Remember "Top Gun"? The F-14 is Retired..

Linkity Link

I can't even believe it. My dad was in Vietnam, when *the* plane was the F-4 Phantom. Top Gun was the first R-rated movie I saw, and the first DVD I purchased. Lot of good planes out there, now, though..

The F-14 is big, heavy, and expensive, but quite a machine.

Some of you may remember when Mohamar Qadaffi sent two of his Sukhoi jets (Su-20s) out into the Mediterranean to tangle with the U.S. fleet, maybe 20 years ago. I was working on the F-16 at the time, and we got 'news' that never made the News. The two F-14s flying MiG CAP had the Su-20s on their radar and designated as they were taxiing! As soon as they took off and made agressive moves toward the fleet, they were warned, then splashed. All this was done from over 125 miles away!

Great airplane!

...take my breath away...

So what're they replacing them with now? The F/A-18 gets a lot of use but it doesn't strike me as an air superiority fighter. And it's old, too. Is the Super Hornet up to the task?

Super Hornet seems to be the big replacement right now, from what I know of the current carrier fleet. I thought at some point I read that the F22 Raptor was at least prototyped to use landing hooks for carrier service, but I don't know about that for sure..

Another legend that leaves us. My age starts to show ... :green:

http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=32651
.

The F22 seems to be getting a lot of attention... but if I was a multi zillionaire, I'd want an F18 in my garage... er...hanger.

I don't know about that incident magic, but I remember when we bombed Lybia. I was at work with my mom and the owner of her company had just returned from Algiers and since I was a coin collector, he gave me some Algerian coins that very morning. I remember that distinctly.

Aaahhh The F14, imortalized in Top Gun (too bad TC has turned into a nut), and built right here on Long Island.
All good things must end.

I wonder how long it will take for the first ones to show up on ebay...


Naaaahhhh.... that would be one purchase I could never justify to my girlfriend...

The F-14 tomcat was a great plane. I used to work with the son of the Grumman engineer that designed the swing wing.

I saw a tomcat and another Grumman plane, the WW2 tigercat, at an airshow pull a stunt that had everyone in the audience sh@tting their pants and then standing with their mouths open staring in amazement at what they were witnessing.

The WW2 propeller driven tigercat had two monstrous 2100 HP engines and the tomcat with wings extended could and did fly with it, just a few feet apart. Those were two expert pilots we were watching.

It's sad that Grumman is no more, and no more "cats".

F-14 was (still is) an incredible carrier based air superiority fighter. I was an engineering co-op student in the mid 80's and worked on the F/A-18 and all the engineers I worked with at McDonnell Douglas had great respect for the abilities of that aircraft. An era is ending.

I remember seeing the F-14 at the Dayton airshow some years back (they were still allowed to break the sound barrier, if that tells you anything). They had one come by at just a hair over stall speed, wings extended, in as tight a turn as possible, while another came by overtop that one in a high-speed pass, wings swept. It was sooooooo sweet..

F-14 was wonderful bleeding edge design in it's day, not just the swing wing but the radar and the Pheonix missile only it flew with. I loved the movie Final Countdown for the F-14's (and Katherine Ross). The part where the F-14 folds its wings before making its attack is just beautiful, like a true raptor..

I think nowadays, there is perceived to be little need for an air superiority fighter and lots of need for precision ground attack aircraft, hence the Super Hornet.

Fascinating planes with a lot of history, especially seeing them at the Salinas and Moffett Field airshow.

cratz2 said:

The F22 seems to be getting a lot of attention... but if I was a multi zillionaire, I'd want an F18 in my garage... er...hanger.

I don't know about that incident magic, but I remember when we bombed Lybia. I was at work with my mom and the owner of her company had just returned from Algiers and since I was a coin collector, he gave me some Algerian coins that very morning. I remember that distinctly.

Click to expand...

Another well executed mission.

That one used F-111s out of England. France would not allow them to fly over, so they had to fly out over the Atlantic, adding several hours to the flight.

F-111s were the first airplane to use automatic terrain following radar (TFR) and were magnificent airplanes. Also, the F-111 was the first swing-wing airplane, and many of the F-14 features were originated on this airplane. I got to sit in one when I worked at General Dynamics.

As I recall, it was a long-range, multi-mission capable figthter. Definitely an asset when in comes to air-superiority and "full-spectrum" dominance.

As I understand it, the newer F-22 seems with advance avionics is able to indentify, target and lock-on on faster. They say seconds are critical "up there".

As an Air Force vet, I "could" say "bout' time" - but it would be furthest from the truth! Sure "interservice rivalry" is fun...but the Tomcat was (and still is) a very respected piece of hardware!!

I started out in 1975 (oh here goes the story about being born in the woods in a little log cabin in thigh deep snow...not!)...working on F4E Phantom IIs. After 21 years of working on various aircraft, culminating with the F15E Strike Eagle...it's sad anytime when one sees an aircraft retired and mothballed. (Oh don't you forget - they can be brought back into service if need be - if they aren't used as target drones like many retired aircraft are!)

It really is like seeing a bit of your life slip away!

Sigman, is it true that the old F4 still has the Time to Climb record?? I mean, barring anything that *we* don't know about, of course..

Yep, the F-14's were my favorites when I serving onboard the USS Forrestal. Just a great looking plane from all angles! It just "looks" like a fighter plane! From the back those huge engines were a sight to see!

They were still used for air-to-air back in late 80's (we had F-18 Hornets, but they were not the "super" hornets) But they I believe in the later years they were used mainly for air-to-ground because they could carry so much (it really is a HUGE plane).

The successor to both the F-18 and F-14 will be the F-35C Joint Strike fighter. http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/jsf/
I have been reading up on the F-35 recently. This will be a huge change for all services...