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.
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.