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The Tigershark
In 1975, Northrop began development on the F-20 Tigershark, a fighter plane designed to be reliable, easy to fly and inexpensive to maintain. Northrop didn’t accept any funds from the government to develop the plane, so the company didn’t have to consult the Air Force or any other government agency to make design decisions. As a result, the development process went fairly quickly. Northrop built three planes to take around the world to fly in demonstrations for potential customers.
However, the market for the plane never developed.
Why is that?
Damien Leimbach, former USAF avionics technician, explains on Quora;
‘In the 1970’s the Carter administration had a policy of prohibiting the sale of advanced fighter technology to foreign nations. This was to prevent the tech from falling into Soviet hands.
‘This policy led directly to the development of the F-20 Tigershark
‘and the F-16/79, a variant of the F-16A that had a J79 engine and downgraded avionics.
‘The development of these aircraft was specifically solicited for a Defense Department program called “FX” whose aim was to develop fighters that would be capable in combat with the latest Soviet aircraft, but excluding sensitive front-line technologies used by the United States Air Force’s own planes.
The myth that ‘the F-20 was better than the F-16’
‘The F-20 won this competition, leading to the often-repeated myth that the F-20 was better than the F-16, and that General Dynamics bribed the DoD to get the F-16 adopted, or some variant of that story. I still see it repeated to this day. This is a complete misunderstanding of what happened. The F-20 was slightly better than the downgraded F-16/79, but would not have held a candle to the full version.
‘The F-20 never competed directly against the full F-16. That plane was another Northrop offering, the F-17 that, after some modifications to make it suitable for carriers, became the F-18.’
He continues;
‘The Israelis, fresh out of the 1973 Yom-Kippur War, wanted some new equipment to replace losses they incurred in the fighting, which was around 100 aircraft. The aircraft lost were 32 F-4s, 53 A-4s, 11 Mirages and 6 Super Mysteres.
‘These losses needed to be replaced, and they wanted the good stuff. Second tier avionics weren’t going to cut it. So, they had to negotiate with the Carter administration to receive a special waiver in order to buy fighters with cutting edge gear.
‘As a backup, they were also interested in buying the license to produce the planes domestically, that they could then put their own avionics in, or license-built radars from companies like Saab, Thales or Marconi that did not have export restrictions on technology.
Tigershark program terminated
‘In the end, they got both. Israel purchased dozens of planes with the latest American Radars and avionics under the Peace Marble program and eventually got the license to make them at home.
‘Ironically, the initial purchase of 75 F-16’s was received earlier than expected, as the US had started to produce the plane for Iran. With the Iranian revolution in 1979, the US cancelled the sale of the F-16 to them (it was already too late to cancel the F-14’s they received) and delivered the planes to Israel instead.
‘Israel received the F-15 under the “Peace Fox I” program in 1976. They were purchased specifically to counter the Soviet MiG-25 Foxbats operating out of Egypt, one of which was clocked over the Sinai at Mach 3.2 in 1971.’
Leimbach concludes;
‘So ultimately, Israel’s negotiations were not about acquiring more advanced versions of the F-15 and F-16 per se, but about acquiring more advanced versions than what the US was offering to allies at the time. They did get the permission, but in 1981 this was all a moot point, as the Regan administration swept away Carter’s policy and offered top of the line gear to allies. This ended the FX program and resulted in Northrop never securing sales for the F-20.’
Photo credit: Bob Cunningham for General Dynamics, Northrop, Lockheed Martin and U.S. Air Force
