Northrop F-20 Tigershark for DCS

[aileron]

Any flight test data/performance charts would surely be in a Northrop Grumman archive somewhere (FOIA perhaps) - however that would probably only be for the 3 prototypes that were built. In the mid 80s they were working on a fourth enlarged F-20 - but that was never completed.

 

FOIA applies to your government... not to a corporation that spent their own money on the program. If they had any information sharing with the government... you could FOIA that info and Northrup couldn't stop it.

 

Having worked in the aerospace industry for 17 years. I call it proprietary for a reason. They own all rights to it. They would have to be convinced to release the data (which most likely would require some kind of monetary agreement above and beyond the typical copyright, trade-name license agreement you get for a dcs module.)

 

Though take that with a grain a salt. I'm not a lawyer and don't deal with that kind of crap. Personally I think its hokum that a government funded weapon system program should ever require licensing for a simulator. As long as you don't mention the company that produced it.

[Basher54321]

Some good points Aileron.

[Deano87]

Much better things to spend development time and money on than the F-5 GTI.

[Logan54]

Hello all. A lot of ppl fly cold War era jets and more fly 4th gen jets. But what about first steps to 4th gen like F-20? Super multirole frontline fighter. Seems to me very interesting aircraft. And it will not pretend on Cold War era.

Weapons: gun pod, up to 4 AIM-7 Sparrow, up to 4 Mavericks, up to 5000 lb guided bombs, Harpoon, 4  non guided rocket pods, 6 Sidewinders

Features: INS, MFDs, powerfull radar for BVR, station for air to air refueling, new engine with T/W ratio more 1. 2 Seat F-20 BN variant May be something else

https://youtu.be/DpPXIhhHG3E?si=QwfDQBf8EobiHlo2

 

Edited January 14, 2024 by Logan54

[upyr1]

I'll state the F-20 is low on my cold war list, however if there is enough information for an official module and its done by some new developer I'd have no issue 

[Evoman]

The F-20 has come up on this forum multiple times. Unfortunately it has little chances of making it to DCS as a FF modules by the current developers simply because it never served with any military. There fore little data is is known about it outside of Northrop engineers and the test pilots evolved with that project. However it could be a possibility if a capable developer decides to take it on as a passion project and has luck getting a data and a license from NorthropGruman to do it.

[F-2]

From Gums F-16.net

Quote

Salute!

interesting, for the most part accurate, too.

As likely the only member here that has actually flown the sim at Northrop and sat in the actual cockpit at Edwards preparing for my flight the next day, I feel I can support most of the accolades associated with that little beast. 

My boss was the legal team representing Northrop in a lawsuit 1984-1985. McAir felt Northrop took too much of the F-18 avionics stuff to use in the F-20, primarily the hands-on switchology. Northrop vehemently disagreed and said it was the other way around. My job, along with two other experienced pilots, was to research other cockpit avionics in the "smart" planes as well as not-so-smart ones. Then we would testify in court. We were "vetted" by the systems engineering shop that developed the F-20 cockpit, then the legal team gave us a job offer. We were not evaluating aero performance or loadouts or logistics and such. As part of the deal we also traveled to St Louis and flew the F-18 sim, although the other two pilots on the team had F-18 experience, including one who was on the OT&E team for the thing. So I had 40 or 50 hours in the F-20 cockpit and about 4 or 5 in the F-18 cockpit.
===============================
- the avionics were superior to the existing F16 suite, primarily the inertial and the radar. That RLG thing was a delight, and you could taxi about the same time as you finished strapping in

- the cockpit layout was superior to anything in the air, with the F-18 a close second, then the A-7D/E. 
The picture in the article must be from #1 plane, as the one I was gonna fly and practiced for had a larger HUD panel with more function buttons, and the combining glass portrayed looks a bit smaller. Some other things don't look right, either. Yeager was right, and the article echoed his praise - best human interface ever implemented.
The MFD's had "pop up" menus that Apple was just introducing on the Mac. So you could scroll down on a display item like range, mode, etc and if it had options thay would pop up! So move cursor to the range number and various ranges would show up, then scroll to the one you wanted and voila. The radio channel/freq selection was "smart", so it put in the decimal point and even figured out what radio you were fooling with or selecting a stored channel or a new/manual entry.

- the author nails the lack of foreign sales and USAF's resistance as the primary reasons the F-20 never made the cut. Having dealt with a few foreign officers when at Air University ( not the pilots I flew with in the Viper at Hill in the early days from Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Israel and Pakistan), I can tellya that some countries have a leader that wants at least one of the latest and greatest planes for his birthday flyby, not "second hand rose". So no F-20 but maybe a F-15 or Eurofighter or...

- my own personal opinion of the USAF lack of interest in the F-20 concerns missions. The F-20 would not have hacked it in Desert Storm due to poor loudout and abysmal range. The plane would have been the best interceptor known to man for point defence of a fairly small country only 200 or 300 miles wide and deep. It would not have been as good or better than anything else USAF or NATO folks had 30 years ago for CAS due to short "holding time" and limited loadout. For fairly short interdiction missions it would have been just fine, even with limited loadout.
============================
I certainly wished the lawyers would not have cancelled our flights at Edwards, but I understood. The rationale was that our oldest, most experienced pilot had flown everything under the sun, including the F-20 and the F-18 and the F-16 and... and. So if we flew the plane, then the McAir pilots on their team would have to be allowed the opportunity. And our guy had flown both planes and was widely respected - Chuck Yeager. 

Gums sends...

https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=58859
 

 

Quote

Salute!

As the only guy on these forums who has ever sat in the cockpit of an F-20, and have about 40 - 50 sim hours......... I feel qualified to comment.

The death of the plane was not straightforward, but one poster has nailed a biggie - trying to sell the plane to folks that didn't want a "super" F-5, but not making it easy for the existing F-5 folks to pay for it. So the failed Korean sale was the second to last nail in the coffin. And it didn't help that they lost one of the three FSD birds there due to gee-loc.

Northrop was trying to get the Air Guard to buy it as an airspace sovereignty asset. If USAF had some, the thot was small countries would have bought it. By then, the Viper was getting Slammers for the air defense mission and had much better range and multirole capability. When GD lowered the price for a stripped down Viper, the Koreans jumped on.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++==
- No way that beast could have ever been navalized .
- The radar and main computer was about as good as the Hornet except for the map, which it did not have. I flew the Hornet sim as part of my evaluation of the two planes and the map was just like the one I had in the Sluf, but digital
- The human interface for both the F-20 and Hornet was way better than the Block 15 Viper I had just gotten out of and I don't think even the Bk25 was equal. Seems that Bk 30 and 40 were close, but still no projected map.
- My flight was cancelled hours before scheduled, so I only have sim time to compare. It seemed like a Viper with two bags and light loadout. 
- The avionics were super, and it had a better radar than the pre-Bk 40 Vipers. Took me about 5 minutes to be real comfortable, and data entry/mode selection was in a class by itself. Hornet was almost the same ( and that was part of the lawsuit I was part of as an expert witness).

In cllosing, I feel the plane would have been ideal for all countries that had the F-5 and even some others. Perfect air defense plane with that 2 minute inertial alignment time and the A2A radar modes. Limited loadout and range, but it wasn't intended to fly 400 miles then CAP or bomb and come home unrefueled. It was too pricey, and Vipers were getting cheaper everyday.

Gums sends...

https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=56068
 

 

“NFAF-228 F-20 Tigershark” by Paul Metz apparently has some performance charts

[BalticDude]

If we ever get F-20 then we should get JF-17 block III

[WinterH]

To be honest I don't think what an operational F-20 would exactly be was even in existence when the project was canceled.

There were 3 prototypes built if I recall correctly, and each were different. I think a 4th was to be made too but cancellation came before that. Also with 2 of them crashing on demo flights, there's only one left in existence, probably mostly stripped of everything and hanging off wires in a museum. I doubt meaningful access to an intact existing airframe is in cards either.

On one hand I'd enjoy the possibility to explore things like F-20 and Ye-8. On the other hand, for all intents and purposes, they don't exist anymore, and arguably never even existed in the way they were supposed to be operationally. I don't think they're feasible to make at the level we call a DCS module.

[average_pilot]

It's funny that the arguments against could also apply to the Ka-50.

[upyr1]

On 1/15/2024 at 3:47 AM, average_pilot said:

It's funny that the arguments against could also apply to the Ka-50.

True, which is why I'll defer to ED's judgment on whether or not there is enough information to make the F-20. I'm not opposed to getting it, but if we get it as an official module I'd love to see a new developer produce it 

[NineLine]

On 1/15/2024 at 1:47 AM, average_pilot said:

It's funny that the arguments against could also apply to the Ka-50.

The difference is there are many US and/or NATO aircraft we can do without too much fuss compared to Russian Helicopters. The Ka-50 allowed us to do a really cool Ru Attack Helicopter where in most cases we could not. 

[upyr1]

6 hours ago, NineLine said:

The difference is there are many US and/or NATO aircraft we can do without too much fuss compared to Russian Helicopters. The Ka-50 allowed us to do a really cool Ru Attack Helicopter where in most cases we could not. 

I figured that the reason was simply the lack of material about Russian aircraft. 

[average_pilot]

It was a lighthearted remark anyway