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Northrop's F-20 Tigershark is a worthy successor to their famous F-5 family of reliable, efficient and cost-effective lightweight fighter aircraft. This example is armed with two AIM-9L Sidewinder AAMs, two GBU-12 laser-guided bombs, two medium-range external fuel tanks and five Mk82 500 lb bombs on the centreline pylon.
Australia’s Chance for a Regional Fighter Project
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At a time when the Australian Aircraft Consortium Is bringing together national resources to develop and market a comparatively modest propeller-driven basic trainer, it is difficult to believe that Australia once had the largest aircraft manufacturing industry In the southern hemisphere. Older readers will hopefully forgive me for recalling that during the war years local industry produced for the RAAF approximately 3500 aircraft of 11 different types, including 1070 Tiger Moths, 757 Wirraways, 700 Beauforts, 364 Beaufighters, 250 Boomerangs, 200 Wackett Trainers, 108 Mosquitoes and 87 Dragons, plus 2850 of the engines that powered these aircraft. In the postwar years, Australian industry produced 200 Mustangs, 190 Vampires, 111 Sabres, 116 Mirages, 104 Mosquitoes, 97 Macchis, 64 Winjeels and 48 Canberras.
However, employment in the industry has been going downhill since the time of the Korean War. Some countries(such as Brazil and France) assured the future of locally-built general aviation products by means of import tariffs (hence the success of companies such as Embraer and Reims Aviation), but Australia missed the opportunities provided by the postwar boom in light aircraft. Some air forces actively supported a local manufacturing industry on the basis that they preferred to have aircraft developed to meet their own special needs and available free from the vacillations of a foreign government. In contrast, the RAAF was for many years quite openly hostile to local industry (reportedly due to delays in the Avon-Sabre development programme), admitting only that there was a case for having in-country support facilities for foreign aircraft.
Thus, while other countries witnessed a steady expansion of aircraft manufacturing capability, Australia’s industry contracted, sinking below those of Brazil, South Africa and Argentina in the batting order for the southern hemisphere. Third-world countries such as Peru, Chile and Pakistan build primary trainers for their own air forces (evidently in the belief that an aircraft industry is worth cultivating), but Australia imported the CT-4 from New Zealand. It can be argued that there was some similarity between the decision to import the CT-4 and Boeing’s decision(in the early days of the airliner recession) to economise on plant maintenance: the people in Seattle realised they had hit rock bottom when the hangar door refused to open!
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