Why did the F-20 fail? It seems like it was a great little fighter

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>>33678070
Hell, Northrop even got Chuck Yaeger to fly it and shill for them.

>>33678070
>It just seems bizarre to me that such a bargain of a fighter never got even a single order.
What were the avionics like?

- The US didn't buy any because F-16
- Allies didn't buy any because the US didn't buy any & made the F-16 available for export

F-20 is a good plane, just released at the wrong time

>>33678198
I mean, it really is a nice fighter if you're a poorfag country. Definitely a huge improvement on the F-5 and with significantly lower lifetime costs than the Viper. I don't get what happened.

>>33678226
Markedly better than the F-5

>>33678070
Because the decision was made to sell the F-16 as a low-cost fighter. Those looking for a fighter even cheaper than the F-16 were probably already using the F-5. In short: no market.

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>>33678070

Because it filled a niche that was already filled by the F-16, and the Reagan administration had removed restrictions of arms exports so the F-20 had to compete against the F-16 in every possible market.

>>33678238
It crashed during a display flight.

>>33678070
The F-16 was substantially more capable, particularly for air-to-ground. The F-20 would never have been developed if it weren't for Carter's strong anti-proliferation stance indicating the F-16 would be severely restricted for export; once Reagan suddenly reversed that stance, all the prospective F-20 customers switched to F-16s and Northrop got the shaft.

>>33678325
>>33678334
I get why someone would want the F-16 over the F-20, its advantages are obvious. What I don't get is why it never received any interest from any of the numerous poorfag countries where the F-16 wasn't an option due to cost. Like the lifetime cost of an F-20 was estimated to be like 45% less than an F-16. It just seems strange that they couldn't even find some African or Muslim shithole to bite.

>>33678330
I don't think that's true and either way every single US jet fighter up until the F-5 crashed at least once during testing so I doubt that would do much to discourage anyone.

>>33678364
If you're an African or Muslim shithole you'll probably just buy Russian instead for even cheaper.

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>>33678070
It must be noted that the low ground clearance and wimpy payload were serious faults as well.

>>33678364
Low production volume is a recipe for high lifetime costs, regardless of how good the design itself is at its core. Once the big boys dropped off the F-20, it really just didn't make sense for smaller players to stay onboard either.

>>33678381
>>33678394
Both true but again, that didn't seem to negatively impact sales of the F-5.

USAF didn't buy it because it was too small and short legged and because it had no headroom for future upgrades (It's already squeezing the F-5 airframe for all it's worth).

No-one else bought it because It wasn't benefiting from the giant economy of scale that the F-16 had.

The people who whine about bribery are just white knighting for their planefu.

I like the design though and i'm disappointed that Northrop gave upon their T-X, which was basically just a sexier F-20. The F-20 also has the bonus of being despised by Pierre Sprey, which is enough to make me like any plane.

>>33678409
Why didn't that problem occur with the F-5 then? Was the US subsidizing the purchases or something?

I know the F-20 was an entirely private design whereas the F-5 clearly had USAF involvement.

>>33678070
Politics and the F16 was actually better. But that shouldn't have stopped foreign sales. That was congress' fuck up.

>>33678422
Because the F-5 was basically the F-4's F15/F16 "low", and was useful as an Aggressor Squadron/Trainer aircraft. The F-20 was literally F-5 2.0 when the world had already moved on to proper 4th Gen.

>>33678433
>The F-20 also has the bonus of being despised by Pierre Sprey, which is enough to make me like any plane.
The fuck was his problem with it? That it had a radar and could carry bombs?

>>33678379

When a prototype crashes at an airshow it's generally pretty bad publicity. Especially if it kills someone, which the F-20 did. Another F-20 also crashed during practice for an airshow, also killing it's pilot. Both accidents were blamed on G-LOC, but the hit it had on the program is undeniable.

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>>33678364

Because Reagan lifted the export ban, and the U.S. state department aggressively promoted the F-16 for foreign markets. They wanted the F-16 to be as cheap as possible, and the more buyers a plane has, the more you can spread out the costs between the different buyers. If Carter had been re-elected, he would have kept the export bans in place (because he created them in the first place) and the F-20 would have been a commercial success. Carter had a belief that the U.S. government should not be in the business of helping defense contractors market their products abroad. Reagan sharply disagreed.

>>33678364
Because if you're a shithole, you buy those new jets the US is using, not the F-5++ because it won't look nearly as cool to impress/oppress your populace.

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Why didn't this beauty win instead of the A-10? Short term sure columns of T-70s might have been a thing, but the reality was much different.

>>33678364
Because the countries that couldn't afford the F-16 either already had F-5's or were buying Soviet planes.

Also the F-20's avionics, while a marked step up from both the F-5 and MIG 26, paled in comparison to the MIG 29 and F-16. They were, simply, way the fuck out of date by the time the plane was introduced in 1981.

>>33678433
>The F-20 also has the bonus of being despised by Pierre Sprey
U wot? Sprey was helping his buddy Ret.Col. Ricioni push it.

>>33678422
The F-5 was a hell of a fighter when it was introduced in 19 fucking 59, and it modernized decently well through the 70's.

The F-20 was a day late and a dollar short to the gen4 game.

>>33678485
Because it didn't meet a lot of the (pointless) requirements as well, specifically because the conventional engine placement prevented rough airfield use.

>>33678461

bingo

(I think it was because he liked the F-5; the idea of giving one sparrows probably gave him an aneurysm)

>>33678511
Sprey was against it when they made it multirole.

Because sprey is retarded

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>>33678485

The odd layout of YA-10 had a few interesting advantages. One is that the engines of the YA-10 are installed higher up in the air-frame, which makes them much less likely to suck in debris during take-off. The YA-10 was also felt to be the cheaper and more easily manufactured of the two potential designs, and keeping costs low was a huge priority for the project. The YA-9 would have been fine, though. The similarity of the YA-9 with the Su-25 should be noted.

>>33678518
I wish someone would have bought it. It deserved a shot.

>>33678539
I mean, I like the plane and everything but it was seriously introduced about 15 years too late.
>the F5's twin engines were sexier though

Its spirit lives on in a number of current light fighters though.

>>33678511

i distinctly remember him complaining that there was a post korean war radar on it.

>>33678530
Didn't the F-5 end up getting a radar anyway?

I'll never understand that man's defect. How is having a cheap plane without radar ever preferable to having a cheap plane with radar?

>>33678564
Yes. It received general-purpose radar in 1962 and air to air guidance radar in 1971.

>>33678530
Also lol at him thinking that a plane specifically designed for countries that could barely afford food should have to buy separate fighters and attack aircraft because he has a psychotic hateboner for bombs.

>>33678539

The F-20 did in fact receive orders. However, Northrop made it clear that they would not proceed with the project unless they got at least 100 orders because they felt that setting up a line to produce less than 100 aircraft was an unprofitable plan. So once it became clear that they would not be getting 100 orders, Northrop contacted interesting buyers and told them that they would not be producing the aircraft.

>>33678070

Just my thoughts

>right plane at the wrong time
>whatever was the audience already had the F-5 or Mirage III
>countries who bought it jumped from the F-104 to the F-16
>other countries had either Migs or were buying the MB-339 or MB-326 or whatever was the cheapest
>Bongs too busy naying american tech and developing their own tech with the frogs so Jaguar

Also I think someone really hated Northrop and Grumman with a passion and wanted them to fail asap.I don't know if it was ever proposed to my country aka Italy and even if like the British they were just busy throwing away money with the G-91,AMX and that effin MB-339 which is more short-legged than the F-5E and it's only good for stunts or to bomb mud-huts.All I know is both F-4 and F-15 and also the F-16 were proposed to the AMI,everytime it was just nope F-104,nope F-104,nope AMX,look we have the Tornado now,look we're also getting a lease for the ADV...Ok now maybe it's time for the F-16...but wait.Ok no the Mirage 2000-5 is just too frenchie so ok we F-16 now just unjust the F-16 ADF from the AMARC and we're good for 10 years,ok cool we EFA now,oh fuck too expensive,have to save some banks,brb cutting here and there and giving them to Austria.Ok cool we F-35 now,fuck rapefugees,worry not we still F-35 now,peace comes with a price anyway and we can't wait to bomb mud-huts,is not that we could do the same with the fucking 339 or the AMX but one has no range and the other might fall apart during take off.Oh you say we cannot use them as we please?Oh well ordering more cause fuck our citizens

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>>33678448
>Why didn't that problem occur with the F-5 then?
Because the USAF alone bought sufficient volume of F-5s to maintain affordable lifetime costs, and T-38s too. After that it was all downhill from there.
>Was the US subsidizing the purchases or something?
For the most part, no (sales/transfers to South Vietnam were, but those were also secondhand). USAF order volume alone was enough to keep export customers interested.

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>>33678564
>How is having a cheap plane without radar ever preferable to having a cheap plane with radar?
TOO MUCH USELESS JUNK

>>33678564
A really crap one that was only really good for short range search and ranging for the heaters/guns, no IFF capability.

>>33678564
>I'll never understand that man's defect. How is having a cheap plane without radar ever preferable to having a cheap plane with radar?
Because Sprey believed that GCI was superior and that every ounce going to anything high-tech was a reduction in dogfighting capability.

>>33678617
Only in American aeronautics could Sprey find a job being wrong about everything.

>>33678558
To be fair, Sprey will change his opinions if it means it supports his current bullshit. He hated the YF-16->F-16 changes that made it a high-tech multi-role, but hasn't hesitated to claim credit for its success to attack the F-35.

>>33678564

Sprey's logic makes sense if you look at it through the prism of America's air-to-air experience in Vietnam while simultaneously ignoring the training issues that contributed to that situation. The logic actually makes sense if you apply it like this:

>The F-4 Phantom, a big expensive jet with radar, only managed to achieve a 2:1 kill ratio over the MiG-21, a substantially smaller, and overall much cheaper aircraft.
>Therefore, if you have 3 MiG-21's, then that's superior to 1 Phantom.
>1 Phantom costs more than 3 MiG-21's.
>Therefore, the MiG-21 is the superior aircraft
>So for future jet projects, the US should seek to duplicate the cost-effectiveness of the MiG-21 rather than doubling down on the expensive radar aspects of the F-4

>>33678617
>>33678622
I legitimately think he may have autism. Actual autism, not the 4chan kind.

>>33678622
He basically lives in an alternate reality where effective IFF and all aspect infrared missiles were never invented.

>>33678590
Interesting. I didn't know that.

The only people I knew who had interest in it were Worst China but for whatever reason at the time we were sucking commie dick and vetoed the purchase before it ever even got going.

>>33678642
So the logic makes sense if you wilfully ignore reality, gotcha.

I wonder how much of this can be atributed to an unwillingness by the AF to admit that at the time they trained their pilots like dogshit.

>>33678710
Keep in mind that Sprey was a camp follower who fell in with a group of "fighter pilots" who'd collectively barely flown 2nd gen fighters and never seen combat, but had aggressive opinions.

>>33678768
I'm well aware. It truly is heartbreaking watching a man who advocated ideas that literally could have resulted in us losing the Cold War get his dick sucked constantly by a bunch of know nothing fags on the internet like David Axe.

>>33678710

>So the logic makes sense if you wilfully ignore reality, gotcha.

Basically yes. Anything can make sense if you truncate the data enough.

>>33678642

You're forgetting about something like missiles.I can't contain myself when I read how fucked up were US missiles during Vietnam war

>if you want to shot something down with Falcon missiles you better ram it and save your ammo
>can't fire winders if nose pointing to the ground cause it might chase some charlie instead of a Mig
>can't fire winders if nose pointing towards a lake or a river cause muh sun reflection will catch his attention
>can't fire winders if facing the sun cause it might go into orbit and shot down some Sputnik with a dog in it
>can't fire winders if sun is inside your 9 to 3 o'clock range otherwise it will steer and shot down your wingman
>be wary about Sparrows cause they will lose the lock
>no fucking gun
>had to organize a separate pack with Phantoms using gunpods
>F-8 Crusader machine guns jamming at high Gs
>Fucking F-105 being more badass than everyone

Canadians with their CF-105 project were going to shoehorn the Sparrow as a fire and forget weapon but the US completely forgot about that tech till they come up with Aim-120.

Guess Red Crown had a better K:D ratio than everyone

>>33678823
The Navy didn't have as much trouble because they were actually trained well in how to fire their missiles "in the envelope." Something the AF pilots had little to none of and had to guess while somebody was shooting back.

>>33678823
Amazing to think about but during Vietnam it took 4.5 seconds in order to achieve a lock with the Sparrow and another 1.5 seconds for it to disengage from the aircraft after shooting. And then a lot of pilots would fire two because of that shitty failure rate.

It sounds like an absolute eternity when you're fighting for your life.

The F-4 would have absolutely raped if it had competent missiles and competently trained pilots (in the AF at least, Navy had their shit together.)

>>33678823
>Fucking F-105 being more badass than everyone
The same F-105 that got its shit pushed in? How do you figure?

I mean I concede the Air Force used them in the most pants on head retarded way possible but it still couldn't turn or climb worth a shit. The F-4 was superior to it in every way.

>>33678823


>>Canadians with their CF-105 project were going to shoehorn the Sparrow as a fire and forget weapon but the US completely forgot about that tech till they come up with Aim-120.

Active radar homing was first developed during the second world war for anti shipping glide bombs (get fucked wheraboos) by the US.

And it first saw use on an air to air missile (by the US) in the late 50s.

>>33678070
F-16 and denial of sales to Taiwan.

>>33678894
>USAF F-105s were escorted by F-4s to protect them against enemy fighters.
>USAF Chief of Staff General John P. McConnell was "hopping mad" to hear that two F-105s had been shot down by Korean War-era subsonic North Vietnamese MiGs.
>In December 1966, the VPAF's MiG-21 pilots of the 921st regiment downed 14 F-105s without any losses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_F-105_Thunderchief#Vietnam_War

Verification

>>33678894

F-105 could just drop their shit,outrun the Migs and do a zoom attack with guns while maintaining a good chunk of their fuel in.

F-4 with fuel tanks were G limited and thirsty as fuck,Navy Phantoms due clearance or take off security could only carry the fatty drop tank loaded in the belly and also due clearance trickery the Sparrows loaded in the front required that said fuel tank had to be jettisoned cause otherwise it's wings will collide with it,so you had a plane that could easily run out of fuel.

USMC and USAF Phantoms operating in land didn't had this problem,but USMC were more on mud moving business and usually carried only two missiles or four,USAF had his own net with strike,escort and hunting squads so fuel was and weaponry was not a biggie.

The plane who could jink better against those Migs was the Crusader,but his guns were jamming,Winders were prone to failure and plane was being phased out by both Navy and Marines

>>33678894
The F-105 was really a plane used in a role it wasn't really designed for.

Designed to carry 1 nuclear weapon internally low and fast, ended up carrying tons of external iron bombs day after day, many times at altitude.

combined with some design flaws when it came to how the main system and backup systems could be taken out at the same time easily meant that it was withdrawn.

>>33679081
>F-105 could just drop their shit,outrun the Migs
Then why were they constantly being shot down..?

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:(

I don't even know if there any of these in existence anymore.

>>33679045

Was not my point,sometimes when I read books or crap for internet I find it difficult to believe all that BS that happened during wars and evolution stages of certain weapons.My point was if the Canadians were making a fire and forget Sparrow why didn't the US followed suit and replaced the semi-active guidance with an autonomous version of it?

Also somewhere either probably in a F-102/F-106 book regarding Falcons against russian bombers there was this story about pilots trying to shot down an C-130A drone or something along those lines and wasting 6 missiles for nothing cause they couldn't get a lock for shit and missiles completely ignored their target,I don't know if the swedes fixed them in their licensed built version but if shit had to hit the fan I do wonder how US system fared against the reds

>>33679081
>only 20 mph faster
Yeah, no. They didn't "zoom away".

>>33679175
No and thank God. Your planefu is uggo.

>>33678070
Pierre Sprey

>>33678894
The F105 was not remotely considered to be an A2A aircraft by anyone's definition, yet it still held it's own in a fight.

>>33679204
Against mig 17s. Mig 21's literally slaughtered them wholesale.

>>33679204
No, not really. They routinely got rekt.

>>33679124
>over 20,000 Thunderchief sorties were flown, with 382 aircraft lost including 62 operational (non-combat) losses (out of the 833 produced).

>>33679081
Try to stay away from video games.

>>33679189
how dare you!

>>33679209
>>33679211

see
>>33679235

>>33679211
Not really. Migs weren't considered much of a threat if they visually acquired. SAM and AAA were the main killers.

>>33679235
>>33679253
How does 46% of the F-105s being rekt help your point?

>>33679209
>slaughtered them wholesale.

You don't know the meaning of the phrase.

>>33679285
Role Fighter-bomber
National origin United States
Manufacturer Republic Aviation
First flight 22 October 1955
Introduction 27 May 1958
Retired 25 February 1984
Primary user United States Air Force
Produced 1955–1964
Number built 833

75 percent of the USAF Rolling Thunder combat sorties were by F-105s into the densest air defense network in the world at that era.

>>33678564
NOT A POUND FOR AIR TO GROUND

>>33679327
Are you suggesting they couldn't have found any other aircraft to manage ~50% loses in doing that job?

The F-111 and F-4 didn't approach anywhere near those loses when put in similar roles during Linebacker.

>>33678564
It wasn't till well after the F-5 was designed that BVR missiles really became effective.

Also the idea was to have a craft that everyone could buy.

>>33679472
Tactics, equipment and ROE in Linebacker were significantly different to those used during Rolling Thunder. F-111's used in Rolling Thunder had a disgusting loss rate for example, whereas in Linebacker they performed admirably. The two operations are almost incomparable, beyond the fact they were bombing Vietnam.

>>33679516
This.

>>33679516
>F-111's used in Rolling Thunder had a disgusting loss rate for example,
Yeah due to a mechanical defect of the horizontal stabilizer, not because of enemy action.

>>33679175
Only 2 exist, both are in museums.
The Black Widow II is near Dayton, Ohio and the Gray Ghost is at Torrance, California

>>33679559

http://www.burrusspta.org/395_Combat.pdf

A good number of these accidents, such as mechanical failure, that happened while attempting combat operations. As such they are listed as combat losses. If this was how the USAF classified them, then those F-111s lost on Combat Lancer were also by definition "combat losses".

Also of note, is how few F-105s were actually lost in air to air engagements. The vast majority of those lost were due to AAA.

>>33679472
You might want to look in this thread.

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?66787-F-105-F-106-vs-MiG-23-27/page3

>>33679175
two where built, and both are still existing, but not flyable..

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>>33679175
She's had everything ripped out of her. She's just a shell, rusting away in a hangar.

>>33679175
Saw one yesterday in Torrance.

>>33679661
It's not as bad as that picture makes it seem, they're both restored and on display in museums now. I believe the one in that picture is the USAF Museum's example while it was being restored, and the other prototype is in Torrance.

>>33680944
How was the museum there? I'm up in the SFV and have been meaning to make the trip down to Torrance sometime sooner or later.

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>>33679081
>F-105 could just drop their shit,outrun the Migs
Lolno
Even the MiG-17 accelerates nearly as well; probably even better considering MiG-17s were fighting on their own turf with a lighter fuel load. Factor in ANY turn rate whatsoever and the F-105 will hemorrhage energy, but making a straight run for it is exposing your afterburner to the MiG and it's Atolls. The F-105s really were reliant on their escorts and each other (not to mention their typical numerical superiority) for survival in an engagement with MiGs.
>>33679113
>The F-105 was really a plane used in a role it wasn't really designed for.
It wasn't that far off, really. If anything, it showed that AAA made low-level bombing that the Thud was designed for more trouble than it was worth, and that facing the SAM threat up high, especially in concert with electronic countermeasures, was still a better approach to penetrating hostile airspace.

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>>33682024
I didn't actually visit the museum. I flew in and saw it from the air on short-final.
>MFW it's *still* sitting outdoors, roasting in the beating CA sun

>>33678364
First, during the Cold War there were two blocks you could belong to: Capitalist block, Communist block. If you belong to one of those blocks, you cannot order stuff from the other. Most poorfag countries were aligned with the communists, hence, they couldn't order American gear. Poorfag capitalist countries (Chile, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand...) ordered the F-16, too. African countries are too poor to afford fighter jets anyway. Most don't even have a real air force, they just have a few turbo-props and helos.

>>33683212
You're forgetting that for most of the Cold War, you could also buy French, regardless of bloc affiliation. Just a bit of an addendum.

>>33678710
>So the logic makes sense if you wilfully ignore reality, gotcha
Strange how this is reflected in like half the posts on /k/, desu

>>33678823
>it might chase some charlie instead of a Mig
Why do i find the mental image of this to be something akin to a scene from Hot Shots?

>>33679081
>Winders
its sidewinders your larping faggot stop using the shortform 'winder youre not a fucking pilot from the 60s nor are you anything but a cock sucking faggot now

>>33683676

I don't want to waste bytes writing down Side over and over,also I like to trigger people like >(you)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rb13ksYO0s

>>33678070
Because it got blown up a lot by f-14s in Top Gun.

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>mfw they remember me

>>33683920
Not every problem can be solved with a smile

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>>33683999

>>33683212
Counterpoint: India.

>>33683212
>African countries are too poor to afford fighter jets anyway
Somalia even had fighter jets before their meltdown. Infact, many African countries did and continue to do so. Look it up.

>>33684200
As someone who worked with a company who serviced such planes, not many are actually airworthy.

The airforces range from say, Kenya, who has older fights (F-5s) who are in good condition, the congo (who has nice fighters, but barely any will be fight-worthy, and they are not flown by natives) to Madagascar who has Mig-17s who have not gotten off the ground in a decade or more.

Also, there IS quite a few nations like Ghana who have a very well oiled airforce, but it props and helios. But they spend there money wisely and those provide a lot better use then a fancy jet.

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>>33678485