Its true though, in a way.
the purpose of F-5
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dinos7
Airman
nice one adler
102first_hussars
Tech Sergeant
The aircraft was in the design stages in the late 50's, the U.S wanted a fast, agile CHeap and easy to manufacture aircraft to counter the Soviet airforce that totally outnumberd them. Once it went into production knowbody really cared anymore, better aircraft like the F-15,F-16 and the F-18 were already in the design stages and the US forces made good use with what they had. however other allied countries used the second version of the aircraft the F-5 Tiger II, I do know that Northprop ended up making a prototype which was amazing it was called the F-20 Tigershark but the program was cancelled.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
102first_hussars said:
Northrop and other manufactuers under license made thousands of F-5As and F-5Bs. Canada, Spain, the Netherlands manfactured them and off the top of my head I could tell you Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Saudi Araba, Iran, Venezuela, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, South Korea, Greece, Thailand, Jordan, Brazil and Norway used F-5As and F-5Es.....
They still use a few of them here in Germany as trainers. Most are replaced now though.
pbfoot
1st Lieutenant
the f 5 was not agood ac for canada it didn't have the range required it for example to play in the nato games in norway up to 8 air refuelings were required it was ordered in canada in order to keep canadair working upon completion of the 104 contract
syscom3
Pacific Historian
One thing the F5 had going for it, was it was cheap! A 2nd or 3rd world country could buy a squadron of them without going bankrupt. Plus since it had only a limited air-to-ground role, it did not have a stigma of being an offensive (thus warlike) aircraft.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
And it's easy to maintain....
That I can believe.
As said the F-5 was originally procured as a light fighter to sell/give to friendly countries. It's J85 engines were actually originally designed for the ADM20 Quail B-52 decoy missile. These engines also powered some learjet models and the white knight carrier aircraft for the recent SpaceShipOne suborbital vehicle and has the highest thrust to weight ratio of any production jet engine available.
The F20 was something of an F-16 competitor, but it was upgraded from the basic F-5, with proper avionics and a single F404 engine as used in the F/A-18 (an excellent engine and state of the art at the time). It was an excellent aircraft, with a low radar cross section and excellent power to weight ratio. It had excellent climb rate and low maintainence, it could be ready for combat within just 1 minute. It's main flaws were a lack of horizontal stability in some areas of the envelope but probably the biggest flaw was that the wing loading was far too high due to a design error and/or because they did it quickly and on the cheap, not bothering to change the F-5 wing much. This meant it could barely outturn an F-4 Phantom and by the time they redesigned it, most prospective countries had gone for the F-16. The fact that none of the US services wanted to buy any, not even as agressors pretty much sealed it's fate. The final nail in the coffin was that two of the three demo aircraft crashed while on demonstration flights, not a good advert. Apparently the last is still flying/flyable in a museum somewhere.
The F-20, like that other slightly later Northrop marketing failure, The F-18L, was an aircraft that could have been an excellent machine and would have eclipsed it's rivals in most areas but failed mainly due to not having a US order and poor/rival marketing.
The F20 was something of an F-16 competitor, but it was upgraded from the basic F-5, with proper avionics and a single F404 engine as used in the F/A-18 (an excellent engine and state of the art at the time). It was an excellent aircraft, with a low radar cross section and excellent power to weight ratio. It had excellent climb rate and low maintainence, it could be ready for combat within just 1 minute. It's main flaws were a lack of horizontal stability in some areas of the envelope but probably the biggest flaw was that the wing loading was far too high due to a design error and/or because they did it quickly and on the cheap, not bothering to change the F-5 wing much. This meant it could barely outturn an F-4 Phantom and by the time they redesigned it, most prospective countries had gone for the F-16. The fact that none of the US services wanted to buy any, not even as agressors pretty much sealed it's fate. The final nail in the coffin was that two of the three demo aircraft crashed while on demonstration flights, not a good advert. Apparently the last is still flying/flyable in a museum somewhere.
The F-20, like that other slightly later Northrop marketing failure, The F-18L, was an aircraft that could have been an excellent machine and would have eclipsed it's rivals in most areas but failed mainly due to not having a US order and poor/rival marketing.
What you just posted confirmed my theory that the real purpose of the F-5 was to pretend to be a Mig a the movie Top Gun. 
Nonskimmer
Captain
Its true I swear!
102first_hussars
Tech Sergeant
And Hotshots as well
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
102first_hussars said:
Those were Gnats!
102first_hussars
Tech Sergeant
No the bad guys, the bad guys. Oh F*ck I dont remember.
Neither do I. Have not seen that movie in forever.
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