Last call for the F-14 Tomcat

[Carl.]

U.S. Navy Retires 'Top Gun' Jets

These are now good for museums / junkyards:

R.I.P.

I feel old, all of a sudden.

 

[Ev0]

My favoruirte fighter is now out of service it seems. The greatest naval fighter ever made is now retired. This is certainly a sad day for me. I still remember seeing an F-14 at the Toronto Airshow two summers ago. One of the manouvers the pilot did was a simulated aborted landing on an aircraft carrier. When he 'touched down', the nozzels were directly facing in my direction. I will never forget how loud those afterburners were; I could literaly feel my chest rumbling!

Iran still has a few of their Tomcats lying around, but their airworthyness is very questionable, as they have had to cannibalize certain models in order to keep the others flying. And even if they are airworthy, I believe they are not used as interceptors due to a lack of weapons.

 

[a6m5]

I've always been more of a fan of the Air Force Fighters, but I think Tomcat's been the most beautiful jet. Hmmmmm.... I feel like watching "Top Gun".

 

[ExigeEvan]

It's a shame to see it go Wonder how much they'll charge for them....$15m?

Better radar and better missile range has made fleet defenders less useful.

 

[Fairlady240zg]

I've always been more of a fan of the Air Force Fighters, but I think Tomcat's been the most beautiful jet. Hmmmmm.... I feel like watching "Top Gun".

Agreed.

I feel the need...the need for speed!

 

[Zardoz]

Yeah, its a significant day in aviation history. Glad to see the Navy made it an "event". The Tomcat deserved to go out with a crowd cheering!

 

[Ev0]

Better radar and better missile range has made fleet defenders less useful.

Actually, fleet defenders have become less useful because the threat of a bomber attack on a US Carrier fleet has become virtually non-existent. The range of air to air missles has actually gone down, seeing how the Tomcat's phoenix missiles had a range of 100nm, while the more modern AMRAAM has a range of 65 miles with the D variant (45 with a standard model).

 

[daan]

An F-14 Tomcat, with 6 AIM-54 Phoenix missles, could track and kill 6 targets simultaneously at a range of over 100miles, before the targets knew they were a target. However, they never carried 6 Phoenix's due to the cost of each missile.

The F-14 was one of my favourite 'planes ever. Sad to see it go.

 

[jammyozzy]

However, they never carried 6 Phoenix's due to the cost of each missile.

I think the fact that it was too heavy to land on a carrier again with 6 phoenixes loaded may have had something to do with that aswell.

Anyway, it's sad to see the Tomcat go. It's always been one of my favourite aircraft, simply because it was so good at what it did. 👍

 

[ND4SPD]

Dang thats a shame, I've always loved the F14 Tomcat, I used to have a model of one I always played with.

 

[Slicks]

No! It was my favorite airplane for quite a few years, and still one of my favorite modern fighters...

 

[Wolfe]

The F-14 is definitely my favorite aircraft of all time. It's sad to see it go, but hey, it's been flying missions for 36 years, now.

I still remember reading an article a few years ago about how F-14s were completing missions in Afghanistan while technicians were trying to fix glitches in the F-22s...

 

[James2097]

Amazing looking jet... always a fav...

Sad to see it go... the new ones just don't have the same sense of character and style...

 

[High-Test]

Well, now the navy is completely sterile. They no longer have the beautiful birds we all grew up loving.

Sad to see it go, but it did go out in style.👍

Thanks for the pics, slicks.

 

[Sting]

Entered service in the 1970s, so you can't say the Tomcat hasn't had a good run.

I'm in agreement with the majority it is a huge shame to see the F-14 get retired, especially since it looks so much better than the F-18 Hornet.

 

[jammyozzy]

"The Iranian listening posts recorded the leader of the accompanying Su-22 flight scream" F-Arba-Ashara! Yalla! Yalla!", with the seven remaining fighters turning and fleeing. In English the leader had called "F-14! Run! Run!""

I think that says it all.

 

[Swift]

Well, I've always liked it. Mainly for the folding wings. But from a technical aspect, it's far inferior to what is around today.

I'll certainly miss it though...

 

[Danoff]

I had a model F-14 when I was a kid. I loved those folding wings, I didn't understand why you'd want foldings wings until I started studying hypersonic fluid flow in college, but I loved flipping those wings out for attack when I was a kid... in fact, I think that's what broke first on that model.

Now that I think about it, I had another F-14 that made little missle lock noises and then, when I pressed a button, it would sound like it shot a missle and then there would be an explosion.

Oh, and of course the always useful machine gun sounds.

I used to play with the wings on that one a bunch too.

I'll miss it too, but it has definitely been replaced.

 

[Ev0]

The F-14 isn't as aged as you guys make it out to be. Obviously in terms of agility and ground attack (something it was not designed for in the first place), it has been far surpassed by modern fighters. But it is still one of the top interceptors in the world; its huge top speed of mach 2.4 (a figure only surpassed in the fighter world by the F-15 and the MiG 25/31), and the mighty Phoenix missile make (or made...) it a huge threat in the skies. But there isn't much of a need for this anymore....