The Freedom Fighter - F-5 Freedom Fighter and Tiger II

Video from the channel Mundo de Aviación about Northrop F-5, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 11:44. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

Piece from the Aviation World Aeropedia on the Northrop F-5 across its two generations, the F-5A/B Freedom Fighter and the F-5E/F Tiger II, with their variants, operators and derivatives.

The aircraft was born in the 1950s as a private Northrop project, driven by its vice-president of engineering Edgar Schmued, formerly chief designer of the P-51 Mustang and the F-86 Sabre at North American. After studying the defense needs of allies in Europe and Asia in 1954, the company proposed a light, cheap fighter built around two J85 engines. The N-156 concept produced the T-38 Talon trainer, adopted by the USAF to replace the T-33, while the single-seat N-156F continued on company funds until its first flight in July 1959, in which it exceeded the speed of sound. Its baptism of fire came in Vietnam in 1965 with the Skoshi Tiger program. In 1970 Northrop won the International Fighter Aircraft competition, which produced the F-5E Tiger II, which first flew on 11 August 1972.

624 F-5As were built, along with 200 F-5Bs and 86 RF-5A reconnaissance aircraft, plus licensed production runs in Canada (240) and Spain (70). 792 F-5Es were produced along with 146 two-seat F-5Fs, with local production in Switzerland, South Korea and Taiwan. The USAF used it as an aggressor aircraft between 1975 and 1990. Its operators include Mexico, Brazil and Chile, which modernized it with IAI to the Tiger III standard in 1993. Its lineage led to the F-20 Tigershark and the studies that produced the YF-17 and the F/A-18 Hornet.