F-14 - Why is it so popular?

[habu2]

No matter how a variety of museums or publications describe it, the F-14 was a weapons platform combining the AWG-9 and AIM-54 for the sole purpose of fleet air defense.  Of course shooting down Tu-95s BVR doesn't sell many movie tickets, hence Hollywood's emphasis on the air superiority role.

 

And what part of "Bomb-cat" spells air superiority?  The 'Cat wore many hats during its career, but the genesis of the program was fleet air defense.

 

Don't forget Grumman was teamed with General Dynamics on the F-111B.  Grumman knew the B was a pig, and internally developed their Model 303, using the same AWG-9 radar, same AIM-54 missile, same TF30 engines, and same swing-wing design.  Grumman learned from the design requirements forced upon them by McNamara and produced an aircraft far superior to the F-111B.

[habu2]

9 hours ago, GW8345 said:

As for the maintenance record, don't believe everything you read/hear about it, I worked on the bird for 14 years, the maintenance record was overblown in order to justify the super Hornet.

 

How did the MHFH for the Tomcat compare with the Phantom?

[Darren Roberts]

40 minutes ago, habu2 said:

No matter how a variety of museums or publications describe it, the F-14 was a weapons platform combining the AWG-9 and AIM-54 for the sole purpose of fleet air defense.  Of course shooting down Tu-95s BVR doesn't sell many movie tickets, hence Hollywood's emphasis on the air superiority role.

 

And what part of "Bomb-cat" spells air superiority?  The 'Cat wore many hats during its career, but the genesis of the program was fleet air defense.

 

Don't forget Grumman was teamed with General Dynamics on the F-111B.  Grumman knew the B was a pig, and internally developed their Model 303, using the same AWG-9 radar, same AIM-54 missile, same TF30 engines, and same swing-wing design.  Grumman learned from the design requirements forced upon them by McNamara and produced an aircraft far superior to the F-111B.

I think you said it more effectively than I did. 

[Joe Hegedus]

6 hours ago, Aigore said:

It simply looks so good from every angle :D 

Yeah, especially in the gunsight of the best jet ever built, the Douglas A-4!

[southwestforests]

2 hours ago, habu2 said:

No matter how a variety of museums or publications describe it, the F-14 was a weapons platform combining the AWG-9 and AIM-54 for the sole purpose of fleet air defense.  Of course shooting down Tu-95s BVR doesn't sell many movie tickets, hence Hollywood's emphasis on the air superiority role.

 

And what part of "Bomb-cat" spells air superiority?  The 'Cat wore many hats during its career, but the genesis of the program was fleet air defense.

 

I'm still correct about F-14 being an air superiority fighter. If a May 1973 document sponsored by the Navy says outright that F-14 is an air superiority fighter then the F-14 is an air superiority fighter. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/910249.pdf
 

Quote

 

This report compares the F-14 with its predecessor, the F-4, and draws lessons which would guide the Navy in its future air superiority and fleet air defense fighter
design and procurement.

...
Indeed, the F-14 was designed as the successor to the F-4, to provide fleet air defense and general air superior-ity capability.
...
The F-4 and the F-14 are both air superiority fighter aircraft, originally intended to perform in the fleet air defense role.

 

 

[Sabre Freak]

2 hours ago, habu2 said:

No matter how a variety of museums or publications describe it, the F-14 was a weapons platform combining the AWG-9 and AIM-54 for the sole purpose of fleet air defense.  Of course shooting down Tu-95s BVR doesn't sell many movie tickets, hence Hollywood's emphasis on the air superiority role.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Darren Roberts said:

I think you said it more effectively than I did. 

 

Except he didn't say it very effectively Darren.  Habu2, yes they added the AWG-9 and AIM-54 for the sole purpose of fleet air defence.  They added the wings for the sole purpose of lift and the engines for the sole purpose of thrust.  Point is, the added alot of stuff so it could fly and fight.  The M-61 and those little rail thingy's for the AIM-9s?  Yup, THAT made it an air superiority fighter!

Edited August 1, 2017 by Sabre Freak

[Sabre Freak]

10 minutes ago, southwestforests said:

I'm still correct about F-14 being an air superiority fighter. If a May 1973 document sponsored by the Navy says outright that F-14 is an air superiority fighter then the F-14 is an air superiority fighter. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/910249.pdf
 

 

Agreed.  M-61 and AIM-9s?  Air Superiority!

[southwestforests]

Was telling my brother, a recently retired W-4 Intel analyst about this conversation and he had this to say last night, "one must keep the definition of air superiority as it was when the fighter was designed and built.  Can't use modern definitions on a thing that old "
 

[habu2]

1 hour ago, southwestforests said:

I'm still correct about F-14 being an air superiority fighter. 

 

 

Well, that's what's really important - you being correct...

 

 

 

[Rex]

omg Joe,,,,,,,I have been trying not to say that for 3 pages, lol.

 

It is really too bad that TopGun didn't have the Skyhawks and pilots come from the VA community,,,,,,imagine all of those little F-14 shaped "kill marks" on VMA-214 A-4Ms and such, all over the fleet.

 

It wouldn't have worked though,,,,that "fighter jock" stuff would have ruined too many ground attack pilots.

[Darren Roberts]

11 hours ago, Joe Hegedus said:

Yeah, especially in the gunsight of the best jet ever built, the Douglas A-4!

in the hands of the right pilot, there would be a lot of various "superior" aircraft in the A-4's gunsight. 

[Darren Roberts]

9 hours ago, southwestforests said:

Was telling my brother, a recently retired W-4 Intel analyst about this conversation and he had this to say last night, "one must keep the definition of air superiority as it was when the fighter was designed and built.  Can't use modern definitions on a thing that old "
 

That's a very valid point. In a previous post, I mentioned semantics. Maybe that wasn't the correct term. Maybe it's the misuse of the modern definition of air superiority applied to an earlier time. Maybe it's connotation vs. denotation. By definition, yes, the F-14 was an air superiority aircraft because, well, it was designed as a fighter. But from a connotative standpoint, comparing it against the F-15 or F-22, the F-14 would be hard-pressed to match those aircraft in what most view "air superiority". There was also a comment about the F-14 carrying a gun and missiles. I don't think anyone would label the F-18 Hornet as an air superiority aircraft. Yet the F-18 has an M-61, AIM-9's and AIM-7's. So you can't go by ordnance/weapons to define air superiority. I guess I see it this way. If I'm in a strike package flying over enemy territory with the threat of enemy fighters, I would rather have an F-15 escort. If I need to take a formation of bombers coming over the pole, or that were headed for the carrier task group, I'd rather have the F-14. Each aircraft fills a different role of "air superiority". I would put forth that the F-15 is more offensive in nature, while the F-14 is more defensive in nature. Can they each do the opposite role? Absolutely. But that's not what they were originally designed to do. This is a great thread, BTW. 

[picknpluck]

All this talk of great fighter aircraft comparisons and the conspicuous omission of the Super Hornet...

 

I was pretty uninspired by the Super Bug too, until I saw the West Coast Tac Demo perform earlier this year. 

 

Then again, I'm a Phantom Phanatic, so...

Edited August 1, 2017 by picknpluck

[picknpluck]

Any aircraft that can go from this

 

To this

 

And look like a complete badass the whole time, well that's pretty....badass!

[Darren Roberts]

Pickinpluck for the win!

Edited August 1, 2017 by Darren Roberts

[Jonathan_Lotton]

18 hours ago, Camus272 said:

At an airshow a few years ago the guy next to me was saying the F-22 should be retired and replaced with the superior F-14. He wasn't just serious, he was cocky about it. Yeah, I'm sure the Navy feels the same- given the early retirement the F-14 got. 

The F-14 was retired after being in active fleet service for over 30 years. 

How is that early?

Just because some airframes lasted longer..some less so..doesn't make it "early". 

[silverkite211]

On ‎7‎/‎31‎/‎2017 at 6:41 AM, Darren Roberts said:

I guess it's semantics. I take air superiority fighter to mean it's able to mix it up in close quarters. The F-4 Phantom had some difficulty doing that. The F-15 was a true air superiority fighter. As much as it pains me to say it, the F-15 could probably take down the F-14 the majority of the time in a "dogfight" situation, depending on the drivers of both aircraft. With that said, the F-14 was considered an "air superiority fighter" because of it's ability to keep the skies around the carrier group clear of threats. It had a different mission from the F-15. 

Actually, during the AIMVAL/ACEVAL trials, F-15s and F-14s would engage in dogfights "off the record" while returning to base at the end of an exercise. During the exercise Tomcats were not allowed to use their entire suite of ECM, etc, however the pilots of both services agreed, during these "lets see what we can really do" engagements that all bets were off, that everything available to use was fair game. During those engagements the Tomcats consistently came out the victor. This was reported in either Wings or Airpower magazine, I can't recall which.

[Darren Roberts]

I had never read that before. That's very interesting!

[Slartibartfast]

17 hours ago, Joe Hegedus said:

Yeah, especially in the gunsight of the best jet ever built, the Douglas A-4!

Tweets eat A-4s for breakfast.

[11bee]

51 minutes ago, silverkite211 said:

Actually, during the AIMVAL/ACEVAL trials, F-15s and F-14s would engage in dogfights "off the record" while returning to base at the end of an exercise. During the exercise Tomcats were not allowed to use their entire suite of ECM, etc, however the pilots of both services agreed, during these "lets see what we can really do" engagements that all bets were off, that everything available to use was fair game. During those engagements the Tomcats consistently came out the victor. This was reported in either Wings or Airpower magazine, I can't recall which.

That means nothing unless you have specifics.   Were they dogfighting? Fighting BVR?   Neutral starting positions?   I'd take that with a big grain of salt.   By all accounts the Eagle was a much superior dog fighter, especially when up against the A-model Toms with their crappy engines.  

[Camus272]

6 hours ago, Jonathan_Lotton said:

The F-14 was retired after being in active fleet service for over 30 years. 

How is that early?

Just because some airframes lasted longer..some less so..doesn't make it "early". 

Because the original phase out was planned to be around 2013, but it was sped up to 2006.

[dnl42]

This

 

Plus, well, I worked at Grumman, so there might be some bias...

 

[gb_madcat_sl]

 

Mark

[CJ Martin]

On 7/31/2017 at 11:09 AM, GW8345 said:

As for the maintenance record, don't believe everything you read/hear about it, I worked on the bird for 14 years, the maintenance record was overblown in order to justify the super Hornet.

 

I worked on them too, both in the Fleet and at Pax. Post active duty, I worked for NAVAIR Reliability & Maintainability.

 

The Tomcats dismal maintenance number were very real. I saw them, saw the raw data. NAMP/3M data was used. Towards the end, Tomcat MMH/FH was in the mid-40s, spiking higher at times. Legacy Hornets were upper teens, Supers low teens. Do the math.

 

And I believed those numbers. As someone that also worked on Hornets, I was shocked how easy those plastic jets were to maintain. Need access to the radar package? Pull the whole damn thing out of the radome. LOL. Certainly the plastic jet was easier for an avionics tech to work on and troubleshoot. Didn't care for the whole prox box thing though. Shall we talk about engine swaps? Haha. While not completely fleet representative, a McAir crew did demonstrate a swap within 30 minutes! Let's talk about having an APU on board...no pushing A/C carts around, no crying for combat air on the ship just fire up the APU and run the radar (or whatever). Sure you could pull breakers on the Tomcat to get things to run, but push that trick a little too long and you'd burn up boxes. I saw the sun rise over the Oceana flight line more times than I'd like to admit chasing wiring issues.

 

First love will always be the Tomcat, but I'm not blinded by that love. The Cat was a cast iron bad girl to work on. It did teach you to be a good tech, but the learning curve was steep.

[11bee]

1 hour ago, CJ Martin said:

 

I worked on them too, both in the Fleet and at Pax. Post active duty, I worked for NAVAIR Reliability & Maintainability.

 

The Tomcats dismal maintenance number were very real. I saw them, saw the raw data. NAMP/3M data was used. Towards the end, Tomcat MMH/FH was in the mid-40s, spiking higher at times. Legacy Hornets were upper teens, Supers low teens. Do the math.

 

And I believed those numbers. As someone that also worked on Hornets, I was shocked how easy those plastic jets were to maintain. Need access to the radar package? Pull the whole damn thing out of the radome. LOL. Certainly the plastic jet was easier for an avionics tech to work on and troubleshoot. Didn't care for the whole prox box thing though. Shall we talk about engine swaps? Haha. While not completely fleet representative, a McAir crew did demonstrate a swap within 30 minutes! Let's talk about having an APU on board...no pushing A/C carts around, no crying for combat air on the ship just fire up the APU and run the radar (or whatever). Sure you could pull breakers on the Tomcat to get things to run, but push that trick a little too long and you'd burn up boxes. I saw the sun rise over the Oceana flight line more times than I'd like to admit chasing wiring issues.

 

First love will always be the Tomcat, but I'm not blinded by that love. The Cat was a cast iron bad girl to work on. It did teach you to be a good tech, but the learning curve was steep.

This is mandatory reading for fan boys.  Can't shoot down hordes of bad guys if you are stowed in the hangar deck due to maint issues.