March 2009
Another from the collection at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum in Florida. In 2003, this aircraft was used during the NASA Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration, a program that used a Northrop F-5E with a modified fuselage to demonstrate that the aircraft’s shock wave, and sonic boom, could be shaped, and thereby reduced. The F-5E was modified with a specially shaped “nose glove,” an aluminum substructure and a composite skin added to the underside of the fuselage.