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On July 30, 1959, Northrop made airborne a fighter designed to be lightweigh and agile, expected to fight against the MiG-21. It was a "dogfighter", just two guns and two AIM-9 Sidewinders. The plane followed the recently discovered "area rule", giving more speed with less thrust. It was the F-5 Freedom Fighter, the Skoshi Tiger.
This time we are going to see a Tim "Piglet" Conrad plane, a Northrop F-5A Tiger. Released on the year 2007, made for FS2004, being able to run on FSX with a fix. The original file is called f5a_pack.zip. The FSX file is called f5a_fsx.zip, and there is an extra texture called tcf5_35.zip.
The model has many details, with three models (F-5A, F-5C and RF-5A) and four textures, including a Spanish recon version. The pilot moves his head syncronized with the tail movements. The cockpit opens, the ailerons work fine, the elevons, the belly airbrake, lights and rudder too... when I made my test flights I was delighted to see the wingtips leaving white trails at high G-maneuvers, and water trails at high altitude.
The cockpit is wide and very complete. The original one is vertically arranged, with the instruments randomly distributed over a great amount of surface and mixed with switchs and knobs. So Tim Conrad made a more orderly cockpit, just like a real F-5A pilot would have loved. It has lateral views, and a zero-visibility seat in the rear, just like the real one has. A 3D view is available, and a hidden GPS just for easy flyers (me included). By the way, if you know something about texture editing, you can make visible or not the external loads. And, even if you don't know, you just copy some textures from one of the texture folders to the another.
The real plane performance is:
Maximum speed: 925 mph (Mach 1.4) at 36,000 feet
Maximum cruising speed: 640 mph (Mach 0.97) at 36,000 feet
Service ceiling: 50,500 feet
Max initial rate of climb 28,700 ft/min
Ferry range: 2595km (1400nm)
Handling: The fighter was fast and agile, making it ideal for dodging ground fire during attack runs. It actually proved to be the least vulnerable jet aircraft in the war zone. On the debit side, the takeoff roll of a heavily-laden F-5 was excessively long, and the range was considered to be inadequate. There were initial problems with the armament, but this is no problem for us. Popular opinion holds that the F-5 Tiger handles well and does not have a propensity for entering unintentional spins.
Starting the test, I climbed inside the cockpit and applied full throttle without releasing the brakes. The plane starts to shake until I release the brakes. It takes more time than I expected to lift off, so it corresponds with the original. At 120 knots, it starts to climb, and after 14 seconds we reach 1000 feet over the sea level. It gives me something like 4500 ft/min. Climbing to 36,000 feet, I make a slight dive trying to break the sound barrier. But it's no good; I can't obtain more than 401 knots. The low climb rate and the low maximum speed talks about a very underpowered plane... or the fact that I don't know how to start the afterburner. If you know, please tell me.
The plane is agile for its time, but it's not an F-16 or an F-36. It can handle fast, make sharp course changes, climb like a mad man and so on, but you can stall if you are not careful. The recovery is easy, just pray for not being too near the floor. After all this plane is derived from the T-38 Talon jet trainer. It has a very unpleasant way to stall: at low speeds or with high angle of attack the F-5 starts to swing side to side, nose up. The best way to exit from this situation is to increase the throttle, drop the nose and level the wings. The landing is very easy remaining over 150 knots.
After the test, I found this plane easy to fly, very agile, with many textures and a pleasure to fly and see. It will do a good acquisition to many of you who want to remember the Vietnam age and is tired of the omnipresent, heavily loaded Phantom.
Alejandro Hurtado
dracosist2@cantv.net
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