Bad Timing Cost The F-20 Tigershark Its Place In The Sun: The Northrop F-20 Tigershark was an advanced fighter plane when it was first produced in 1983. Initially, it was called the F-5G, an upgraded version of the F-5E featuring a significantly more powerful engine and a modern avionics suite that included vastly improved radar.
However, the Pentagon, especially during the Carter years, was at best lukewarm about helping sell US-made warplanes to nations unless they adhered to its human rights parameters.
The F-20 Tigershark also didn’t sell because it faced stiff competition from the F-16, which had the advantage of US Air Force support, a superior loadout, and was already widely available for export.
The US government’s policy shift toward exporting existing aircraft, such as the F-16, rather than developing new ones, further limited the F-20’s market prospects.
Foreign nations assumed that, due to the US’s support for the F-16, the F-20 was a second-tier aircraft, and even the Madison Avenue-type marketing, with the famous Chuck Yeager, couldn’t help. No one bought the F-20…and that was a shame.
It was a wonderful aircraft. It just came into being at the wrong time.
The F-20’s Development
The F-20’s development began in 1975. Initially designated the F-5G, a variant of and an upgrade of the Northrop F-5E Tiger II, AKA “Freedom Fighter.”
The F-5E was already being sold to US allies around the globe (Brazil, Ethiopia, Switzerland, South Korea, and Taiwan) as a low-cost export fighter. The F-5G/F-20 cost a maximum of $9 million and was cheap and easy to maintain.
The F-20 was unveiled at the Paris airshow in 1983.
At the time, the F-5 market was still viable, and the aircraft was loaded with new technology, which was why its designation was changed from the F-5G to the F-20. It was essentially a new aircraft.
The new, more powerful engine propelled the aircraft to speeds of Mach 2.1, or approximately 1,611 miles per hour. The beyond-visual-range (BVR) air-to-air capability was cutting edge at that time, and a full suite of air-to-ground modes capable of firing most US weapons.
The standard armament package consisted of two M39A2 20mm autocannons, each with 280 rounds of ammunition, and two AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles carried on the wingtips.
The F-20 also featured an early version of a heads-up display, as well as “hands-on throttle stick controls,” all of which were cutting-edge technology in 1983.
The F-20 Tigershark was competitive with contemporary fighter designs such as the General Dynamics F-16/79, which was a modified export-oriented version of the F-16A/B designed with the outdated General Electric J79 engine. Still, it was much less expensive to purchase and operate.
The F-5 Family Was Used At Top Gun As ‘Enemy’ Aircraft
In an outstanding article by Ehud Yonay, he pointed out in 1983, “The F-5 is a family of planes, starting with the F-5A back in 1964 and culminating last year with the F-5G Tigershark (now called F-20).
“All are elegant, zippy beauties with body lines so trim they look like canoes with wings. The only fighter plane made in California, the F-5 is an anomaly in the high-budget defense business.
“It is not only small, effective, and easy to repair, but it is also very cheap. The F-5E Tiger IIs used by Top Gun instructors to simulate Russian MiGs cost around $5 million each, and even the top-of-the-line Tigershark lists at only $9 million — one quarter the price of a single F-14 Tomcat.”
Coincidentally, the article by Yonay, in which he described pilots going through the Navy’s Top Gun school, Hollywood producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer stated explicitly that the inspiration for the famous “Top Gun” film was the article “Top Guns” by Ehud Yonay, from the May 1983 issue of California magazine, which featured aerial photography by then-Lieutenant Commander C.J. “Heater” Heatley.
Two aviators were featured in the article, Lieutenants Alex “Yogi” Hnarakis and Dave “Possum” Cully, an F-14 Tomcat aircrew from the Fighter Squadron 1 (VF-1) Wolfpack.
Judging from the following paragraph, it is clear where Simpson and Bruckheimer drew their inspiration.
“Yogi had flown jets in flight school – the T-2 Buckeye and A-4 Skyhawk – but moving up to the F-14 Tomcat meant crossing the magic line that separates the professionals from the amateurs, like first-time sex, glorious and terrifying.
“The difference is the afterburner, an engine component that at the pull of a throttle begins to burn huge amounts of fuel at incredible speed, resulting in a burst of power that no ordinary jet engine can duplicate and no plane but a fighter ever needs.”
The mystery “MiG-28” that Tom Cruise flew inverted in the infamous scene was a painted-up hot-rod F-5E.
The F-20 Never Got Off the Ground
Northrop was banking on the F-20 sales taking off. But it never did. Politics played a huge role in its demise.
The Air Force and the Reagan administration knew that every F-16 sold to a foreign allied country would lower the overall costs of F-16s. F-20 sales were discouraged. The government banned the sale of F-20s to Taiwan.
There were two crashes of prototypes of the F-20, which were later found to be from pilots pulling such hard G-force turns that they blacked out. Those hurt any hope of getting the foreign sales off the ground.
The F-20 was a great aircraft that was a jack of all trades but a master of none. And it just came along when the US was heavily invested in the F-16.
About the Author:
Steve Balestrieri is a National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing on defense, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in many military publications.
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