There is a documentary on TUBI. Very interesting interviews with pilots and good footage. The D model must have been something. To me the tomcat is the sexiest jet of that era.

There was a 96 years old retired navy pilot who actually flew all 5 “cats” during his long career.

Another interview was with a top gun student who was actually in the first movie, the black guy. He also had a role in the second movie.

And yes, I just watched Maverick for the first time on Wednesday.

Thanks. I'll have to look for it.

Correct me if I'm wrong....

IIRC, when they built prototypes of the aircraft, that did the trials to decide which aircraft to buy, the F-14 was superior to the F-15 in many ways. Not enough for the Air Force to choose F-14 over the F-15, but enough that the Navy took the F-14 instead.

They were developed back in the day when companies took specs from the services and built what they believed were the best aircraft that met those specs. Then they had trials and the services chose which aircraft they wanted to go with.

Both turned out to be exceptional aircraft.

Here is a good video about the F-14 design evolution.

Everything about the aircraft was designed around being able to carry the AWG 9 radar and Phoenix missile off the boat. The thought being if the Russkies were ever going to attack, it would be in waves of bombers carrying antiship missiles. So engagement of that threat needed to start at long range, hopefully before they reached their launch points so you would be targeting the bombers and not a swarm of cruise missiles.

The Phoenix missile weighed 1000 lbs and the rail to carry it was 1000 lbs as well. Having the swing wing lowered landing speed making it safer to bring aboard the ship and also allowing more “bring back” or the weight of ordnance you could land with.

There was also the understanding that the TF-30 engine would be upgraded in the not too distant future. That didn’t happen until the A+ and D versions came around. That turned the aircraft into a completely different animal.

I only flew the A model and if you understood the limitations of the “Pratt and [bleep]” TF-30 😁 engine you could get along just fine. I never felt as comfortable performing the “mach run” for a maintenance check flight in a Tomcat as I did in the F-4. With the Tomcat’s non-centerline thrust, if you had a burner blowout in the higher speed regimes the asymmetric thrust would generate so much yaw, the jet would come apart. A compressor stall in hard maneuvering at low speeds and high angles of attack could generate a yaw rate of 150 degrees per second in less than two seconds. (Think flat spin and “Goose” in the original Top Gun).

When I transitioned to the F-14 it took a little while to get used to something that big being able to maneuver like it did. But…it’s a mighty big jet and if start turning and burning in a multi-bogey fight, when those wings come out you’re like a huge barn door flying around making you a target for everyone to see. You would soon be the center of the fight.

I’ll check it out. I did my last cruises on the JFK CV-67 in 1997. We had F-14Ds on board…..VF-41 black aces I believe.

Just from seeing the pilots and talking to them you could tell the F-14 men were a cut above the F-18 fly by wire boyz.

Those tomcats always reminded me of a red wasp. Bad ass

Thank you for that info.....and for your service sir..

Any carrier jock gets my undying respect.

The carrier based naval aviator does everything an Air Force pilot does and then comes back to a moving postage stamp to land on. I really can’t imagine what landing on a pitching deck at night is like ! Cast iron balls !

They don’t land. It is a controlled crash - lol.

I know when a C2 Cod delivers you to the boat you should probably wear a mouthpiece. The first time for me I thought we were goners. Violent metal on metal sounds…

This is an excellent description by navlav8r of the (original) core mission of the Tomcat, though towards the end of its service they were fitted up with laser targeting pods allowing them to deliver PGMs and did so successfully in combat.
But to my knowledge there was never a combat kill with the Phoenix - perhaps navlav8r can correct this if I'm wrong. That's not to say it wouldn't have probably worked, the situation just never came up that it was built for. To my knowledge, there may never have been a combat launch of a Phoenix.
I flew the F-16 for 29 years for Uncle Sam and several years after retirement in the "commercial defense services sector." Ended up #4 in the world all-time Viper hours. I flew at least a hundred sorties against Tomcats over my career and never had a valid kill claimed against me by an F-14, regardless of the scenario size or complexity. But I fought them in "my world" over land, in "all altitude fights," mostly at Nellis where I spent 7 of my 30 USAF years. The F-15, by contrast (to address an earlier post) was a far superior adversary and there is a good reason for their phenomenal combat record.
Again, no disrespect to the Tomcat, it was a jet that never got to do what it was really designed for, and actually did pretty good at the end of its service in a role that was never originally envisioned.

Cheers,
Rex

I get nervous pulling into my junked up garage at night too fast. I can't imagine landing on a 4x8 sheet of plywood floating in the ocean in the dark. Hats off to you guys in the planes and on the decks.

TRex, believe me, everybody wanted to be the one to get the first kill with the “Pheeny bomb”. 😁 The situation where it would shine just never presented itself. That would be a situation where there was little, if any, chance of “blue on blue.” The missile had some really good modes; track while scan would get the missile to a point near the bogey and then it would go active with its own radar. In the ACM mode, it came off the rail in an active mode with its own radar going for the first target it saw, sorta like a huge sidewinder.

Many of us felt like firing one in ACM mode might be the best use of it as you approached the merge. “Here you go buddy….fight my 1000 lb wingman!“ because it made a huge smoke trail that couldn’t be ignored and I think it had a 130 lb warhead. Look at some of the You Tube videos. There’s one that shows six Phoenix contrails, fired one right after another put to the tune of “Bad Company”.

Off the boat we normally carried a Phoenix, two sparrows and two ‘winders and a full gun on every flight. On the Libyan strike (Eldorado Canyon) we wanted to carry one Phoenix but the higher-ups nixed that so we went to 4 Sparrows and 4 Winders plus a fully loaded M61.

The F-14 community was fully committed to the A-A role and actively fought the A-G mission. When the engineers figured out how to guarantee separation from the aircraft and eliminate bomb-bomb collisions in the tunnel between the engine nacelles, the Bombcat came to be. It had some really good capabilities with targeting, accuracy, etc.

One of the most awe inspiring things in life that you will ever experience is to be standing at an air show, see an F14 come by on a flat pass at around 2-300 feet & then blast into a vertical climb.
Absolutely astounding, no idea h ow it is for the Cree.

MM

You were on Eldorado Canyon? That's awesome! I had several friends flying F-15E's at Nellis that had been in the F-111 on that strike, then transitioned to the "Mud Eagle" and came to Nellis to help with the initial tactics development for the F-15E.

Good on ya,
"T. Rex"

Yes, I was on the mission that night flying CAP just off the coast of Benghazi. I was Ops Officer for my squadron, VF-33, and to say the least, it was an interesting 24 hours with days of planning and prep leading up to it. I think we got the word that it was a “go” at around 1500 and heard that the Aardvarks had launched a few hours later.

Brief was at 2100 starting with a couple of Air Force Lt. Cols. who were our liaison with the Lakenheath F-111s. As normal for the Air Force, they started the Airwing brief with a time hack to synchronize our time and that of the F-111’s. Although us Navy fighter guys usually got a chuckle out of the “time hack” routinely given before Air Force exercises, there were no chuckles that night. It was a very businesslike and somber mood.

The whole ship was aware of what was going on that night and our plane captains were over the moon when we landed. I had been awake since the early hours and I think we landed around 0300 or 0400 the next day. I know It took a couple of hours before the adrenaline wore off and allowed me to get a few hours of sleep.

On our CAP station we monitored the frequency of the E-2 and all the Aardvarks reporting “feet wet”meaning they had cleared the beach on their egress. It was pretty sobering to hear the E-2 repeatedly trying to contact the F-111 of Capts Lorence and Dominicci after the strike. RIP

I don’t remember exactly how many days had elapsed but we had a USO tour put on a show in the hangar deck. Lee Greenwood was the featured act. That was the first time I had heard “Proud to be an American” and it really meant a lot to us.

I don't know what the facts are but read that the F-111's went in on their bombing runs at a set time between runs and that was why the last one was shot down. True?

You’ll have ask one of the Air Force guys about the 111 tactics. All we knew was the initial TOT (time on target) for them and our A-6s along with launch time of the Shrikes and HARMS so we weren’t in the way. Our Cap station was a few miles off of Benghazi, to the west of Tripoli and we could see the flashes of all the ordnance..

There are some different thoughts about the lost F-111. The first report we had was that they were hit by a missile from one of the Crotale missile sites. There’s some talk that it was a ZSU-23. The last I heard from a competent source was that it was thought that the crew got vertigo as they accelerated at low altitude, from over lighted land to pitch black over the water.

It’s caused by the otolith organ in the inner ear. With rapid acceleration you get sensation that the nose of the a/c is going up or you’re climbing too steeply. This causes a reflexive push on the stick trying to lower the nose. All the bombers were egressing below 1000’. At any speed approaching supersonic at low altitude, there is essentially zero time to react even if you recognize it. Sometimes we Navy guys experience it off the CAT on a dark night with no horizon.

I've read the Iranians used the Phoenix against the Iraqis but cannot confirm it. I also read they would light off the AWG and the Iraqis would turn tail ASAP. Again I can't confirm this is true.

Neat thread. I had trouble identifying a f-15 from a f-14 until I realized a F-14 looks like a F-15 that tried to land on a carrier.

Thank you aviators for your service.

Great thread.

When your junior in high school and the movie came out, it left an impression. And the Ninja😆.

That aircraft had class and was just sexy/racy.

A salute to all you guys that flew it. Lucky bastards.