The Northrop F-5 tactical fighter was designed as an extremely maneuverable, supersonic fighter with a high rate of reliability at a low operating cost. The F-5 first flew on July 30, 1959 with the first customer delivery in 1964. The last of more than 2,600 F-5’s was produced in 1989 and about two-thirds of these are still in service with 26 countries more than 4 decades later. The F-5 was manufactured by Northrop Grumman and under license in Canada, Taiwan, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland.
In 1976 F-5E 761528 c/n L1003 was delivered to the Swiss Air Force as J-3003. It was active until 1999 when it was placed in storage. In 2001 the aircraft was removed from storage to take part in Swiss Armed Forces Competition called “Ambassador 2001”. On August 17 J-3003 received an eye-catching Tiger paint scheme dubbed “Sinacat”. By the end of the event the aircraft only had 10 flight hours remaining. In October 2001 Sinacat was again stored until 2004 when it was sold to the US. 4 years later 761528 joined VFC-13 wearing Red 06.