet !!
Indeed it's a great aircraft w/c had been the successor of reliable F-5 variant and the take-off design for YF-17 w the leading edge extension w/c is now F18 hotnet but w 2 x f404 in the power plant. Now Korean Aerospace Inc partnered w Lockheed Martin incorporated most of the designs of Avionics, Airframes and even the power plant of FA-50 so we can say that F20 has been reincarnated to FA-50.
Unfortunately, Northrop started the 2 programs, YF17 & F20 but it was McDonnell Douglass & KAI/LM got the sales for FA18 & FA50 respectively.
Just too good....
Northrop grumman corporation should make a stealthy version of this and i am sure that they will have sales! Like the jas 39 gripen!
in hindsight, seeing this is the same engine powering the grippen, they could have supersized the f20 in the same way they did the f18. would have had more places to hang stuff from and also longer range. however that would have essentially made it . budget f16 and im sure there were some who that was going to rub the wrong way.
Imagine if tigershark has thrust vectoring and aesa radar
Thrust vectoring is much less useful than you think it is, and is antithetical to the entire point of the F-20 because it adds weight and complexity while providing something that isn’t really that useful.
We still have a use for high performance air craft without stealth capability this aircraft could still be viable today. It’s a improvement on the f-5 / t-38 and it’s a design that has been improved and refined over the years. It’s sad that it never found a market. It was my understanding that not only was it cheaper and more simple to operate, but it could kick a F-16’s ass hands down.
Except it would get BVR'd immediately by an aircraft with twice its range and Armament.
The F16 is more than a dancer.
And dancing isn't the only ability a fighter needs
Communicative size, is a form of stealth in it;'s own right.
You can always purchase the HESA Kowsar. There ya go!
Time to bring on the Super Tiger Shark
First time I'd heard of supersonic speeds in "military power". Sounds a lot like "supercruise". If that's true, it had to be one of the first (if not the first). Shame she never got picked up by anyone (including the USAF)...
The ability to go supersonic using military power, with a single, GE F404 (not a big engine by any stretch) - talk about another testament to the superior aerodynamic qualities of that Northrop airframe.
... no, lots of jets can "supercruise" (what, really is the difference between 1.0M and 0.9M?) when clean, which is what was in the video. Unremarkable, and not particularly useful.
i remember in the 80s when the mantra from the top was "if it cant supercruise its dead in todays battlespace". well looks like they forgot all about that.
@mandellorian Aye, the Lightning could, and the TSR2 was designed to supercruise from the get-go. But we're all forgetting the aircraft that supercruised the best of of them all...Concorde!
Let's be honest, it could shoot down the F-16 at 1/3 the cost. Eventually the F-16 would use similar electronics. Isn't that a hoot? Only crooks kept it from being the front line fighter. Amazingly Lockheed used similar design criteria to build the F-35. Both are small light aircraft that use their lighter airframes to out perform heavier fighters.
Fascinating comments!
It is a hoot because Northrop had the benefit of building the YF-17 for the F-X program AND the benefit of the already in production and service F-16. I'm not trying to downplay how good the F-20 was, but it stands to reason that an airplane that first flew a decade after another will be better than the first.
@@PeriscopeFilm maybe the fellows at the Pentagon got a better 'deal' with the F16? wink wink
Will someone tell me why we are buying a AT 29 Tacano, Scorpion jet or AT 6 Wolverine when this single seater can be had?
Brooks Butler
The AT-29 Super Tucano is a formidable plane. It has the lowest cost of operation of any attack trainer in production, with a per flight hour cost b/w 500-700 dollars, can be operated from dirt or grass airfields, or from a highway. turn around time is 10 min. It can loiter for around 6+ hours, It’s pt6 engine has 8000 hours lifespan, the cost of operations for the Scorpio is $3000 which is ludicrous, the tigershark cost of operations would have been 1700/hour in 2015 dollars With an engine lifespan of 4000 hours.
So the AT-29 is better suited for counter insurgency, reconoce, low intensity missions, anti-drugs trafficking, border patrol, anti artillery or air to air drone fighting.
We,the mexican air force,need 60 tigersharks,at least,20 of wich should be twoseaters
Most likely loiter time.
the best of the best
We - the US should have just bought lots of these and the A-7F, no F-16s, and just a few or no F-15s, beyond the 2nd delivery year of the F-15C. No F-15E, just A-7F/G for penetration strike. lots of them.
You shouldn't compete in a climbing cost vs fielded numbers game- you need to play your _cheap_ advantage not your expensive million dollar gold plated super Air-superiority fighter.
The US in the early 80s had _superior_ ability to make small very economic turbofans like the F-404, that outperformed anything else in the world. That is a plus. Plus the US had the ability to miniaturize combat avionics, such as radar, and create the first widely fielded smart weapons - easy/cheap- those are advantages that no other peer at the time could match. That was where we blew the Communist nations out of the water.
The US didn't win WWII with the "best", the US won the war with "good enough", and LOTS of it.
The US and the west should've built heaps of F-20s, and trained lots of flight crew to fly them, and use our smart weapons to keep sorties per mission objective low. Sure we'd take losses, but with a thousand F-20s, who cares. By that time the economics of scale would have been mind blowing, and you're rolling off $6 million dollar fighters that can smoke everything in visual range, and beat parity at BVR with the AMRAAM.
The west could've been just as effective up to this very day, at 1/2 the actual @#$@#$ defense dollars spent, which could've been used for lots better things. But no, that wouldn't make the big Military Industrial Complex so much money.
You're walking into a paradigm of cost-benefit analysis. I'll agree the F-20 was a significantly cheaper alternative to the F-16, and as an A2A aircraft, about 90% as effective. However, the F-16 was a clean sheet design, at the pinnacle of dedicated day fighter technology when it was developed, and got even better when 30,000 lbst engines were put in the airframe. The F-20 didn't exist yet, but the F-5 already was an excellent airframe that was always begging for more power, which it of course got with the F404 shoved up it's ass. Trying to maintain so much commonality with the F-5 had it's issues however, and I certainly believe that many more improvements could've been made to the F-20 that would've put it even more in-line with the F-16. It would've cut out more of the operational commonality that made the F-20 such an attractive deal to prospective buyers who already had the Tiger.
When it comes to A2G, you run into an ordnance carrying comparison that falls fully into the F-16's favor, and even further such when considering the F-16XL. I'm in the camp that thinks the XL should've been produced over the F-16C because of it's enormous improvements in fuel efficiency, ordnance capacity and range, despite the acceptable loss in A2A dogfighting performance. The F-16 got turned into a strike fighter anyways, of which the XL was by far more appropriate for the task.
With the TX competition, the shot of Northrup Grumman's design as so far been limited to a downward looking cockpit shot that looks just about the exact same as an F-5, it even has similar looking LERX and side mounted intakes. It might be the second coming of the F-20, this time with two seats like an F-5B/F. Ironically it's biggest competition is Lockheed/KAI's own T-50, itself an F-16 semi-derivative. It's Tigershark vs Viper Ep2.
And the end result US taxpayers had to foot the bill for the expensive budget required to operate the F16's.
Peter Bednar maybe that's true if you want to mimic the Soviet model, but the USAF's requirements were and are totally different. The F-16 was the right choice, and allied nations lucked out when Reagan decided to let them be sold.
Well....we did have the best by the end of WWII. We had the absolute best main battle rifles to start the war. You could argue about tanks and which were the best (different philosophies of use). In planes we had the best by the end of the war in many respects. The margin may not have been very wide but it was there. Also, in hindsight especially, the F-16 has been and is a very solid and stable aircraft that was already in production. Also as a side note, the pilots care if we take losses...and when we're talking about attrition in a BVR fight the side with the most missiles in the air wins. The F-20 couldn't carry enough and couldn't carry a big enough RADAR to suit the needs of the Air Force. So in the end it doesn't matter how many of them you can afford if you're having to go pick your pilots up because they ran out of missiles or couldn't detect the enemy far enough out.
But “lots of it” also meant lots more deaths.
The time has come for the Army to buy this plane for both close combat, and also escape a modern enemy or fight if need be. It is less expensive and more capable than after market junk from around the world.
The F20 was a good platform but it was no F16. The Viper was the first modern plane. So many firsts in its design alone. Everyone keeps making the F20 to be more than it was. Just because one for-hire test pilot favored it, it doesn’t mean much. Even if that pilot was Chuck Yeager. Talk to any company pilot, they will all tell you that their plane was the best. It happens all the time. The F16 was the right choice, it has proved itself to be incredible even to this day.
F20 is much cheaper to maintain in long run.
With its super fast scramble time and ability to turn the F-20 would be a good plane for Israel.
While politics is what killed it the fact that 2 out of the 3 that were built before it was cancelled crashed killing their pilots didnt do it any favours.
Yes, but the government ruled out the planes being the cause for the crashes.
If anything, it was pilot error
Okay, so I've sorta reevaluated my stance on the Tigershark's crash(es)
While aircraft fault was ruled out, the F-20 prototypes lacked something major that the F-16 had: a G-limiter
This G-limiter would've prevented the pilot from blacking out during such a high-G turn, as it wouldn't have allowed the pilot to pull the maneuver in the first place
So, this video mentions how the F-20 could (and would) carry the AN/ALE-40 Countermeasure Dispenser, but where would it carry them?
Is it built-in, or would it be bolted on (like the dispensers on the F-5A/F-5E)?
America's problem used to be that we create too many great aircraft. Upper-ups hack off programs that have proper roles and markets. Nowadays, our problem is that we have the four F-35s and are forced to continue building other airframes that have reached their maximum potential because of the shortcomings of the F-35 series.
I build the controller to bypass the computer and take control of the wing flaps and rudder to troubleshoot.
It would have been good business for Northrop to sell it to countries allied with emerging or modest economies.
Love this great plane and to bad never get off the market big mistake, and go with these F-22, F-35 etc., could go 20% to 30% bigger and cheaper.
There has to be two seater train-light combat version of that plane. Would continue the T-38 legacy. Well Korea filled that space by T-50. Lets see what will Saab T-X will do.
Does the T50 match up to the F20?
@@cochinaable I guess, it does.
As part of a nonproliferation policy, and afraid that advanced US technology would fall into the hands of the Soviets, the Carter administration did not allow first tier US weapons to be sold abroad. There were some exceptions made, but largely we were to keep the juicy stuff for ourselves. This meant the F-16 could be exported only to a few select allies.
The Department of Defense created the FX program to develop and sell lesser capability fighters that could be sold to many allies abroad. This is what the F-20 was developed for, along with the F-16/79, which was a downrated F-😮16 with a the less powerful J79 engine and lesser performance. Some nations eventually made orders for the F-20.😮
As time went on the Soviets got frisky, provided their first-line fighters to allies, the Reagan administration came into power, and the policy became to provide our allies equipment to overmatch the Soviets. The standard F-16 was a better all-round fighter, didn’t cost all that much more than the F-20 in the unit price, and the estimated low operations costs by the Northrup were thought by some to be a bit optimistic. The F-16 also provided much more growth potential as a multi-role fighter. Nations canceled their F-20 orders and re-ordered F-16s. US Congress directed the US Navy to look at the F-20 for the dissimilar aircraft Aggressor role … and the Navy chose the F-16. Northrup saw the writing on the wall and pulled the plug.
The F-16 became the second most produced western jet fighter, second only to the F-4 Phantom. But the F-16 is still in production and only needs about 600 more units to surpass the F-4, I think.
As a country.. on the world stage.. we could have produced 3 F-20's to 1 F-16...! The data shows.. the F-20 and the F-16 are similar in flight characteristics..! At this same time.. we developed the best ground attack aircraft.. The A-10.. and is still the preeminent ground attack aircraft..! Why was the F-20 relegated to a has been? F-16's are now being consigned to "Death by drones" Please give me 3 F-20 TigerShark II's against an F-16 anytime!!
treu sire
3:45 MTBF 200hrs... and I thought my hard drive's 50,000 hrs was kind of low reliability...80s electronics..
Said that it was not bought by the air force and maybe a back up plain to the f-16 or maybe just by fewer f-16. This looks like a good replacement for the f-35. I wonder how many we could by for the cost of one f-35 four maybe 5 and still have some money left over to train a pilot or two.
Joshua Thomas you don't have a clue. The F-35 is 3 generations better, for a start.
Is this plane still flying?
Nope. The development program was abandoned in 1986 after three prototypes had been built and a fourth partially completed.
PeriscopeFilm ..not to mention 2 prototypes crashed (in 1984 and 1985) with both pilots killed.
A Gripen type aircraft long before the Gripen 😉
Sounds like a great airplane! Let's not build them.
+Adam Goatfish About 30 years to late. The F-20 was a great aircraft but it came out at the same time as the F-16, F15, and the F-18, and the F-14. No overseas buyers would go near the F-20 unless the US bought it, and the Air Force simply didn't need it. It's a real shame, it has about the same capabilities as the F-16 but at a much lower cost.
+Adam Goatfish If you've followed the F-22 and more recently the F-35 fiasco-disaster, it really makes you wonder.
+Adam Goatfish no shit...lets go a buy a pos f35...lol
Had the USAF bought in the F20's US would have spent 50% of everything. But I guess spending all those precious green bucks on an expensive F16's seems logical to the decision makers who only decides to spend but never uses their own money for it.
Sure consider that the the US SOCE (civil Engineers) estimates that the US now needs
3 trillion dollars in infrastructure repairs.
A lot of that is critical repairs, to roads, bridges, the grid, etc, etc, etc.
Am I right when I remember that Northrup put a lot of their own money into the F5 development? I remember thinking years ago that it would be just right for smaller, less developed, less wealthy nations, but apparently it didn't sell.
Part of the problem with the early F-5s is that it didnt have radar until the E models.
what's the difference between this and the f-16?
The F-16 is an entirely different aircraft, the F-20 is basically just an upgraded F-5E
This plane is alive. Check out JF-17
The F-20 would be a great replacement as a trainer to replace the T-38 wink wink nod nod.
Now China and Pakistan... "adopted" it as the JF-17
The JF-17 was based on the Chengdu F-7/Super 7
I can see in this video philipins and mexican airforce officials whom were interested in buy the aircraft but the american goverment refused to sale because suppostly this it would meaning a menace in F-16 sales. That it was a serious mistake by the american goverment because the F-20 had a good market to sale in replacement or upgrade of the global fleet of F-5 and for that it would not cause problem for the sales of the F-16.
They should sell this tigershark jet fighter...to other countries...it would be nice😊
What a shame, F 20 had great potential for being a full fighter
The United States Navy should have bought these for their aggressor squadrons.
So sad, this should of been the fighter of the 80's! I hope NorthupGruman can resurrect this fighter with 4.5 gen avionics and radar.
So why did nof[body buy it?
Check out history of Northrop aircraft company. From start to finish, you'll see why!
This jet will be produced and fly for the first time at the NATO airbase of Kucove.
How many are going to be produced? And when will they begin delivery?
What a tragic career Northrop had. Fail with the F17, F20, F23
There was tha F117 nighthawk competitor(XST?) that had all aspect stealth and would not have been shot down in Serbia.
Why America why???
Why not release this plane..
yeah the f20 vs the f16 interesting debate many, and i am one of those, root for the underdog the tigershark and suspect northrop got screwed by the af and dept of state bureaucracy but this now is only a historical bebate a word for the wise however-the perceived superiority of the tigershark large stems from sales videos-usually the sales videos are the only easily accesable historical documents that have information about the performance of the tigershark but remember these are SALES videos, the purpose of such videos is to sell a product as such they tend to exaggerate the performance of the tigershark and minimize the strenghts of thef16 in these videos the tigersharks are under highly trained expert crews employed by northrop, the data is also provided by northrop because it was a private project furthermore although the tigershark was suppossed to cost only a half of the f16, i wonder if that was really true most such weapons systems promise one cost at tne beginning which turns out to be two or even three times higher in the real world- cost escalation precedes the tigershark and certainly is present after the tigershark furthermore northrop did a great job with the hiring of chuck yeager who in the eighties was at the peak of his right stuff fame-his fame was in the eighties probably even higher than when he broke the barrier fans of chuck naturally gravitated to any aircraft chuck liked dont get me wrong, i like the f20 but i just wonder if the performance was really that exceptional-after all the tigershark was basically a fifties design while the f16 was designed using technologies not available to the original talon freedom fighter
I was there the first fly years ago in calf.is a beauty airplane. To bad never get in production .is a great plane like the f16,maybe could be much much better compare. To f16
This video is square, man, square.
they built 3 prototypes for $1.2 billion
Looks like JF 17 and Gripen .
Should have been made as an OpFor aircraft if nothing else.
Was Foolishly not chosen over the F-16 even though it was cheaper, more reliable, and developed underbudget and on time. The opposite of the F-16.😮
The F-20 came years after the F-16. The F-16 wasn't "chosen over" the F-20 because the F-20 didn't exist until F-16 was already in service.
gently used f20 tigershark for sale - only flown by little old lady to church on Sunday
The radar specs on this F-20 were not very impressive even for a 1980's vintage fighter. I guess the narrow nose didn't allow for a bigger radar set and probably explains why the F-16 won the competition.
It out performed the F-16s & F-18s which was why the US government blocked it's sale to us and any other country. They had to buy the over priced and less reliable 16s & 18s.
F20 tiger shark a uncommon fighter jet
I witnessed the second crash that ultimately ended the program...
Oh, what could have been
I think the same guy narrated the sex ed videos I watched in school in the 80's.
At the asean thailand using this jet fighter
Hello War Thunder players!
I have the crew jacket from this jet
there were 3 of them build and the entire program cost $1.2 billion. and that was in the late 70's and early 80's . not to cheap in my opinion
F-20 전투기가 추락한것은 엔진성능이 너무 뛰어나기 때문인가?
over g causing pilots to black out, because the F-20 lacked a G-limiter
sade that.s never bild .
NEW SUB Long live Prince Reza Pahlavi, long live the Islamic Republic
If the F-20 had been built, you would see Switzerland, Brazil, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Bahrain, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, perhaps Spain and Austria flying them. Most of these nations were (and some STILL ARE) flying F-5s. The F-16 has not gone on to fill in for all these national air forces. Most of them are keeping F-5s alive as much as possible. So, what's the argument again?
ไต้หวันจะซื้ออยู่นะเอฟ20นี่แหละแต่สภาคองเกรสไม่อนุมัติให้ขายให้เสียนี่เลยไม่มีใครได้ประจำการ
Ist fourth generation
Corruption stop f-20 ...
Not fly by wire which led to pilot blackout under G load. Killed two pilots. Pretty much killing the F20 project.
F-20 wasn't successful because small countries want the best performance, capabilities and payloads too, so they went with the F-16 etc even tho more expensive. The latest wizbang tech didn't compensate for those. A good lesson to companies to rely on good marketing intelligence. Raytheon made the same mistake also in the '80's with their Starship. A big expensive flop.
I worked with 16s and this was in '85. Most difficult and wimpiest aircraft we had at the 57th FWW. Old Maj's, Lt. Col's and some Col's flew their F-5's all up in the butts of the 16s & 18s at Nellis.
Has far too many shortcomings to ever compete, in any version, with bigger fighters of today.