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F-20 Tigershark
F-20 Tigershark was a privately
financed fighter aircraft, designed and built by Northrop
in the USA, starting in 1975. It was a further evolution
of Northrop's F-5 Freedom Fighter (in fact it was
originally designated F-5G), although ultimately it
shared little more than a strong family resemblance to
that aircraft. The main change was the replacement of the
F-5's two General Electric J85 engines with a single F404
engine, increasing its total thrust by 60%. Like the F-5,
however, it was designed as a low-cost, high-performance
fighter plane that was easy to maintain. It could reach
speeds of Mach 2 and had a range of 1880 nautical miles.
The F20 made its first flight on August 30, 1982, and a
total of three prototypes were created. It was intended
for sale to foreign countries and militaries, but the
market for the plane never developed, as President Ronald
Reagan relaxed the restrictions on selling figthers such
as the F-16 Fighting Falcon to other countries. After six
years and no major buyers, Northrop cancelled the $1.2
billion project.
The last existing F20 is on display at the California
Science Center. The other two prototypes were lost due to
crashes during world sales tours. The crashes were caused
by pilot error, and were not linked to any malfunction of
the planes
ENGINE
- F404 GE 100 18,000 Pound
Thrust Turbofan Engine
- Pneumatic/Cartridge Starter or
Optional Jet Fuel Starter
- 5,050 Pound Internal Fuel
Capacity
- 330 Gallon Pylon Tank
Capability--Three Stations
AVIONICS
- Head Up Display (HUD)
- Hands on Stick and Throttle
Controls
- Digital Avionics with Built in
Test (BIT)
- MIL STD 1553B Multiplexed
Stores Management
- MIL STD 1750A Mission Computer
- ASN-144 Ring Laser Gyro
Inertial Navigation Set
- AN/APG-67(V) Multimode
Coherent Radar
- APX-101 Identification Friend
or Foe (IFF)
- ARC-182 VHF/UHF Radio
- Radar Warning Receiver (RWR)
- ALE-40 Flush Mounted
Countermeasures Dispenser System
- ARN-118 TACAN
AIRFRAME
- 9G 8,000 Hour Airframe
- Dual Digital Flight Control
System with 3 Axis Control Augmentation, plus
Full Time Mechanical Backup System
- Autopilot
- Automatic High Rate Continuous
Maneuvering Flap System
- Zero Altitude/Airspeed
Ejection Seat
- Antiskid Carbon Brakes
- Onboard Oxygen Generating
System (OBOGS)
- Graphite Composite Tail Skins
- Reduced Detectability,
Increased Survivability
Text is available under
the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
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