May 13th is Top Gun Day.
This video proves that the F-14 Tomcat was much more than a capable fleet defender.
Clips taken from the Tomcat HUD and TCS, show that the F-14 could win against some of the best and most agile fighters ever built, such as the F-16, the MiG-21, the MiG-29, the F/A-18, the Mirage 2000, the F-15 and the MiG-23 during DACT (Dissimilar Air Combat Training) and/or real dogfight sessions.
Although we don’t know the Rules of Engagement (ROE) of the mock aerial combat in the footage, this video shows that, despite its size, the Tomcat was an amazingly agile and nasty dogfighter.
Hope more join in: imagine if the Tom 21 was an active member of today’s aersenal….I can add tracking more targets, flying even faster and being more agile,lighter, flying farther well carrying a heavier payload and now you know why it was taken out….it was too good…makes sense right? Oh and to answer your question Richard, my father was an airframe engineer having worked on the 14 and seeing my father help build ir.. Someone from Grumman pissed of Dick Cheney while he was under Reagan so he carried that till he became Veep, asked Grumman to apologize, Grumman said why we are not apologizing for making the best so Dick in turn took Grumman out by not allowing any Grumman aircraft to be bought by the U.S. Govt. adding to that fabricating a host of lies such as maintenance to which even if true the 21 did away with most complaints at that time. PS to the Aviationist: my thanks to you for keeping Grumman alive and well….may it inspire future pilots, engineers and perhaps a new Leroy Grumman…..
i love this plane – most do not know – that it was on the verge of being cancelled – fresh money from iran (the shah) saved the program – the iran air force wanted the f-14 to counteract mig-25 incursions – in the 80ies in the iran-iraq-war the iranian f-14s held their own, racking up an impressive tally of 159 kills – some with phoenix missiles! i always recommend this book on the f-14
http://www.internetmodeler.com/2004/november/new-releases/book_osprey-f14.jpg
Frank – you are 100% entitled to your opines and I’m providing you with plain fact. You can always drum up someone who has something bad to say about something but I’ll remind you the F-14 platform had a long run of some 36 years and was taken out by Dick Cheney not by obsolescence, not by poor quality. I ask you to personally read up on Grumman b4 writing your opines a book called Iron Works the story of Grumman as it will provide you with great insight into my world and my fathers. For now I remind you of your acm’s and dumb it down by saying a Tom weighs some 78,000 lbs and is much more structurally sound than your F-15c as the c will fly apart b4 a 14 a thru d now the d was the final version of the Tom b4 our navy wanted a new bird. You should read up on the Tom 21 proposal or Super as some of us Grumman people called it for you will find the Tom unlike the Eagle was designed to evolve b4 the evolution of your stealth 22 which by the way I’ll remind you and our audience costs almost a billion per aircraft vs the Toms 38 mill or the supers 45 to 50 mill. I can go into the 21 but since it never came into play I can only theoretically say it blew away every single aircraft in every aspect you mentioned weighing much less flying much faster as in 1,700 mph faster and again not flying apart while carrying more weapons with even further radar aperture targeting even more aircraft while being introduced with a new fly by wire system utilizing updated avionics flying at sub Mach speeds making idiots again of just about every plane you just mentioned. I will also say to you the beloved f-14 won the Cold War against Russia as in they were scared to put anything up against it as the am-54 I think it’s called or better yet Phoenix missile was also a mobile nuke as in the 15 structurally can’t handle that weight or it flies apart so the rio who ever he was Frank was in my opinion speaking in a minority as most of the pilots I knew swore by it and nothing else
Sorry, but the Tomcat 21 or any teen series upgrade would stand absolutely no chance against a F-22 Raptor (WVR or BVR). You have nothing to prove your point but conjecture. Variable Geometry is heavy and outdated-
Read RED EAGLES by Steve Davies. In the intro. (pg 13) a Tomcat piloted by Jim “Rookie” Robb (he retired as a two star admiral) was out-turned by a Mig-17 during CONSTANT PEG. Only in his second engagement could he best the Mig by fighting in the vertical.
On pg. 283, Robb further stated that the F-14A could not fight with a Mig-21 in the horizontal, but again (like against the Mig-17) had to fight in the vertical. Robb further goes on to say that only with the uprated GE F110 engines could the Tomcat now fight against the 21 in the horizontal, and turn with it.
Let me guess, this guy is full of BS too, right?
READ THE BOOK-
F-14 can probably outmanuever the f-22 in lowspeed dogfighting. Thrust vectoring is not really that much of an ego boost, it can be fitted on any plane. The f-16 and f-15 already tested them and that’s where the f-22 raptor engineers got the idea to give the raptor the TVT