Aerospace Picture of the Day

I loved the aircraft and it's advancements from the beginning.

It could have won on looks alone.

F404 engine has 7700 fewer parts then the J79.......WOW.

Awesome aircraft at the wrong time.

Some F-20 Tigershark patches:

One thing I never understood: Why no semi-recessed sparrow or AMRAAM carriage under the fuselage? They'd already done it on the F-4, F-14 etc. and it looks to me like there would have been room for at least 2. That would have presented a nice, low drag option of 2 Sparrow/2 Sidewinders - while leaving the centerline and other pylons still unoccupied.

..

Don't know - but undercarriage placement and the Speedbrakes in front of that could likely make that nonviable.

The F-5 could have had the same thing done if possible - but considering they tried adding Sparrow in the 1970s guess not.

Theme: Northrop F-20 Tigershark

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I intend to explore more "aerospace" topics in this thread (with of course fighters at its core ), and am thinking that the next topic will be about the US Space Shuttle...

Theme: Northrop F-20 Tigershark

I loved the aircraft and it's advancements from the beginning.

It could have won on looks alone.

F404 engine has 7700 fewer parts then the J79.......WOW.

Awesome aircraft at the wrong time.

It was a great jet on many levels, but seemed to violate USAF's "every new fighter must be bigger, faster and massively more expensive vs. its predecessors" mantra. Unless you consider the F-16, which was decidedly smaller, somewhat slower and less expensive then the F-15.

In order for the F-20 to be successful in USAF service, they would have had to go down that road even further. Unfortunately, that never happened (even in token form), so no foreign orders materialized for that and many other reasons. It can be argued that 3 to 4x more jets for the same price as an F-14/15 would help compensate, but we will never know. Just wasn't a gamble USAF wanted to take.

Still, its an excellent study in design philosophy and building to spec - and no further. Keep costs low, make it simple yet competitive and build lots of them. Reminds me of the Mig-21...

It's predecessor the F-5N was no slouch either.

Theme: Northrop F-20 Tigershark

Theme: Northrop F-20 Tigershark

Just a quick update. I'm going to run the F-20 theme for a while longer, then move on to the Space Shuttle. After that, I will explore either Directed Energy, or Saab's glorious Viggen. Ah, the choices!

Theme: Northrop F-20 Tigershark

Theme: Northrop F-20 Tigershark

Theme: Northrop F-20 Tigershark