Posted on 11/15/2020 9:24:48 AM PST by fella
Freestar November 9, 2021: After a fifteen-year effort Brazil has completed its modernization program for its 1960s era F-5 jet fighters. As of 2020 all 41 of the surviving F-5s have been upgraded to the F-5EM standard. The upgrades included structural repairs and replacement of worn components. As with all jet fighters, the jet engines had to be replaced periodically. This was not difficult for the F-5 which used two F85 engines that turned out to be one of the most popular and long-used jet engines ever designed. The G-85 was developed in the 1950s and is expected to continue in active use until the 2040s. One reason the F-85 is still around and continually upgraded is because there were commercial users and it became a popular choice for jet trainers. Over 12,000 F-85s were built before production ended in 1988. Since then thousands have been rebuilt to like-new condition for military and civilian users
(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...
For a very long time I've been unable to post here at FR because when I would when switching between the FR posting page to the article I was wanting to post I would loose the required information I had already plugged.
Now with the switching to the new server things are back to working like they used to.
The F5 was always a sweet machine.
Sadly, despite great merit, the F-5 never enjoyed the sales success that it deserved. It ought to have been bought by the US as a light and inexpensive fighter in a hi-low force strategy.
Agree. sleek, agile, still competitive with the latest, even after all these years.
I don't suppose Brazil would be interested in some F-20 tigersharks, would they? It's basically the same plane.
The F-20 never made it into production even though it was a worthy alternative to the F-16 and better suited to some roles.
Yes. But then the USAF and Navy would have had to realized that their two SOPs, which is to have a fast truck (or intercepter) and try to make it into a dogfighter or else to have sweet dogfighter (or intercepter) and then try to make it into a fast truck, were not ideal.
The extreme form of this was the 104 which would eventually be able to even carry nukes with some special kit (not that any did but Lockheed made sure that certain models could).
Though in its role as a trainer and also as a sparring partner in certain training programs I think the F5 did finally help prepare the way for air superiority fighters to be seen as needed.
... then they demanded that those do everything too ... do everythingism is still sadly SOP. Very expensive SOP. There really is a quality to quantity.
To a large degree, stealth and beyond-visual-range missiles have made obsolete much traditional thinking about air combat. A decade or so from now, aircraft like the F-16 and F-5 will be obsolete and not survivable against first line fighter aircraft.
Which in turn will be finally brought down by some cheap missile on the drawing boards somewhere even now.
So far, for first rank air forces, stealth, careful mission planning, standoff weapons, and suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) have the upper hand.
All fine for taking the initiative somewhere else and kicking open the door as it were.
Once you need the ability to control they airspace over a region against what are likely to be insurgents, well that’s a mission that doesn’t lend itself to just a few all powerful and awesomely expensive systems. Of the capabilities you listed mainly electronic warfare as an extension of units with SEAD capability maintains usefulness.
True — and so we see the A-10 continued in service and the international development of many models of light attack aircraft. And the US also has the option of using drones against lower tier adversaries — drones that are relatively cheap and never return home in flag draped coffins.
We all know how that ends: humans get voted off the island.
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