Become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PilotPhotog The Northrop F5 Freedom Fighter is a small, highly aerodynamic and maneuverable jet which was built around two compact and high thrust General Electric J85 engines. The F-5 was designed from the ground up to be an easy to maintain, simple to fly, inexpensive multirole fighter. With its origins dating back to the 1950s the F-5 has stood the test of time, it has become a popular export aircraft and is still used today by the United states as an adversary or aggressor aircraft. Today we will be taking a look at the first two variants, the F-5A and B, also known as the Freedom Fighter. Here are some specifications for the F-5ALength 47.2 ft (14.37 m)Height 13.2 ft (4.01 m)Wingspan 25.8 ft (7.87 m)Maximum Speed: 925 mph (Mach 1.4)Empty weight: 8,805 lbs (3,667 kg)Max T/O weight: 20,677 lb (9,379 kg)Engine Thrust Class Each: 2,270 lbf (12.1kN) thrust dry, 4,080 lbf (18.1kN) with afterburnerArmament: The F-5A has two internally mounted 20mm cannons in the fuselage nose and can carry two heat seeking sidewinder missiles on the wingtips.Additionally, the F-5 has five pylons which can be used to carry up to 6200 pounds of ordinance or fuel tanks. Loads can include four more air to air missiles, air to surface missiles, bombs, unguided rockets, or external fuel tanks. During the Vietnam War, F-5s were evaluated with virtually every weapons system of its time and pilots along with Forward Air Controllers reported that the jet was fast and possessed uncanny accuracy for delivering bombs on target. The choice weapon during that war was the Mk 117 750 lb bomb, which could destroy just about any target it was tasked to suppressing. Part of the best of aviation series, this is part 1 in a documentary about the F-5 Attributions/Credits: F-5 M-39 cannon: By Photograph by Rama, Wikimedia Commons, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11969138 Taiwanese F-5 Photo玄史生 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) Music from https://filmmusic.io"Hiding Your Reality" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...) Thanks for watching! Please subscribe and follow me on social media to help this channel grow: https://facebook.com/pilotphotog http://instagram.com/pilotphotog http://twitter.com/pilotphotog Northrup Factory photos:https://www.allpar.com/corporate/amc-nash-factory.html T-33 Photo:Alejandro Pena / Public domainT-38 Painting"A T-38 Talon Turning Up" Artist: Jim Auckland, US Air Force Art Collection photography Cover Photo: Peng Chen / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) aviation aviator flying plane