F-14 Tomcat was a Dogfighting Dynamo.Here this plane makes so badass (2024)

August 1981 opened with a huge show of American powerIn the Mediterranean, just north of Libyen.to or America's Super Careers,USS Forrestaland the class names,USS Nimitz, had it been entered into what Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi illegally named the territorial waters of his country.

AmericancarriersThere would be opposition to this statement, and for several days fighters from both countries danced in an extension of diplomatic tensions in the air until two American warriors took on a fatal dog fight.

"The left side of Lead-Libyan aircraft illuminated with a large flame when the rocket engine was lit," said Lieutenant Larry "Music" Muczynski, one of the two F-14 Tomcat pilots.US Warriors All the driving force they needed to see what the newest Air Superior Fighter from the Navy could do.

"He shot an AIM-9L from Station 1a (left glove pyon, shoulder station)", Musicsaidfrom his colleague Airman's first shot. "

And so, the bomber Jæser, based on sea, carriers,F-14 tomcat, had scored its first Air-Air victory, an airplane built to defend the American carriers to attack aircraft in a huge worldwide conflict that never came.

A hunter built to chase bombers

America's fleet of airlines has long served as the best power projection in the country, but their pure size made them defend them a challenge.WWIIproved that planes at sea were a greater threat than enemy ships and Vietnam showedF-4 Phantom'sMissing when it came to dog fight.Navy also knew that if the Cold War were ever hot, a brutal wear war would be hired in heaven.

Navy needed an aircraft that could serve if the front line of an aviation group was closed with rapid incoming bombers and involves them from long enough distances to safely keep their carriers out of damage.

Originally hopedTFX Aircraft ProgramCould both the Navy and the Air Force give the aircraft they needed.But thanks to the testimony of the Navy Admiral Thomas "Tomcat" Connelly for the congress, the Navy was allowed to pursue its own plans for a transport -based hunter.

The fleetTopgunThe school was already working hard with wagging pilots with know -how and capacity to record itSoviet -Air ForceBut the branch needed an airplane that could combine the short start and landing capacity that is needed for a carrier-based hunter with the high top speed, wage capacity and maneuverability of an eavesdropping hunter.

A "heavy" hunter design proposed by Grumman Aerospace Corporation seemed to fit into the account.Just like TFX hunter, this new design would contain a radical variable geometry geometry-wrapped design that would enable the aircraft to maximize the lift in the beginning and to maximize it in the beginning and minimize the pull under high speed flight.

The concept was not entirely new.Messerschmitt P 1101Although that plane never flew.Become a member and work as the most important designer forBell Aircraft Corp.

During the start and low speed flight, the wings of the new Grumman F-14 would change the tips, expand their total surface and give the fighter plane a larger lift.Minimize the surface, making it a more efficient high-speed prosecution hunter and assigns a higher top speed and better fuel consumption than its fixed wing colleagues.

And when the navy said "high speed," they meant.F-35 Joint Strike FighterInF-22 Raptorembarrassed.

"[Navy] -specifications ask Mach 2.34,"saidCharlie Brown, member of the F-14 design team and the Grumman test pilot.Fly so fast, it's like sitting on a beach ball;You don't know which way it is going, it is so sensitive. "

Navy liked his new hunter so much that it chose to completely skip the prototype phase, which Jager brought into production in 1969 and delivered his first new F-14s in 1972.

The production took place until 1991, with a total of 712 F-14s.

Air superiority, no compromises

On a normal shy at 63 meters long and taunted on a 64-foot wing spacer, the F-14 Tomcat speeds can reach Mach 1 on the sea surface and Mach 2.34 in height thanks to two general electric F110-GE-400 Afterburnte Turfan Motor bike eachproducedMore than 28,000 pounds pushes with their post burners involved.In total, the F-14 was able to cover 1,600 miles without refueling, but was generally considered a combat area of 1,000 km.

The F-14 was a quick-er no doubt about it.Smart Wings .ny technology buried deep in the striking outside of the hunter, the F-14 made a truly formidable opponent.

From Radar Intercept Officer's Seat, located just behind the pilot, you could trace no fewer than 24 enemy flights from as far away as 195 miles with AWG-9 X-Band Pulse Dopler Radar, who just like one of the first microprocessors used to use thatEver finds his way to a fighter jet.The powerful built -in systems can even lead long -range missiles to six separate goals at the same time without losing the overview of the others.

"Tomcat/Aug-9 Radar/Phoenix Trio was conceived to protect the fleet against supersonic Soviet bombers, whose only target was the destruction of the courier," Paco Chierici, former F-14 pilot and author ofLions of heaven, NarratorPopular mechanics.

The AWG-9 system was so capable of the F-14 could even focus on and involve cruise rockets in the air.was replaced by an optical sensor that fed data directly to AWG-9.

De Jager's weapon was just as robust with a number of options to choose based on the type of goal and the distance of Tomcat.Phoenix Missile.

“Tomcat was a huge plane wrapped behind a huge radar that was specially built to shoot the most deadly air-air rocket in the Western inventory, theAIM-54 Phoenix, "Chierici explains."Rockets, which are nowadays, are just overtaking with some, but not all the possibilities that Phoenix had.

Get rid of the Cold War

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Navy was at a crossing of the road.

Fifty-Ges F-14s were upgraded for useTactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod Systems(Tarps), which made the dog fight platform a very capable reconnaissance aircraft and others were reformed to make more suitable air-earth attack platforms.SuspicionF-14 was expensive to maintain and more difficult to operate than a newer fourth generation of competitors whoF/A-18 HornetAnd his own successor, Super Hornet.

When the Gulf War began, the now dated systems of the F-14 missed the opportunity to distinguish between friendly and enemy flights of long distances, and thanks to the reputation of the aircraft as a dog-fighting champion avoids in the service of DEM.Tomcat that is foundTo fruitless patrols.

Thanks to some electronic upgrades, Tomcat's air strikes flew in the early days of modern wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but the shiny days of Tomcat were already behind it.

The cheaper Super Hornets were deliberately built with air-earth-engagement in mind, and when the old millennium gave way to the new one, the navy started and too expensive.

In 2006, the F-14 was retired in favor of the slower, cheaperSuper Hornet.

VanTopistolon the bottom

In 1986, 20 years before Tomcat's retirement,TopistolThe ticket office dominated, but the success of the film did much more than just fill American cinemas.Navy Recruitment BoomedeWhen recruiters created tables just outside impressions for field questions of hopeful aircraft.

Now the American navy has fed most of its remaining F-14s to put industrial shredders a tragic ending for such an iconic aircraft.Will find their way to Iranian hands.

But the legacy of the plane lives on (and not just inToppistool: Maverick)).

Systems groundbreaking on Tomcat continued to grow up and can now be found on different hunting platforms.ProbablyThese elements of Tomcat will find life again in the form of the upcoming Air Superiority Fighter from America, currently called "PCA" after "Penetrating modlance."

F-14 was a hunter who was deliberately built for a war that was never.Soer with twice as much sound speed, tightened with more than £ 14,000 rockets.