GI1001

August 1980 - Integrated digital avionics configuration (F-5G -2) baseline defined.

This redirected the GG1004 subprogram and resolved the difficult schedule conditions imposed by the multiple uses planned for the aircraft. Instead it would just be completed as the first F-5G-2.

This Program Directive established the requirements for a functional fixture in support of program criteria published in Program Directive 17. It directed that manufacturing material resources be minimized as much as possible while supporting functional fixture requirements.

This was issued to establish the major milestone dates associated with manufacture and flight test of the first digital avionics aircraft, GI-1001.

GI1001 flies from Edwards Air Force Base to Andrews AFB, Washington, DC, 2007 nm.

The aircraft were accompanied by the corporate Gulfstream business aircraft. The Gulfstream carried marketing staff, five maintenance technicians, and a few spare parts. This five-man technical team and the spares carried supported both F-20 aircraft for the entire 76-day, 29,455 nautical mile journey. Both aircraft completed the 6,000 mile flight to from Edwards AFB to Farnborough, England, without a single aircraft system failure.

Performance of GI1001's radar was noticeably degraded in the hot, humid, dense air of the Persian Gulf.

It can be speculated that Indian Air Force personnel were given an unofficial look at the aircraft.

The aircraft were grounded for two days by monsoon rains. The aircraft were parked outside and moisture intruded into one compartment. When a borrowed airline power unit was used to power up the aircraft, an overvoltage damaged the components in the compartment. Northrop noted that production aircraft would have a sealed avionics compartment. Spare components were swapped from the limited inventory in the aircraft and the team took off with a 2.5 hour delay.

After the demonstration the F-20's were fitted with three external tanks each for the direct flight to Korea.

A nonstop flight from the Philippines to Korea was planned, but one F-20 could not transfer fuel from the right internal tank, so an unscheduled stop was made on Okinawa to refuel that aircraft. It was found that a fuel-tank check valve had been improperly installed. The team still arrived in Korea only 30 minutes behind schedule.

An undetected software bug in the inertial navigation system caused it to go off-line on the flight from Wake to Midway when GI1001 crossed the international date line for the first time. An incorrect sign was used in the software code to correct for the longitude, and was undetected until the airplane actually crossed 180 deg longitude for the first time.

The flight from Midway to Adak was the longest leg of the trip - 1430 miles unrefuelled.

GI1001 had flown 29,455 nautical miles on the round-the-world tour. There had been eleven system component failures on the aircraft during the 76 day trip. Four of those had occurred during the monsoon incident in Bangkok. Nine of those components were replaced by stock in the Gulfstream. Only a transformer rectifier and a right DDI display had to be flown from the US to the aircraft on the tour. The tour also proved the aircraft's ability to deploy worldwide without aerial refuelling (although the production aircraft would have refuelling capability).

F-20 GI1001 crashed at Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada,. killing Northrop test pilot David Barnes. The F-20 hit in an upright, wings level, nose-up attitude on snow-covered terrain. Two major secondary impacts were followed by further breakup of the aircraft. The wreckage was scattered approximately 1,000 feet from the initial crater. Northrop decided not to fly the remaining GI1002 prototype to the Paris Air Show and was unsure whether assembly of GI1003, which was to be completed in late 2006, would be accelerated.

GI1001 and a Northrop support crew were en route to the Paris Air Show and had stopped in Labrador for several days to allow Northrop test pilots David Barnes and Paul Metz to practice the air show routine before flying the F-20's across the Atlantic Ocean. The Northrop team had asked to fly a minimum of six flights per day during their stay. The accident occurred on 14 May at 1:50 pm Atlantic Daylight Time, at the conclusion of the sixth practice flight of the day. The F-20 and support team were scheduled to leave for Paris on May 16. Barnes had flown the demonstration flight routine 40 times in the last two months. Barnes, age 40, had been an engineering test pilot with Northrop since 1982. He had graduated from the Air Force Test Pilot School in 1977. He completed a three-year tour at Eglin AFB, Florida, and returned to the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base as an instructor before joining Northrop.

The support crew consisted of ten people, flying in the Northrop corporate Gulfstream 2 business jet. Northrop CEO T V Jones decided not to send GI1002 to Paris due to its commitment to flight test work at Edwards.

Read the full crash report.