The American press explained why the United States decided to modernize the F-5 fighter of the 1960s.
The US Navy recently delivered the first F-5N fighter aircraft to Patuxent River Naval Airfield, Maryland. Naval aviation is going to start ground and flight tests of the aircraft as part of its modernization. The updated tactical fighters will have to incorporate a number of modern aircraft features.
The F-5 Freedom Fighter is a 1970s American light multirole fighter manufactured by the Northrop Corporation. It has been in service since April 1964 with the United States Air Force, but has since been decommissioned. For its rather long history F-5 aircraft participated in many military conflicts, including the Vietnam War, the Iranian-Iraqi, Ethiopo-Somali, Cambodian (Cambodian) -Vietnam wars, Operation Desert Storm, the civil war in Yemen, and anti-terrorist operations in a number of states.
For many years, the F-5 proved to be a high-speed tactical fighter and was used by the US Navy and the US Marine Corps, including as an enemy-aggressor in special squadrons that imitate enemy aircraft. But until recently, according to The Southern Maryland Chronicle, it was deprived of many of the modern systems and technologies that are now used on fighters. This circumstance significantly worsened the possibilities of its use in military exercises. After all, modern pilots need to practice the skills of operating modern systems, and this circumstance required a serious improvement in the technical capabilities of the F-5 fighter.
The retrofit F-5N is one of three F-5Ns that will be used as prototypes to upgrade the fighter's architecture. Technical innovations will help improve the safety, capabilities and reliability of the aircraft. After testing, the upgrades will be used to retrofit 16 F-5Es and six F-5Fs recently acquired by the Navy from the Swiss Air Force.
According to the American press, the F-5 aircraft, which received modifications to the block modernization prototype, will receive the designation F-5N + / F +. The addition of devices that warn of severe weather conditions or a decrease in fuel level, according to the US Navy, will reduce the potential risks of death of a pilot or loss of an aircraft.
This program, according to the American naval command, will provide modernized aircraft with such capabilities, with the help of which it will be possible to practice tactics and techniques against air threats. As PMA-226 Program Manager Captain Ramiro Flores noted, the implementation of the innovations will provide more realistic and relevant tactical training for pilots. The modernization of aircraft of the 1960s, as explained in the American press, will allow practicing actions against enemy aircraft, in whose arsenal there are today F-5s. Considering that such fighters are in service with the Iranian Air Force, it can be assumed that the United States is modernizing them precisely to study the possibilities of confronting Iranian aviation.
Recall that the modernization program involves improving the life cycle of several obsolete and obsolete aircraft and engines, which were selected by the United States Naval Aviation Command. Among the objects of modernization are F-5 and F-16 fighters, airplanes and helicopters T-2, N-2, N-3, A-4, T-38, H-72, X-26, U-6, NU- 1B, O-2, OH-58C.
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