Talk:Northrop F-20 Tigershark/Archive 1

Quotes section
I removed this section as there were no sources for any of them and quotes should have citations --Chuck Sirloin 14:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Failed FA review - now what?
This article did not pass the Featured Article review a couple weeks ago. Looks like it was many due to use of non-Reliable sources (Joe Baugher web pages). What else was lacking? I might be able to replace some of Baugher references using my Northrop F-5/F-20/T-38 book. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This book only has 7 pages on the F-20 itself. So it does not have all the details covered in this article.  Will do what I can. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

F-20 for Egypt?
In the Egyptian Air Force page in Arabic Wikipedia, there is an image of an EAF F-20. is it authentic? Heavy Metal Moe (talk) 22:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, only 3 F-20s were built and they were used only for company testing and demo purposes. That may have been a F-5 or possibly a F-20 painted for a demo/sale offer. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The only F-20 Image I can see on the arabic page is an Egyptian Air Force Dassault Falcon 20! MilborneOne (talk) 21:54, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Close paraphrase
This page asserts a copyright on much of the text, "Northrop's chief test pilot, Hank Chouteau, noted that the F-20 was an outstanding gun platform. When you slewed the aircraft in air combat, the nose stayed on its target easily, without a heavy pilot workload to keep it there. The YF-17 had not been a good aircraft in this regard." It is inappropriate for there to be a verbatim copy of part of this page in this article, especially without direct acknowledgment by use of quotes. Ethics aside I'm not really sure what insights these statements from the chief test pilot have to do with the operational history of the aircraft, it would be seem that he's talking about it's potential given good handling capability, but the source doesn't mention where or in what context the pilot has made this note. In short, I don't see what this adds to the article in its current state and feel that it should be removed or reformulated.Synchronism (talk) 06:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The citation is at the end of the paragraph, and the author is cited in several places. I've added quotes, as this is not alot of text, and is perfectly legal to quote a book. I don't know how much of the rest of the section is quoted verbatim, but I am a bit suspicious. However, the tag you added isn't justifed now, so I've removed it. - BilCat (talk) 08:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Hm, I also thought about simply enclosing it in quotes, the way it's done now it's actually misquoted though. It appears that the article is now quoting the words of the chief test pilot, when we are actually quoting a paraphrase of the chief test pilot written by the website author. The misquote is then taken a step further by the including the author's opinion in the quotes as though it is the chief test pilot's words. This needs to be reformulated in original prose or removed.Synchronism (talk) 00:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You're of course assuming that the web page is a correct representation of the original source, which has yet to be proven. It reads like a direct quote, just without the quote marks. I assum the quotes are in the book, and the person who made the web page messed up. I'll restore the text to what it had before. You're welcome to actually try to fix it, but adding tags really does nothing to help here. - BilCat (talk) 02:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I never disputed your removal of the tag, though maintenance templates really should not be removed until the problem they describe has been fixed. But now there is a copyvio on the page again, and I think the best way to fix it is to just get rid of it. It's not really brilliant or interesting prose and it's a bit tangential. I didn't see the web author's bibliography or works cited so I have no idea where he is getting his info, but I would rather venture to assume that had the author intended to quote he would've used quotations.Synchronism (talk) 02:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I removed some redundant info and the unneeded YF-17 mention. I put the text in quote that came from the copyrighted web page.  I think the best thing to do is to summarize & reword the quoted sentences.  It probably needs an inline tag saying that, but I can't find the right one now. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not our job to decide if it's a quote or not. We could contact the author or the supposed interviewee to ask him what he meant to be sure, but I'm quite sure it's an intentional paraphrase and that Hank Chouteau didn't say those exact words. We should not be attributing words to a man that did not say them.Synchronism (talk) 22:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Is it just me or has the source changed a bit since this topic was brought up? Part of what we were quoting that did match no longer matches the source.Synchronism (talk) 22:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I only removed some wording. It is/was a quote from a source.  If it is not in quotes then it's a copyright vio.   Handle it however... -Fnlayson (talk) 23:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. Yes/No. In Wikipedia, yes, because it's not properly attributed. I'm not sure I get what you are saying, can you please clarify?Synchronism (talk) 23:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * You pretty much handled it. Not sure what needs explaining.  If text is a direct copy from a copyrighted source, then it is a copyright violation. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:15, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

On the copyright point, nothing said above is even remotely correct. As long as the source is identified, and the use limited, there is no violation. Both of these apply in this case. It doesn't make a difference if it's a quote, or someone quoting a quote, first hand, second hand or fourteenth hand, it's all covered in US, Canadian and international law. Furthermore, there is no need to identify the source in the statement, which should be obvious. Finally, there is absolutely no requirement for quotes around the text in question. Unless anyone has any concerns about the content itself, I would like to revert these changes. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:47, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

$1.2 Billion cost to Northrop
The sources indicate Northrops  wrote down $1.2 billion when the project was cancelled  as the cost of the F20 project. This seems far too high even for that era. The YFf16  produced two prototypes for far less money a few years before. An explanation for Northrops write down is that it was for the entire F-5 program. As I understand it, at the time the investment made in an aircraft program for development and tooling wasnt written off gradually as you would expect but in one lump sum when  it was cancelled or closed.118.92.29.231 (talk) 20:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)ghostwhowalksnz


 * A few years during the most intense period of inflation in recent US history. In the period between 1975 and 1985, prices doubled. The YF-16 was folded into the F-16, so we don't really have a apples-to-apples comparison either, I have failed to find a number on the cost of the prototype F-20's alone. Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Spending on the Tigershark program is outlined on page 27 of Martin and Schmidt: in broad-brush terms, $200 million a year for the six years '81-'86: seems reasonable to me. 109.145.107.35 (talk) 22:08, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Specious quote?
"They took an austere, stripped-down F-5 and ruined it by loading crap on it. Adding Sparrow missiles required huge complexity on the airplane. Adding air-to-ground capability ruined the F-20A."

This statement seems, on the face of it, dumb. The F-5 was originally an air-to-ground aircraft, and spent the vast majority of its combat time doing just that. I would not be surprised if the total air combat time of the F-5 is as little as 1% of its A-G time.

The statement about the Sparrow is equally questionable. Adding the Sidewinder to the F-5E certainly didn't ruin that airframe, and the only difference in this case is some wiring and the radar. However, the radar unit was smaller, lighter and dramatically more reliable than the one it replaced, which should't be surprising considering this was the era of the introduction of LSI.

I find much to be concerned about in this statement, and certainly don't think it is worthy of the callout it currently has. Will anyone argue for its remaining highlighted in such a fashion?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:36, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

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