U.S. Marines Buy 22 F-5s From Switzerland

The Marine Corps paid a little less than $1.5 million each for the Cold War speedsters, which will now be used as adversarial training aircraft.

Russ Niles

Wednesday, March 20, 2024 at 09:54 AM ET

Verified

Edited By: tccjeremy

F-5 Tiger tactical fighter. [Courtesy: Northrop Grumman]

Key Takeaways:

The U.S. Marine Corps is acquiring 22 Northrop F-5 Tigers from the Swiss Air Force for adversarial training.
These supersonic interceptors are Cold War-era aircraft, first flown 65 years ago, and were purchased for less than $1.5 million each.
Switzerland will continue to operate 25 F-5 Tigers for training, testing, and their air demonstration team, despite the sale to the U.S. Marines.

See a mistake? Contact us.

The U.S. Marine Corps’ latest airplane acquisition is a supersonic interceptor that first flew off the drawing board 65 years ago.

The Marines are buying 22 Northrup F-5 Tigers from the Swiss Air Force. The first one was loaded on a C-130 on March 18 for the trip back to the U.S., where it will live out the rest of its service life as an adversarial training aircraft along with the others in the sale.