1947-1982 Northrop Tigershark F-20 Fighter, Northrop Coin Club Cover & Medal

Description

A 1947-1982 Northrop Tigershark F-20 Fighter cover and medal from the Northrop Coin Club.  The medal shows some of the fighter planes designed and built by Northrop Corporation.
The cover is 6 ½ x 3 7/8 inches in size.  The medal is 1 7/16 inches across in size.  The cover and medal are in very nice condition.
Please see the other vintage items I have listed on eBay.
Thanks for looking.
Northrop F-20 Tigershark
The
Northrop F-20 Tigershark
(initially
F-5G
) was a
light fighter
, designed and built by
Northrop
. Its development began in 1975 as a further evolution of Northrop's
F-5E Tiger II
, featuring a new engine that greatly improved overall performance, and a modern avionics suite including a powerful and flexible
radar
. Compared with the F-5E, the F-20 was much faster, gained
beyond-visual-range
air-to-air capability, and had a full suite of air-to-ground modes capable of firing most U.S. weapons. With these improved capabilities, the F-20 became competitive with contemporary fighter designs such as the
General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon
, but was much less expensive to purchase and operate.
Much of the F-20's development was carried out under a
US Department of Defense
(DoD) project called "FX". FX sought to develop fighters that would be capable in combat with the latest
Soviet
aircraft, but excluding sensitive front-line technologies used by the
United States Air Force
's own aircraft. FX was a product of the
Carter administration
's military export policies, which aimed to provide foreign nations with high quality equipment without the risk of US front-line technology falling into Soviet hands. Northrop had high hopes for the F-20 in the international market, but policy changes following
Ronald Reagan
's election meant the F-20 had to compete for sales against aircraft like the
F-16
, the USAF's latest fighter design. The development program was abandoned in 1986 after three prototypes had been built and a fourth partially completed.
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