F-14 Tomcat

[sean miguel]

By far my favorite bird. The U.S. Navy's fleet defender. It's original purpose was to defend U.S. carrier battle groups from swarms of Soviet Bear bombers using it's long range and mutiple-targeting Phoenix air-to-air missile system.


Behold this beauty of naval aviation:





boom, clap

and forget Top Gun, this was it's finest role in the movies:

 

[Prod3]

The bird flown by Maverick & Goose. Nice jet!...I prefer the F-16 though, they're much more maneuverable

 

[Jack Davenport]

The F-14 was retired way too soon.

It was a bad ride.

 

[Rey C.]

The F-4 Phantom remains my favorite jet fighter (the P-38 Lightning and F4U Corsair are my favorite prop fighters). I remember watching Phantoms doing training exercises over the mountains where I grew up. Me and my little pals would then go into the woods and hunt Viet Cong (squirrels) with our [NOBABE]BB guns[/NOBABE]. Yeah, good times.

 

[ChuckFaze]

and forget Top Gun, this was it's finest role in the movies:

:rofl: Yeah, but it was being a bully there in The Final Countdown. :rofl2: In Top Gun it was having to deal with much better competition ... even if it was pretend MIGs. And even in the daily training sessions, weren't the opposition jets of Viper and Jester also pretend something or other jets?

Great 1st pic there. Looks very menacing in silhouette with the sun in the back. :coolthumb:

 

[sean miguel]

:rofl: Yeah, but it was being a bully there in The Final Countdown. :rofl2: In Top Gun it was having to deal with much better competition

even against it's contemporaries, the Tomcat would've been the bully (see Gulf of Sidra).

... even if it was pretend MIGs. And even in the daily training sessions, weren't the opposition jets of Viper and Jester also pretend something or other jets?

Yeah, the mysterious "new" MIG in Top Gun looked an awful lot like an F-5 Tigershark.

Great 1st pic there. Looks very menacing in silhouette with the sun in the back. :coolthumb:

love that pic.

 

[Jack Davenport]

I like the artwork of the low altitude jet wash rooster tails.

 

[ChuckFaze]

The sole foreign customer for the Tomcat was the Imperial Iranian Air Force, during the reign of the last Shah (King) of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In the early 1970s, the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) was searching for an advanced fighter, specifically one capable of intercepting Soviet MiG-25 reconnaissance flights. After a visit of U.S. President Richard Nixon to Iran in 1972, during which Iran was offered the latest in American military technology, the IIAF narrowed its choice between the F-14 Tomcat or the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. Grumman Corporation arranged a competitive demonstration of the Eagle against the Tomcat before the Shah, and in January 1974, Iran ordered 30 F-14s and 424 AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, initiating Project Persian King, worth US$300 million. A few months later, this order was increased to a total of 80 Tomcats and 714 Phoenix missiles ...

I read that on Wikipedia. I would have liked to have seen that "arranged competitive demonstration." I'm curious as to why Iran chose the Tomcat over the Eagle considering that the Eagle is faster, climbs faster, has a higher ceiling, with a 1.07:1 Thrust to Weight Ratio can accelerate vertically ... and being lighter, I'm guessing it is probably more maneuverable. Who knows. Maybe something in the armament configurations options clicked more with what the Iranians were looking for. :dunno:

 

[sean miguel]

I read that on Wikipedia. I would have liked to have seen that "arranged competitive demonstration." I'm curious as to why Iran chose the Tomcat over the Eagle considering that the Eagle is faster, climbs faster, has a higher ceiling, with a 1.07:1 Thrust to Weight Ratio can accelerate vertically ... and being lighter, I'm guessing it is probably more maneuverable. Who knows. Maybe something in the armament configurations options clicked more with what the Iranians were looking for. :dunno:

It was the AIM-54 Phoenix missile. If the A-10 Warthog was a plane built around a gun, the F-14 Tomcat was a plane designed as a platform for the AIM-54.

The F-15 Eagle was the pinnacle of air superiority fighters at the time.

 

[sean miguel]

I much more love the CF-18 Hornet.

but it's Canadian.

 

[fred_mirc]

I much more love the CF-18 Hornet.

 

[fred_mirc]

yes for this version... CF-188