Small but deadly: Northrop F-5

Video from the channel SkyShips en Español about Northrop F-5, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 18:36. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

The video reviews the history of the Northrop F-5, a lightweight fighter designed to be simple and cheap against the 1950s trend toward ever heavier, more complex and more expensive aircraft. It also covers its family: the T-38 Talon trainer, the F-5E Tiger II and the F-20 Tigershark.

Northrop developed the N-156 project without a clear customer. The US Air Force first adopted the two-seat version as a supersonic trainer to replace the T-33; it flew in 1959 and entered service in 1961 as the T-38. The N-156F fighter also flew in 1959, and in 1962, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Air Force placed the first orders for the F-5A Freedom Fighter, intended mainly for military aid to allied countries. After the Skoshi Tiger combat trials in Vietnam came the F-5E Tiger II, which replaced the F-5A in 1973 with more powerful J85 engines and radar. The YF-17, born from the same line, lost to the YF-16 but gave rise to the F/A-18 Hornet. The F-20, with a single F404 engine, flew in 1982, but could not compete with the F-16 once its large-scale export was authorized.

It carries two General Electric J85 turbojets of about 300 kg each. It measures 14.35 m in length and 7.7 m in wingspan, weighs 3.6 t empty and about 9 t at takeoff (11.2 t for the F-5E). It has seven hardpoints for up to 2.8 t and two 20 mm M39 cannons. Production ended in 1987 with more than 2,600 combat aircraft and 1,189 T-38s. It has served as an aggressor aircraft in Top Gun and in aerobatic display teams, and remains in service in 16 countries.