A Case Study of the F-20 Tigershark

In December 1986 the Northrop Corporation terminated its F-20 Tigershark fighter aircraft program. The program had been in existence for over ten years and had cost over 1.2 billion. The F-20 program was unique because it was privately funded--i.e., North and its subcontractors covered all of the costs. Northrop wrote off the program costs quarterly, so despite the huge loss, the company continued to prosper. Its other government contracts more than made up for the F-20 expenditures. Northrop and many observers claimed that, from a technical point of view, the program was a resounding success. In point of fact, no one can know. No F-20s were ever sold. There is no doubt that the F-20 program was a marketing failure. There is however, disagreement about why this was so. This paper examines the F-20 program from both a research and development RD and a marketing perspective. We state why the F-20 was built and we show how the F-20 program drew from a Northrop philosophy of what an export fighter should be. We examine why Northrop considers the F-20 RD effort to have been successful. This examination leads us to discuss the problematic issue of finding and using appropriate measures of merit in evaluating a fighter aircraft system. We present some of our thoughts on why the F-20 was such a dismal failure in the market place, and what marketing lessons should be drawn from that failure.