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The US Navy Says Goodbye to the Tomcat
jonerik writes "Though it's not being widely reported, this week marks the end of the line for the F-14 Tomcat in US Navy service. First flown in 1970, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat was easily one of the world's most powerful, advanced, and deadly aircraft for many years, capable of flying at Mach 2.3 and firing its half-dozen Mach 5 AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles at targets as much as 100 miles away. Having been gradually replaced during the last several years by the newer F/A-18E/F, the last of the aircraft in US service will be officially retired on Friday, September 22nd in a ceremony at Virginia's Oceana Naval Air Station. However, at least a few F-14s will continue to fly for a few more years: Iran — which took delivery of 79 aircraft before the overthrow of the Shah — still flies the plane, though only a small number (perhaps ten or twenty) are believed to still be in service due to a lack of spare parts and attrition."
that we won't have to think of Tom Cruise anymore when we see one of those planes flying!!!
Not to mention we won't have to think of "Danger Zone", "you've lost that loving feelin'" (when he sings it), and we won't have to think of Navy training jets as MIGs anymore!
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
At first I thought the Navy was dumping Apache Tomcat! :) http://tomcat.apache.org/
The F-14 uses a variable sweep wing, the idea being that for maneuverability the wings are extended and for speed the wings are swept back.
Nice idea eh? The problem is there are six hydraulic actuators on each wing to make this happen. When one breaks, there's no way to tell which one is bad without pulling all six from the wing and putting each one on a test bench. Testing a single actuator takes about an hour... and Murphy states the bad actuator is the last one you test.
The F-18 may look like a lawn dart from hell, but at least it's relatively easier to work on.
A Human Right
Well you're half right. They weren't designed with air-to-ground in mind, but it was modified to perform in a limited strike role later on. They did pretty well over Libya, and I believe they dropped some bombs in Iraq and maybe Afghanistan as well. From http://www.airtoaircombat.com/background.asp?id=14 &bg=8
The F-14A can carry up to 14,500 pounds of bombs and rockets, although it was not originally assigned a ground-attack mission. The under-fuselage pallets which ordinarily carry Phoenix missiles can also mount bomb racks for 1000-pound Mk 83 or 2000-pound Mk 84 bombs or other free-fall weaponry. As early as 1972, a Tomcat flew with 18 Mk 82 bombs, plus a complement of missiles. VF-122 dropped the first bombs from a Fleet Tomcat on August 8, 1990. Although the F/A-18 Hornet is the primary air-to-ground aircraft of the Navy fleet squadrons, the F/A-18 is felt to lack a sufficient range/payload capacity, and the air-to-ground capable F-14 Tomcat was felt to be essential to permit a carrier-based air wing to retain its full capacity. However, there were initially some shortages of bomb racks, and it was often true that only one F-14 squadron on each carrier was equipped to carry out a secondary ground attack role, with the other squadron being TARPS-equipped. Software for a ground attack mission has now been installed on all F-14Bs and Ds, as well on some F-14As. Today, the training syllabus includes some emphasis on air-to-ground strike, although such missions would only be carried out in a relatively permissible combat environment because of the high cost of the Tomcat.
One of the biggest problems with those old jets is the massive number of ground service hours required for every hour of air time. The F-14 was one of the worst. Not to mention that maintaining a certain level of air superiority might require X of an older type of jet, versus 1/4X of a newer type of jet.
Often you can save money buy spending money.
And those old F-14s aren't immediately ground up into Bender sandwiches -- They usually go to a graveyard to sit around in a state of somewhat possibly potentially close to readiness, just in case a really big war breaks out.
Im an avionics tech crrently stationed at NAS Oceana, and im not sorry to see them go because of this. F-18 gear is way easier and faster to work on. Not to mention a lower failure rate. That being said, alot of the older guys and pilots are sad to see them go.
A nerdy fact for you
History and stats on the F-14
emt 377 emt 4
The F-14 was a very interesting plane. It was a dedicated interceptor, built for pure speed - not really made for dogfighting, no matter what Top Gun claimed. It also carried the most powerful air intercept radar in either the Navy or the Air Force inventory. The backseat guy was the Radar Intercept Officer - it took a dedicated crewman just to work the damn thing. It was kind of like a flying SAM platform, almost.
It had two main roles. First was the BARCAP role. The USA kept carrier groups on patrol in case the Soviets launched bomber strikes, and the F-14 was the first line of defense against them. The idea was that it could catch up with a Soviet bomber group before they reached launch range, lock onto the big bombers, fire its AIM-54s, and get out once the missiles went terminal. It wasn't supposed to mix it up with the escorting fighters, that was the job of escorting F-14s or the F-15s from the USAF. Once the USSR collapsed, BARCAP wasn't such a big deal, so that's when they decided to give it ground attack capability.
It was also tasked with Fleet Air Defense, meaning to protect the carrier air group from airborne threats - bombers dedicated to anti-ship strikes, cruise missiles, fighters scrambled to attack Navy bombers. In this role, it was obseleted by the AEGIS cruiser as much as the F/A-18.
I apologize in advance if I got any of the facts wrong - this is just as I remember it as a plane geek.
Well, yes. The plane was designed for air superiority combat against a capable contemporary air force (read, the Red Air Force). Since we thankfully never fought a full war with the Soviet Union, we never had a chance to use the Tomcat for its intended purpose (in the Gulf War, Iraq refused to face our Tomcats, knowing its air force would be slaughtered). Similarly, we never used our arsenal of nuclear missiles, our subs, or any of other huge classes of weapons for their designed purpose, either.
Now, it's possible that if we'd never built these weapons of war to fight the Soviet Union, people like Brezhnev wouldn't have taken the opportunity to conquer Western Europe or at least extort from it money to prop up the Soviet Union, and accordingly the only reason we built them was to fund a military-industrial complex. It's similarly possible that, had Danzig been handed over to Hitler when he demanded it, World War II would have been averted, and the only reason Chamberlain stood up to Hitler in 1939 was to please Britsh armaments manufacturers.