F-14 Tomcat retired today :-(


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I live on long island and my father used to work on the f-14 tomcats. On family day I got to see one up close and personal and sit in the cockpit. I will never forget it.

When topgun came out we would try watching it and my father would sit there and spout facts.

I will miss these planes. I keep my family day souvenier grumman book well hidden.

Now grumman got a major contract for the e2c's . Early 90's they lad everybody off and closed all there long island plants. Now they are in dire need of employes and surprise surprise nobody wants to work there anymore.

Anyway I hope one of the planes goes to the smithsonian or something.

Ps my grandfather was a painter there too.

Edited by majortom1981
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The Navy plans to replace the F-14, a two-seat fighter with moveable swept-back wings, with the F/A-18 Super Hornets.

Umm... Aren't the F/A-18's also really old?

I'm sure they have been updated since Canada bought their little contingent of C/F-18s Hornets but the base design is rather old.

[Thread Moved from GD to NFN]

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Umm... Aren't the F/A-18's also really old?

I'm sure they have been updated since Canada bought their little contingent of C/F-18s Hornets but the base design is rather old.

[Thread Moved from GD to NFN]

The original F/A-18 is old but in the 90s they were redesigned and are now called the Super F/A-18. The aircraft is completely new and about 25% larger than the old version. That is when the two-seat version became common.

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Harrier, Tornado, Eurofighter or Raptor.

Hmmmm :shifty:

you can take the eurofighter and shove it up europe's A** it fails hard AND WE'R RETIERING THE HARRIER WHY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

post-84923-1142170994_thumb.jpg

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you can take the eurofighter and shove it up europe's A** it fails hard AND WE'R RETIERING THE HARRIER WHY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I agree. Nuts, we should go back to more simple designs that don't need a ****ing computer to control everything, just take a look at the Lightning, what a bloody plane. Completely awesome, it's a 1940-50s design and yet it could keep up with modern planes.

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I agree. Nuts, we should go back to more simple designs that don't need a ****ing computer to control everything, just take a look at the Lightning, what a bloody plane. Completely awesome, it's a 1940-50s design and yet it could keep up with modern planes.

but to my understanding the lightening isn't a VTOL jet thus making it harder to hide but with an hairier one could land them in large dense forests with small canopy holes for take off and landing thus making them more versatile useful and efficient fighters than the modern-day airstrip dependant fighter/bombers

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i beg to differ the harrier wold rape a tomcat

Wel the F-14 wouldn't have a hard time out running the Harrier considering it can do Mach 2.4, whereas the harrier cant even break the sound barrier

still RIP :(

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Wel the F-14 wouldn't have a hard time out running the Harrier considering it can do Mach 2.4, whereas the harrier cant even break the sound barrier

still RIP :(

lol outrunning in a Dog fight speed is second to maneuverability

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lol outrunning in a Dog fight speed is second to maneuverability

To quote Navy fighter pilot Capt. Sam Flynn, "Speed is life." This has been proven over and over in air combat.

Edited by Komet
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lol outrunning in a Dog fight speed is second to maneuverability

Dog fights don't exist anymore. There are long range air-to-air missles now which are intended on taking out the target 50 to 100 miles out. The reasons planes are retired now is that you can't keep upgrading avionics on older planes (when better ones are out for the Super Hornet) and the better weapon systems.

What was the original point of the Tomcat? Protect carriers from long range bombers. If the Tomcat wasn't able to fire long-range missiles, it probably wouldn't matter how well it could fight in a dog-fight or how fast it could go. The f-14 has to kill the bomber before it gets anywhere near within range.

Sad to see the F-14 retire anyways. I've seen them upclose a few times. Had some fly by me (quite close) too. What a nice sound for an engine.

I think the F-22, F-16 and F-18 will fill quite nicely. Will they use the f-14 for training?

And to an earlier poster planning on buying one: it'd prob cost more like $50 mil. And you won't get the radar, full avionics program and all nice goodies - probably for hush-hush reasons of security.

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i beg to differ the harrier wold rape a tomcat

They aren't even made for the same job, so you can't make an objective comparisson.

lol outrunning in a Dog fight speed is second to maneuverability

If Dogfights did still exist, then the Harrier wouldn't be in the best of positions, because it would be filling the role of a Stuka, minus the defensive machinegun; and the F-14 would be a P-39, P-40, P-51, or something along those lines.

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Taaaake me to the danger zone do do do do I've got a good idea: Just you keep me near. I'll be so good for the daaanger zone :shifty:

Lets see if anyone gets that :D

Cool plane tho, it just screams 'AMERICA' at me.

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I just appreciate how they made the wings like that, so it fit's in my garage.

In all seriousness though: OK maybe it wasn't the greatest plane ever, and is no longer relevent to USAF. But it truly was an icon of Americana, as much as the Spitfire was an icon of WW2 for the RAF.

Forster: Write the theme toon, sing the theme toon!

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