Word: tigersharks
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...biggest gambles in the history of the defense business came to an inglorious end last week. Los Angeles-based Northrop said it would halt development of the F-20 fighter jet after spending $1.2 billion on the still experimental plane, known as the Tigershark, over the past eight years. The decision came two weeks after the Air Force rejected a proposed contract to buy 270 F-20s for $3.5 billion. The Pentagon decided instead to upgrade an equally large fleet of General Dynamics F-16s at a cost of $2.3 million each -- only one-fifth...
Only, it seems, Northrop Chairman Thomas Jones, a handful of Congressmen from California, where Northrop is based, and some of Jones' influential friends in the Administration. Congress forced a yearlong simulated "fly- off" between the Falcon and Northrop's adequate but unexceptional F-20 Tigershark, which other nations have refused to buy. Last week the Air Force announced the unsurprising winner of the competition for the contract: a modified General Dynamics...
...three years Northrop has been seeking a buyer for its F-20 Tigershark plane. Developed at a cost of $850 million, the jet fighter has consistently been spurned by the U.S. and foreign governments in favor of General Dynamics' larger F-16 Fighting Falcon. Adding to the Tigershark's woes, two of its three prototypes have crashed since last October...
There is never a good time for a jet fighter to crash, but the loss of an F-20 Tigershark jet in Labrador last week seemed particularly inopportune. The plane, en route to the Paris Air Show, had stopped over at Goose Bay airport; coming in from a practice flight, it suddenly nosed down during its landing approach, killing Pilot David Barnes, 40, as it plowed into the ground. The crash occurred the day before the annual stockholders meeting of Northrop Corp., which spent $800 million to develop the F-20 but has not been able to sell a single...
Northrop has been promoting the F-20 as a less expensive and more reliable alternative to General Dynamics' widely used F-16. The Tigershark's reputation had already suffered from a crash last October in South Korea, although investigators blamed the accident on pilot error. Last week's disaster left Northrop with only one prototype. Still, Chairman Thomas V. Jones vowed to renew his efforts to sell the aircraft...