Aug 172010
Early demonstrator in bright red:
From SDAM via Mark Nankivil.
6 Responses to “F-20 Tigershark paint scheme”
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Early demonstrator in bright red:
From SDAM via Mark Nankivil.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Cool one of my favourite fighters ever… too bad there arn’t any.
Best fighter the USAF never bought.
Jim
About the only possible US purchases of them would have been for the Air National Guard, as well as a few aggressor aircraft.
Since the ANG could get early model F-16s as they were taken out of USAF service, the idea of a purpose-built ANG aircraft was expensive compared to doing it that way.
It really was aimed at the export market, but as soon as F-16 sales were okayed beyond just the NATO countries, everyone wanted those for their prestige value, despite their higher cost.
Also, it suffered in comparison to the F-16 in the amount of underwing ordnance it could carry in the ground attack role.
Wikipedia has a pretty good article on it, and why it never succeeded:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-20_Tigershark
Looks like something Starsky and Hutch would fly around in:-)
I think that at this point they were either at, or slightly beyond, the “stretch” potential of the basic F-5/T-38 design.
Two of the three prototypes were lost in crashes, one during a demonstration flight in front of the South Korean Air Force representatives who were its potential customers.
The one I’d still like to know more about is the one-off Phantom II Israel modified to use two F100 engines instead of its J79’s. That must have been some real rocketship to fly.
Here you are: http://www.anticsonline.co.uk/2121_1_105625129.html
Kurnass and Orev