KerbalX

F-5E Tiger II

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The Northrop F-5 was an American light fighter developed independently from the U.S. government in the late 50’s. It was developed with the hope it would be used as a dog fighter for the air force who was losing large, heavy fighters like the F-4 phantom in dogfights with smaller Russian planes such as the mikoyan gurevich MiG-21. The aircraft was not bought by the United States in large numbers but it was extremely popular as an export fighter for smaller nations or US backed guerrilla forces. Because of this the F-5A and its various variants where named the F-5A Freedom Fighter. A few years later this variant was turned into a trainer aircraft called the T-38 Talon which is still being used today. In the early 60’s the aircraft was rebuilt with better dog fighting in mind and renamed the Tiger II and Tiger III. The aircraft is an interesting niche in American fighter technologies due to the philosophy of American design usually calling for technology filled, large aircraft which rely mostly on missiles and was the first American aircraft liked by the Fighter Mafia. The aircraft was designed with guns as its main armament and was one of the few modern jet fighters with more than one gun. In the 70’s the aircraft was put through tests against the United States’ premier fighter, the F-15 Eagle. The aircraft was found to be comparable to it in a few ways and could beat it in a dogfight regularly. The aircraft had faded out of popularity as air to air missiles had become better and better and dog fighting became less common.
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This is one of my favorite aircraft ever. Its size and purpose are extremely interesting as well as the ease of maintenance. I had been looking at F-5E and I saw that from the engines to the intakes the bottom of the aircraft is completely flat and starts with a 90 degree angle from the sides. This made me realize I hadn’t made a good F-5 ever so I started this.
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servo made the trainer version of the F-5 called the T-38 Talon. Its pretty cool so check it out:
https://kerbalx.com/servo/T-38
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Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.7.0.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: aircraft
• Part Count: 272
• Pure Stock