Northrop F-5 variant
Northrop F-5 F-5F Tiger II
Two-seat version of the F-5E, with the nose stretched three feet to house the second cockpit. It first flew on 25 September 1974 at Edwards and Northrop built 146. It retains one of the two M39 cannon and carries the AN/APQ-157 radar, a dual-control derivative of the AN/APQ-159 with indicators in both cockpits.
- September 25, 1974
- First flight
- 146
- Units built
History
A two-seater that keeps its gun
The F-5F is the two-seat training version of the F-5E Tiger II, a dual-control aircraft fully capable of combat. Unlike the first-generation F-5B, which gave up both nose cannon entirely to make room for the second seat, the F-5F retains one of the two 20 mm M39s. The solution was to stretch the nose three feet over the single-seater, which made room for the rear cockpit without wholly sacrificing internal armament or radar.
The two-seater's radar is the AN/APQ-157, a dual-control derivative of the F-5E's AN/APQ-159, with radar scope indicators and controls duplicated in both cockpits. The first F-5F flew on 25 September 1974 at Edwards Air Force Base and Northrop built 146.
Service and derivatives
The F-5F accompanied the single-seater in almost every export. Taiwan built 66 F-5Fs under licence alongside its 242 F-5Es, and it was the last variant of the type to leave Republic of China Air Force service, in July 2025, together with the RF-5E Tigergazers. South Korea built 20 KF-5Fs from September 1982. Switzerland operated twelve F-5Fs at its 1981 peak and retained four by the early 2020s. Brazil bought four ex-USAF aggressor F-5Fs in 1988 and later upgraded them to F-5FM standard. Chile acquired three F-5Fs in the 1970s, later raised to Tiger III standard.
In the United States the US Navy designates its two-seat adversary aircraft F-5F and has built at least three "FrankenTigers", the result of grafting an F-5F two-seat nose onto a low-hour ex-Swiss F-5E airframe. VFC-111 operates eighteen aircraft, seventeen F-5Ns and one such F-5F.
A trainer that is also an aggressor
Like the F-5B before it, the F-5F was never a pure trainer. Its combat capability, full radar and cannon made it an operational aircraft with dual controls, useful both for converting pilots onto the type and for flying adversary missions with an instructor aboard. In the air forces that upgraded their Tiger IIs — Brazil, Chile, Singapore, Thailand — the two-seater received the same avionics package as the single-seater, so crews train with the real systems rather than a degraded version.