Northrop F-20 Tigershark

Rare card · No. 57098

The Northrop F-20 Tigershark (initially F-5G) is a prototype light fighter, designed and built by Northrop. Its development began in 1975 as a further evolution of Northrop's F-5E Tiger II, featuring a new engine that greatly improved overall performance, and a modern avionics suite including a powerful and flexible radar. Compared with the F-5E, the F-20 was much faster, gained beyond-visual-range air-to-air capability, and had a full suite of air-to-ground modes capable of utilizing most U.S. weapons. With these improved capabilities, the F-20 was claimed to become competitive with contemporary fighter designs such as the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, but was said to be much less expensive to purchase and operate. Much of the F-20's development was carried out under a US Department of Defense (DoD) project called "FX". FX sought to develop fighters that would be capable in combat with the latest Soviet aircraft, but excluding sensitive front-line technologies used by the United...

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