Discovery Channel Wings - Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter

Video from the channel DocumentaryFR3AK about Northrop F-5, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 49:17. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Episode of Discovery Channel's Wings series devoted to the Northrop F-5 family of light fighters and its training relative, the T-38 Talon. It covers the origin of the design, its role as an export fighter under the US Military Assistance Program (MAP), its combat debut in Vietnam, the evolution into the F-5E Tiger II and the F-20 Tigershark, and its later use as a chase plane and as an aggressor in air combat training.

Against the post-Korea trend toward ever larger and more complex fighters, Northrop bet on a small, simple and cheap aircraft. The 1955 N-156 study led first to the T-38 trainer, which flew in 1959, and then to the N-156F fighter, developed with company funds. The USAF did not want it for itself and Army interest went nowhere, until in 1962 the Department of Defense selected it to equip allied countries under the MAP; that October the single-seat F-5A and two-seat F-5B were ordered. The YF-5A flew on 31 July 1963 and the first deliveries arrived in 1964. In 1965, nineteen aircraft modified as F-5C were combat-evaluated in Vietnam during Operation Skoshi Tiger. That experience led to the F-5E/F Tiger II, unveiled on 23 June 1972, with its first flight on 11 August. The F-20 Tigershark, with a single, much more powerful engine, found no buyers and closed out the family.

According to the documentary, each F-5A engine weighed about 570 lb and produced 4,080 lb of thrust with afterburner, and three mechanics could swap it in 20 minutes. It carried two 20 mm cannon, Sidewinder missiles on the wingtips and up to 6,200 lb of stores on seven hardpoints. In the 150 days of the Vietnam evaluation more than 3,500 sorties were flown, with 6.5 maintenance hours per flight and a 1.5% mission abort rate. Iran was the first country to put it into service, in February 1965; Spain and Canada built it under license. T-38 production ended in 1972 with 1,189 units, and the last Tiger IIs were delivered to Singapore in 1989. The episode closes with the F-5Es of the aggressor squadrons at Red Flag, chosen for their resemblance to the MiG-21, and with the F-5 fuselage used in the X-29 demonstrator.