VF-114 F-14As in Operation Praying Mantis

[Specter1075]

Hello all.

I hope you'll indulge me a second research thread. I think I spend more time reading and researching than I do building...

I am looking into building a F-14A in 1:48 from VF-114 Aardvarks during Operation Praying Mantis (April 1988). I have Furball Aero's Color and Markings Part 11, and it has two birds from the Enterprise from 1988. I like the look of the darker (FS36320 and FS35237)/low vis Tomcats, and the set shows 159864 in such a scheme. The problem is that I cannot find any corresponding photos of this aircraft. I bought a Kindle copy of the relevant Detail and Scale book to see what it has, and while it shows the aircraft, I do not think it says the year in question.

 

I found, in various places, other aircraft from the squadron around this time, and they show the lighter all-over FS36375 scheme. Would the squadron aircraft all match? Or would aircraft get repainted as maintenance was done so that some are painted differently? I read somewhere that the two-tone darker paint-job started to become standard in the mid-80s, and yet photographs show the lighter style still in use in April 1988. Furball's set has 159608 in the lighter scheme from 1988, but its a high vis squadron lead aircraft that I would prefer to not use, but will if that is my only choice.

If anyone can provide some direction, I'd really appreciate it!

 

Thank you!

[Specter1075]

Ok, let's give this a nudge with an additional question.

 

Were AIM-54s still loaded in 1988? I know they were not carried during the Gulf of Sidra incidents, so would it be the same in the Persian Gulf a couple years later?

 

One thing that makes me wonder is that the carrier group was kept out in the Arabian Sea during this time, and the CAP missions flown by the Tomcats would be a long ways away. I'm pretty sure I read that the northern most surface action groups didn't even have that cover from above. So would the long ranges maybe necessitate the loading of Phoenix missiles to add that bit more of reach?

[GW8345]

On 6/5/2022 at 8:59 PM, Specter1075 said:

Hello all.

I hope you'll indulge me a second research thread. I think I spend more time reading and researching than I do building...

I am looking into building a F-14A in 1:48 from VF-114 Aardvarks during Operation Praying Mantis (April 1988). I have Furball Aero's Color and Markings Part 11, and it has two birds from the Enterprise from 1988. I like the look of the darker (FS36320 and FS35237)/low vis Tomcats, and the set shows 159864 in such a scheme. The problem is that I cannot find any corresponding photos of this aircraft. I bought a Kindle copy of the relevant Detail and Scale book to see what it has, and while it shows the aircraft, I do not think it says the year in question.

 

I found, in various places, other aircraft from the squadron around this time, and they show the lighter all-over FS36375 scheme. Would the squadron aircraft all match? Or would aircraft get repainted as maintenance was done so that some are painted differently? I read somewhere that the two-tone darker paint-job started to become standard in the mid-80s, and yet photographs show the lighter style still in use in April 1988. Furball's set has 159608 in the lighter scheme from 1988, but its a high vis squadron lead aircraft that I would prefer to not use, but will if that is my only choice.

If anyone can provide some direction, I'd really appreciate it!

 

Thank you!

Specter,

 

To answer your question, no, not all aircraft base paint scheme in a squadron would match. Aircraft are transferred from squadron to squadron and only the squadron markings get repainted, it was illegal (and still is) to paint the entire aircraft at the squadron level without Wing approval (reason is that the aircraft had to get re-weighed when the whole aircraft got painted).

 

Also, for the time frame you are doing the Tomcat community had a mix of paint schemes, it was a period of transition per say, the over all gull grey and over all 36375 was being phased out and the two tone TPS was being introduced so there was a lot of variations on the flight line. I was in VF-101 at the time and we had all three schemes within the squadron (of 52 aircraft).

 

I would trust Furball's research 100%, Jeff does not put stuff on his decal sheets unless he has photographic documentation to back it up. And, if someone says it's wrong, it's up to them to prove, remember, you don't have to prove you're right, they have to prove your wrong and let them spin their wheels doing that.

 

HTH

GW

[GW8345]

11 hours ago, Specter1075 said:

Ok, let's give this a nudge with an additional question.

 

Were AIM-54s still loaded in 1988? I know they were not carried during the Gulf of Sidra incidents, so would it be the same in the Persian Gulf a couple years later?

 

One thing that makes me wonder is that the carrier group was kept out in the Arabian Sea during this time, and the CAP missions flown by the Tomcats would be a long ways away. I'm pretty sure I read that the northern most surface action groups didn't even have that cover from above. So would the long ranges maybe necessitate the loading of Phoenix missiles to add that bit more of reach?

Yes, Phoenix's were still being loaded in 88 though the west coast squadrons didn't load them as much. My understanding is that for the west coast squadrons they were mostly going with 4x4x0 (AIM-7xAIM-9xAIM-54) along with tanks (most of the time).

 

With that said, loading Phoenix's would be dictated by the ATO (Air Tasking Order) but going by how the east coast squadrons did it I would say yes, they would be loaded with Phoenix's (probably 2x2x2). East coast squadrons were use to doing the long range stuff since most of the time we were intercepting Russian Bear's and May's, the west coast guys were use to dealing with China, N. Korea and Iran which didn't really do the long range stuff so they most flew with just Sparrow's and Winders (but they did do Phoenix's from time to time, again, depends on what the ATO called for).

 

Either way you load it you won't be wrong, hell, we had half our birds in the squadron configured with 2x2x2 and the other half configured with 4x4x0 at the same time (which was a huge PITA every night since we had to play "de-configure/reconfigure" every night).

 

Two things about carrying Phoenix was (1) the ROE, could the aircrew engage without visually ID'ing the target, is some cases we had to have visually ID of the target before we could engage so once you visually ID'ed the target you were within Sparrow range. The second was, each Phoenix added about 1,600 lbs of weight were as a Sparrow only added 500 lbs which means if the plane went out 4x4x0 it had more gas to land when it came across the ramp, something very important when you are doing Blue Water Ops (which the west coast squadrons did a lot in their AOR).

 

hth

GW

[Specter1075]

 

On 6/19/2022 at 10:00 AM, GW8345 said:

 

GW, thank you for two great answers!!

For the color schemes, I have only ever heard great things about the Furball stuff, and I certainly wouldn't want to try to call them out on anything. What confused me was that the darker scheme on the Furball VF-114 sheet was marked 1988, but when looking at the Detail and Scale book, that specific aircraft was cited as being photographed in 1985. I wouldn't think that an aircraft would revert back to an all light grey scheme after making the changer to the darker two-tone grey, but I wasn't sure since every shot of the Enterprise I could find from the time of Praying Mantis shows only light colored Tomcats. I am put at ease to know that a mix of aircraft colorations was a normal thing.

 

As for loadouts, the ROE was something I had forgot to fully consider. While the CAPs would have been happening far from the ship, from what I've read, the rules during the Ernest Will/Nimble Archer/Praying Mantis were visual ID unless fired upon. So the -54s would likely be somewhat useless. I may put them on anyway, but you make a compelling argument for 4x4x0.

Thank you again!!