I don't think that the people of Northrop Aviation who had hired designer Edgar Schmeud (Who is also the man behind the P-51 Mustang) had any idea that this simple light weight jet fighter, powered by two helicopter turbines would not only be a classic but also a modding platform that keeps on being reinvented.
Their design the N-156 was meant to be a cheap ulitity fighter for small airforces. Made (as was the the Mustang) to be easy to produce, easy to fly and easy to maintain. The N-156 was a private venture, not being made by an official issue by the USAF.
But when the USAF got to see the N-156, they liked what they saw but not quite in the role it was intended for. The USAF saw in the Northrop fighter THE perfect replacement for their aging Lockheed T-33 trainer fleet. So the design of the N-156 was modified to be an advanced trainer with supersonic capabilities. The result was the T-38 Talon, which still goes strong after 50 years.
The Talon differs from the original N-156 by having (Obviously) a longer fuselage and more powerful engines but other than that, the Talon has retained much of the original design's features.
A few years later Northrop again tried to sell the N-156 as a cheap fighter and this time around there were plenty of air forces around the world taking notice, ready to replace their aging fleets of F-86 Sabres, F-84 Thunderstreaks and Hawker Hunters. The Design was modified by having the longer fuselage and more powerful engines of the Talon but with twin cannon armament in the nose, stronger wings that could carry ornaments and revised air intakes, with that the F-5A Freedom fighter was born.
The F-5A (and twin seat F-5B) was a seller but it would take foreign input and Northrop's unwilling nature to comply to the wishes of airforces who needed the F-5A to fullfill different roles, to take the design further.
Canadair had already obtained the lisencing rights to produce the F-5A for what was then the Royal Canadian Airforce. In Canadian service the F-5A was meant to be a strike aircraft in the ground attack role and because of the country being so huge it also had to have a large range and inflight fueling capability. Now the F-5A's main role was that of interceptor so to use it as a close support aircraft would mean that it had to be modified again. Resulting in the Canadair CF-116 or as it became known, the CF-5.
Now the CF-5 had a wider fuselage so it could carry more internal fuel, it also had a wider stronger wing so it could carry bombs and rockets and it was equipped with British designed avionics.
Meanwhile the Royal Netherlands Air Force, having looked at and chosen the Chance Vought A-7 Corsair to replace their old F-84 Thunderstreaks, were denied to fly and test the then brand new and very secretive aircraft, forcing them to look elsewhere. The Dutch learned about the Canadair CF-5 and were impressed with what they saw. They requested further modifications for use in a small country like the Netherlands. Taking the CF-5 as their starting point, they wanted different avionics, a redesigned wing with larger flaps for improved handling, the deletion of the inflight capability, a more advanced doppler radar, a stronger undercarriage and an arrester hook, to snatch a brake cable at the short runways, the result was the Canadair NF-5.
The Dutch have flown their NF-5 fleet for over 20 years before selling their aircraft to Turkye and Greece who are still flying them today.
In the USA those devellopments of course were monitored, the USAF had issued an order for a light strike aircraft that could replace the aging North American F-100 super sabre (Another Edgar Schmeud designed plane) The requirement asked for stronger wings and inflight capability, the result was the F-5C "Skoshi tiger"
However, the F-5C saw very limited use with the USAF and the remainder ended up with the South Vietnam airforce, who after the war sold a couple to the Sovyet Union.
Taking what they've learned from the "Skoshi Tiger" and from the Canadair CF-5 and NF-5, Northrop's next move was to make a sort of "best of" package. It had the wider fuselage of the CF-5, the redesigned wings and arrester hook of the NF-5 and the American Avionics of the Skoshi Tiger, the resulting aircraft was to be the most potent offspring of the N-156 yet: the F-5E tiger.
The F-5E was the hot item, being sold all around the world. In the USA however, they were bought for a very similar reason to why the N-156 had caught their eye in the first place: as a trainer. Almost all of the F-5E's that the USAF, Navy and Marines bought, were used as fake enemy planes with which junior pilots could practice air combat, after it became emberrasingly aware in the Vietnam war, that their regular training of "Just fire your radar guided or heat seeking missiles and that's all you need to do." weren't working when faced with enemy jet fighters. So with the F-5E they now had a plane which could be used to train rookie pilots what to do when being faced with a hostile plane. To this day NONE of the F-5E's that were bought by US forces were ever in combat missions.
In the early seventies Northrop started work on what would eventually become the F-18 Hornet.
Now you wouldn't be able to tell right away but the Hornet does share a couple of key features with the N-156 family, the nose and the design of the wings are the most obvious but it also shares the idea: of a light fighter powered by two light jet engines.
In tandem with the Hornet, Northrop also designed a new version of the N-156. One that they hoped would bring the old warhorse back up to date for the new decade. It had the state of the art fly-by-wire avionics of the F-18 and the same engine. Yup only one, the result was the F-5G, later re-named the F-20 Tigershark.
The Tigershark was meant as a fighter for air forces who couldn't afford to buy the F-18, making it possible to have a state-of-the-art plane for less than the cost of the F-18. Unfortunately, the F-16 Fighting Falcon prooved itself to be perfectly suited for just that role and the F-20 Tigershark never went in full scale production.
But the F-20's development DID yield the genesis of one of the most bizarre aircraft that was made in the eighties...
The Grumman X-31 was meant to try out new avionics, meant to keep a plane that otherwise would have been impossible to fly, in the air. It had the main fuselage of the F-20 but with forwards facing wings and "Carnard" nose flaps. The NASA used them for aerodinamics testing but as it stands, none of the results have been used in subsiquent designs. The Grumman X-31 also proved to be the very last modification of the N-156 to be made in the USA.
In Iran however it was a different story. The locally developed HESA Saeqeh (Thunderbolt) modifies the N-156 once more. The Saeqeh, has twin tail fins (displaying the family resemblence between the F-5E and the F-18 Hornet more obviously) and as thought avionics based on Iran's MiG 29 fleet. Other than that, there isn't really that much known about this latest version of the original N-156.
What IS known however is that Saeqeh is meant as a light jet fighter and strike aircraft, which was the original meaning behind the N-156 in the first place.
Currently however, the N-156 has proven itself to be a Here-to-stay plane which is perfectly adaptable for any role that people make up for it, as long as it get's the needed mods to do so.
And with that I end my post about the N-156, which turned out to be one of the best modding platforms in the air.
