Can’t Find Buyers, Northrop Halts Work on Fighter
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After four years and $1.2 billion in out-of-pocket expenses, Northrop Corp. today halted work on its F-20 Tigershark, the most costly privately financed warplane ever built.
The Los Angeles-based firm had been unable to find any buyers for the plane, which had originally been designed for foreign nations as a moderately priced alternative to General Dynamics Corp.’s F-16, the mainstay of the U.S. air arsenal.
The death blow for the warplane came two weeks ago when the Air Force rejected a proposal to have 270 Tigersharks purchased at a cost of about $4 billion for the Air National Guard, which protects the continental United States against invaders.
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