A few questions about the F-5s

[tonipm99]

Well, the N-156 family of aircraft make up the entirety of my top 5 favourite aircraft list. And I have a few questions about them, and although I could probably just spend some 15 minutes and google them I'd like to have the answers directly from you who most likely have worked with these sexy jets.

So, going through images of the Swiss Air Force F-5E/Fs, I noticed that the centerline pylon is always present. It's as if it was fixed, like the wingtip pylons. The same goes for USN aggressor F-5Ns and actually every single image I can remember of pretty much every variant except the T-38, F-20 and X-29. In fact, I've only seen one image of Freedom Fighters/Tiger IIs where there was no centerline pylon present, it was a civilian F-5A.

Is it actually fixed or semi-fixed, thus making it a waste of time to remove it, or is it something else...? I personally really dislike empty underside pylons, so it's disappointing to see that there's no image available of a truly clean F-5E.

Also, does anyone know how is it that the Swiss Air Force F-5s have the F-20 LERX, and the nosecone of one of the F-20 prototypes (the one with the completely glass canopy)? I haven't been able to get information about this and I'm really curious.

And the final one, how come only these two modifications from the F-20, the LERX and the nosecone made it to other F-5s? The modified canopy comes to mind as something useful (in Ace Combat 5/Zero, where you can "check six" from the cockpit, the F-20 has better rear visibility than the F-5E, so I assume the same would apply IRL), and also the avionics and glass cockpit, they should be compatible with at least F-5Es, right? Was it because they came too late? Or too early?

Thanks for your time!

[+Crusader]

CL pylon is removable. USN/USMC Aggressors usually didnt use them.

The flat shark nose and extended LERX are late-production F-5E features, I used to have details/dates on that when I researched F-5's some years ago.

Nice website where you can look around for the modifications...

http://www.the-northrop-f-5-enthusiast-page.info/index.html

[+MigBuster]

1 hour ago, tonipm99 said:

And the final one, how come only these two modifications from the F-20, the LERX and the nosecone made it to other F-5s? The modified canopy comes to mind as something useful (in Ace Combat 5/Zero, where you can "check six" from the cockpit, the F-20 has better rear visibility than the F-5E, so I assume the same would apply IRL), and also the avionics and glass cockpit, they should be compatible with at least F-5Es, right? Was it because they came too late? Or too early?

Usually down to money and customer need / requirements...for example an F-15C with Thrust vectoring PW-232s could have been but in reality there was no unlimited budget for such things. 

So the F-20 cockpit was 44% larger...could a retrofit have been done cheaply?........the fact nobody did it is more likely down to nobody needing it or was willing to pay for those changes..they may have had to pay for flight testing etc.

 You can put some nice avionics in an F-5E...........look at Chiles upgraded F-5E Tiger III. The avionics in the F-20 were cutting edge for their time (Mid 1980s)....but the fact that it didn't become a standard was probably again down to lack of requirement from customers or e.g. those that had the money procured more advanced fighters instead.

 

 

[tonipm99]

15 hours ago, MigBuster said:

Usually down to money and customer need / requirements...for example an F-15C with Thrust vectoring PW-232s could have been but in reality there was no unlimited budget for such things. 

So the F-20 cockpit was 44% larger...could a retrofit have been done cheaply?........the fact nobody did it is more likely down to nobody needing it or was willing to pay for those changes..they may have had to pay for flight testing etc.

 You can put some nice avionics in an F-5E...........look at Chiles upgraded F-5E Tiger III. The avionics in the F-20 were cutting edge for their time (Mid 1980s)....but the fact that it didn't become a standard was probably again down to lack of requirement from customers or e.g. those that had the money procured more advanced fighters instead.

44% larger? I thought the front fuselage wasn't that modified.

And, yeah, I do know about the upgraded F-5s. Just seemed suprising that there weren't any factory upgrades, but, yeah, if some of these countries had the money at the time they'd have gone for F-16s or F-18s instead.

Thanks!

[tonipm99]

21 hours ago, Crusader said:

CL pylon is removable. USN/USMC Aggressors usually didnt use them.

The flat shark nose and extended LERX are late-production F-5E features, I used to have details/dates on that when I researched F-5's some years ago.

Nice website where you can look around for the modifications...

http://www.the-northrop-f-5-enthusiast-page.info/index.html

I missed your post somehow... Thank you for the page!

[+MigBuster]

7 hours ago, tonipm99 said:

44% larger? I thought the front fuselage wasn't that modified.

 

Sorry I meant 44% larger cockpit canopy.

[+denissoliveira]

On 18/02/2018 at 6:40 PM, MigBuster said:

Usually down to money and customer need / requirements...for example an F-15C with Thrust vectoring PW-232s could have been but in reality there was no unlimited budget for such things. 

So the F-20 cockpit was 44% larger...could a retrofit have been done cheaply?........the fact nobody did it is more likely down to nobody needing it or was willing to pay for those changes..they may have had to pay for flight testing etc.

 You can put some nice avionics in an F-5E...........look at Chiles upgraded F-5E Tiger III. The avionics in the F-20 were cutting edge for their time (Mid 1980s)....but the fact that it didn't become a standard was probably again down to lack of requirement from customers or e.g. those that had the money procured more advanced fighters instead.

 

 

Brazilian F-5M

[+MigBuster]

2 hours ago, denissoliveira said:

Brazilian F-5M

Thanks I guess the FAB-4852 is a give away...unfortunately I have it in the wrong folder.

 

[tonipm99]

On 19/2/2018 at 10:25 PM, MigBuster said:

Sorry I meant 44% larger cockpit canopy.

Oh. I was very surprised there! But then a retrofit would be easy, right? Kind of like swapping the nosecone, the mounting points should remain the same. Visually, at least, the rear part of the canopy does seem fairly similar if not the same. But then again as you said it probably wasn't needed enough (if there was even an improvement with it) to actually replace them.

[+MigBuster]

I would be more concerned about the metal plate behind the pilots seat...what do you have to do to get that out............you literally need a Northrop F-20 structural engineer to confirm any of this I think.

 

Surprised more has not already been released by Northrop by now.