My wife and I went to the California Science Museum in January to see the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Pictures of that will come soon, but there are other wonderful things to see there, including the aircraft shown below.
Next to the parking lot was a Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft, a predecessor to the SR-71.
A-12
Then we see a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter mounted on the side of the one of the buildings.
F-104
In the large hall that led to Endeavour, we see the Northrop T-38 and F-20. As I joined Northrop as an avionics engineer, the F-20 program had just been killed. It was designed to be a cost-effective fighter to compete with the F-16, particularly in overseas sales. It seems that the government used it as leverage against General Dynamics to cut the F-16’s cost and then left Northrop in the cold. Of course, foreign governments backed away as soon as the US government decided against purchasing the F-20. Did I mention that the F-20 project was funded internally by Northrop? Indeed, Northrop felt that the F-20 was such a winner that they self-funded it. Well, it’s still a good looking airplane.
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- The F-20 from the side
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- F-20 and T-38 from below
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- T-38
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- F-20
