Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire F-14 Tomcat . . . Indian country

That's just cool..

Great photo and stories!

This is what Indian Country looked like when I was busy...



The view from inside can be pretty thrilling, too.

Consider this a "like" button sir!

Jim, i ain't a pilot, but i have flown in a "luskin". My cousin's. coming back from phoenix one night after dark we were getting ready to land at the prescott airport, runway looked real dark, we bounced off of it. "oops, forgot to turn on the landing lights." I decided then not to fly with him again. He light to get people up, turn the motor off, take his hands off, and let the plane self correct. My wife was not happy.
I did open my mouth wide once and wife bought me a ride in a at6 texan. The real pilot did a lot of fun things, i told him to fly it like i wasn't there. When i got to fly it i experienced maybe three g's. there is a tape that was made showing my face during all of this. My wife said you could see me in living color filling my pants. The reason i mention the "g"s is my grandson is a test engineer at edwards, a graduate of among other things the chuck yeager test pilots school. His concept of "g"s is way off the charts.

With those two HUGE motors you don't need no stinking lift! Speed is life, baby!... and I didn't have $hit!

Me too. Witnessed a "fly-by" of an F-14. The plane came overhead at about 80 ft. I could count the rivets on the bottom & it made no sound whatsoever. By the time the sound trail came up the plane was out of sight.

Snodgrass..........not over water but impressive nonetheless.



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MM

In contrast, I once rode in a '57 Ercoupe.

Side by side seating, and could be flown with the sliding canopy open. We're cruising along at 6000 feet & 90 knots, or thereabouts. The pilot/owner says, we need to adjust course 5 degrees right. Stick your arm out! I do so and watch the compass drift over as I hold my arm in the prop wash. He says, "there pull it in! Whoops, a little too far!" and sticks his left arm out to fine tune the course.

You know its a small plane when your arms double as control surfaces

The F-14 is LOUD..........when it goes by you close to the deck & then goes vertical until it's out of sight, the ground just shakes.

Makes shivers run up my spine.

MM

Anything with an afterburner is loud. When you're converting fuel to noise at a rate of gallons per second, it creates a fuss.

Nothing like rockets, though. They burn fuel at a rate of tons per second. Really.

Yep, but the F-14 is noticeably louder than an F-18, at least to my ears.

MM

It's a shame the F-14 wasn't updated vs going to the F-18.

Great shot with a telephoto lens!

Hard to see from the pics if the burners are selected. In the video (2nd) they clearly are not. When they go to burner, the "feathers" in the aft end spread open like your pupil does. BTW, the loudest of the all was Pug's jet, the Prowler. Mine just sounded like a vacuum cleaner

Discussion dating back 10 years . . .

Q: "Please don't flame me for the title, but I am wondering a lot, why is everybody crying about the retirement of the Tomcat?

"What made it that special? Was it the radar, was it because it was agile, was it the thrust to weight ratio? What could a Tomcat do what a F-18 cannot (except of the Phoenix, of course)?

"I only ask, because when I look on Wikipedia (not alway reliable, I know), it gives me the following data:

"Max thrust 2*120kn with F110-GE400 engines. Typical take - off weight around minimum 27000kgs. That is a thrust-to-weight ratio which is good, but not too special either.

"So, what made the Tomcat really so legendary? Or is the hype somewhat exaggerated?

Michael"


A: "The high speed long range intercept capability of the Tomcat was it's shinning feature. The development of guided missile escorts for the carrier arguably put the Tomcat out of business. Of course, it was a lot easier to put a pair of Tomcats and a Hawkeye a hundred miles or so out in front of the carrier group than it would be for a guided missile ship... but the ship guys won the argument and the role of the high speed fleet defense interceptor was eliminated. After all, a guided missile ship could do everything a Tomcat could, at only a modest increase of 35x the price and with 150x the crew... That is, everything except for high speed recon, tarcap, escort, or strike.

"The D model upgrades helped with the engine problems, increased the T/W ratio and improved it's sustained turn performance.. but that program was on time and under budget so it had to go. Wink The Tomcat gained a very bad reputation with the A models, and especially the early engines. A reputation that it never recovered from."
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A: "It was incredible when it first came out. It's capabilities made fleet defence possible at the longest ranges ever, and it's ability to fly farther and faster was eye-popping.

"In it's second life as a Bombcat it was the fastest and longest ranged precision attack airplane in the fleet.

"Hornet could not fly as fast, as far, with as much payload, or perform layered fleet defence interceptor missions.

"If the USN had completed a long range missile replacement for Phoenix then I'd bitch less......but it hasn't in a very shortsighted move. Sort of like the Air Farce neglecting EMP shielding in much of it's COTS procurement's.

"Someone decided we didn't need to do that anymore."
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A: "The Tomcat was a beautiful aircraft in the 70's and 80's. The hours and dollars required to maintain it subjected it to political pressures it could not as a program sustain in the 90's, and as such, comparing it (or rather the F-14D) to the F/A-18E/F became a losing political argument when the primary proponent (Northrop Grumman; Connecticut/New England) could not command the political pressure/blackmail it's opponent could (Boeing; Washington/Missouri/California).

"It really always was a maintenance headache, but that's not why it has passed away. If you research the TF-35 you will probably marvel that the type was ever mythologized."

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A: "The F-14 was the last true fighter for the Navy, the F-18E/F while an excellent aircraft is a multi role aircraft. There's a belief that if you want a great fighter build a pure fighter, by incorporating so many missions into the FA-18/EF (Fighter, Ground Attack, re-fueler, electronic warfare) that it will be a jack of all trades but a master to none.

"In today's environment I think the F-18E/F replacement of the F-14 while painful was the right decision, as is replacing the EA-6B with the F-18G. I have more concerns about the retirement of the S-3s. There's much greater threat to Carrier battle groups and to the Carriers specifically from the proliferation of modern diesel/ electric subs than from long range bombers/ attack aircraft."
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A: "It was the greatest interceptor when you look at how much of a multi-role fighter it was.

"It had such a large flight envelope due to its swing wing - when slow it still provided lots of lift and was agile. When fast it did so quite efficiently and once again with high levels of agility. A non swing-wing aircraft is merely a compromise.

"Looks-wise it was a sexy beast, was large, tough and looked mean.

"It had the best systems with its advanced multi-independent-target, fire and forget systems teamed up with the Phoenix missile. There was simply nothing that could match the Tomcat for long-range interception.

"It could carry such a large load and had an excellent patrol radius especially CAP time.

"The only 2 things letting the Tomcat down were its engines and high maintenance costs.

"When the F-14D came out with the type of engines the Tomcat was supposed to have all along, the real Tomcat came out to play... it pretty much improved performance in just about all aspects by about 25% (range, power, fuel consumption, reliability, etc)... pilots didn't have to be careful anymore with how they handled the engines especially in high-G maneuvers.

"Whilst the F-15 is an incredible aircraft and has a higher thrust-weight ratio, I'd be willing to bet that an F-14 could easily hold its own in the majority of circumstances and come out on top in many others if they were to fly head-head. In some ways the F-14 was more of a precursor to the F-22 than the F-15 is... ie the fire from long range with computer systems.

"Whilst the F-14s days were definitely numbered, if the Navy/DoD had invested in them properly from the start with the right engines and midlife upgrades of avionics etc then the F-14 would probably still be flying until about 2010."

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[video:youtube]DOogqsbxfJo[/video]

Meh...

Watched test pilot Neil Anderson do a corkscrew climb out in a 90° bank with a F-16 in full afterburn staying inside the confine of the air base fence. Now THAT was IMPRESSIVE!

F-14 would rank 3rd/4th on my all-time hit parade.

The Navy had a plan in place to continue building the D and it's follow-on, the Tomcat 2000. That along with the A-6F, but they got sold a ill of goods and put all their eggs in one basket in the A-12 and when it blew up, it was too late to restart. Now we are doomed with the F/A 18 airframe family,basically an F-14D with less capabilities

Bill Gates could buy a fleet of those jets, but no amount of money would ever get him in the pilot's seat.

Jorge, I seem to remember the tail feathers on the tomcat closing down when they went to full burner?

High speed flybys were always a treat. Live ordinance airshows make the precision flying shows of the Blue Angels etc. somewhat less impressive. A 2000lb bomb at 2 miles toss delivered by an A-6 leaves a lasting impression.