The Navy’s F-14 Tomcat Fighter Was Built For Just 1 Mission

Abstract and Key Factors: The F-14 Tomcat, a legendary Chilly Conflict fighter made well-known by Prime Gun, was unmatched in energy and efficiency—however tormented by reliability points and excessive prices.

-It was constructed with one mission in thoughts: to be one of the best fighter jet on the excessive seas. 

-Constructed to intercept Soviet nuclear bombers, its superior Phoenix missile system and swing-wing design made it extremely succesful however costly to keep up.

-Frequent engine failures and intensive maintenance meant it by no means absolutely changed older jets just like the F-15 and F-16.

-Because the Chilly Conflict risk light, so did the justification for the Tomcat’s hefty price ticket, resulting in its early retirement. Regardless of these flaws, the enduring F-14 stays beloved for its unmatched legacy.

The F-14 Tomcat Is a Legend for a Cause 

Within the Seventies, the USA had three revolutionary fighters enter service within the F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, and F-16 Combating Falcon. Right this moment, two of those platforms stay not solely in service, however in manufacturing, with solely the Prime Gun F-14 relegated to museum obligation.

Right this moment, loads of airplane nerds (like this writer) nonetheless rely the F-14 Tomcat amongst their favourite plane of all time… so what provides? Why was Maverick’s experience not solely retired early by very actually being fed into the economic shredder whereas the Eagle and Viper proceed to roll off meeting strains to today?

The reality is, the F-14 Tomcat was a extremely superior fighter that was actually purpose-built for a world-ending nuclear battle. While you look again on this system, its challenges, and subsequent options, the picture turns into a bit clearer. The F-14 made sense after we had been on the verge of World Conflict III… however and not using a Soviet boogeyman to maintain Uncle Sam’s pocketbook upturned and shaking, it turned an extremely costly and typically problematic resolution to an issue no one had anymore. And to make issues worse, solely a portion of the F-14 fleet was ever as succesful as a lot of the world believed.

However to be utterly clear, it was nonetheless one hell of a jet.

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat was an extremely succesful plane, and with good purpose. In an period earlier than Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) had matured into the go-to nuclear weapon supply automobile they might turn out to be, the Tomcat was designed largely to neuter the Soviet Union’s most potent technique of placing nukes on American soil; their fleet of strategic bombers.

Within the current tense, the concept of a overseas energy flying bombers over the continental United States appears virtually unimaginable, thanks isn’t any small half to America’s broad navy footprint, superior detection know-how, and right now’s geopolitical local weather. That wasn’t the case on the peak of the Chilly Conflict. The risk posed by Soviet long-range bombers was so dire, actually, that earlier than air-to-air missiles had turn out to be prevalent within the Sixties, the U.S. truly developed a rocket-propelled air-to-air nuclear weapon that might wipe out complete formations with a single launch.

With the specter of Soviet bombers armed with nuclear weapons or anti-ship missiles on the forefront of their minds, Grumman designed the most important and heaviest provider fighter in historical past, with a good quantity of that weight devoted to the brand new Phoenix missile and the onboard methods required to leverage it. When fueled up and able to go, the F-14 weighed in at 61,000 kilos, which is sort of twice that of the long run F/A-18 and fairly a bit greater than twice the burden of a fully-fueled F-16 Combating Falcon.

Regardless of all of that heft, the Tomcat nonetheless wanted to be quick, so Grumman paired the F-14 with Pratt & Whitney’s TF30 engines initially fitted to the F-111B that they had didn’t promote the Navy on. Every engine might produce 14,560 kilos of thrust beneath navy energy, with the afterburner kicking output as much as 25,100 kilos. All instructed, the F-14 might use that mixed 50,000+ kilos of thrust to push the plane to an astonishing Mach 2.3, and its variable-sweep wing design gave it wonderful dealing with at each the low speeds required for provider landings and the excessive speeds wanted to intercept Ivan earlier than he might deploy his anti-ship missiles towards an American provider.

Because of that variable-sweep wing design, the F-14 might flip tighter than most of its succesful 4th era competitors, together with the small and nimble F-16 beneath the best circumstances. That meant it couldn’t solely cowl floor rapidly to interact Soviet bombers, the Tomcat actually might dogfight and win if known as upon to take action.

“A pleasant plane powered by two items of junk.”

For all its functionality, the Tomcat is also troublesome. The TF30 engines had been certainly highly effective, however they had been additionally arguably too delicate for the job. They’d been designed for a good heavier software within the 80,000 pound F-111B, however that platform was extra bomber than fighter. Bombers want highly effective engines to hold their payloads at fight speeds, however in addition they have very completely different flight envelopes than fighters.

When operated at excessive angles of assault, or when the pilot adjusted the throttle place rapidly (each frequent sides of the air fight the jet was constructed for however unusual in bomber missions), the engines had been liable to compressor stalls. This situation led some to name the Tomcat, “a pleasant plane powered by two items of junk.”

“From the very begin you basically educate the pilots to fly the engine as a precedence over flying the airplane,” Capt. Lee Tillotson, the Navy’s F14 program coordinator, instructed the Washington Put up in 1984.

“The pilot needs to be very conscious of what he does with the throttle always.”

Extra troubling nonetheless, with the engines mounted an enormous 9 ft aside to permit for better carry and extra weapons carriage area, a stall in a single engine might throw the plane into an usually unrecoverable flat spin. These points led to the lack of a whopping 40 F-14s in all.

However it wasn’t simply the stall situation plaguing the engine’s in Maverick’s experience. The turbine blades contained in the engine had been additionally liable to failure lengthy earlier than their anticipated service life expired, inflicting catastrophic injury to the engine and placing pilots’ lives in danger.

Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. went on to say the TF30 engine “within the F-14 might be the worst engine-airplane mismatch we now have had in a few years. The TF30 engine is only a horrible engine and has accounted for 28.2 p.c of all F14 crashes.”

Right this moment, we might look again on the F-14 with wistful awe, remembering the way it was the one fighter that might stand toe-to-toe with the (fictional) MiG-28. However when it was in service, not everyone beloved the Tomcat.

F-14 Tomcat US Navy. Picture Credit score: Inventive Commons.

“The earlier we’re out of it, the happier I shall be,” Lehman instructed Congress in 1984. “I assume the excellent news is that each one the Iranian F-14s have the TF30, too.”

In 1987, F-14s started receiving new engines within the Common Electrical F110, which provided extra thrust and eradicated lots of the reliability issues related to the TF30. These improved F-14Bs and the next F-14Ds had been very a lot the Tomcat of Prime Gun fame, and consequently, you’ll usually discover Tomcat followers dismissing the TF30’s woes as an issue particular to the F-14A within the early days of operation.

The reality is, a yoyoing price range made the transition from the TF30 to the F110 sluggish going. By 1996, 9 years after the F110 entered service within the F-14, the Navy F-14 fleet included simply 126 Tomcats with the brand new GE engines, whereas the opposite 212 had been nonetheless flying on the troublesome TF30. In reality, F-14A’s operating the TF30 had been nonetheless flying for the Navy till as late as 2004.

The F-14’s variable-sweep wing design is without doubt one of the plane’s most putting visible traits, and there’s no denying that the premise behind it is smart. The wings might differ from 20° to 68° whereas airborne to permit for the absolute best flight traits at each high and low speeds. Wing positioning was managed routinely by the Central Air Knowledge Laptop onboard, guaranteeing the wings had been positioned for the absolute best lift-to-drag ratio for every state of affairs, however they is also managed manually by the pilot.

As you may think about, a system that succesful and superior was not solely sophisticated and heavy, it additionally required fairly a little bit of maintenance. Relying on the Navy estimate, the F-14 Tomcat required between 30 and 60 hours of upkeep for each one hour it spent within the air. The excessive costs related to sustaining the sophisticated sweep-wing methods is usually cited as probably the most urgent causes for the Tomcat’s early retirement when in comparison with its American fighter friends.

However whereas upkeep prices might have been the most important situation with the F-14’s wings, worth wasn’t the one factor individuals complained about.

Whereas changes to wing place had been speedy and computerized, pilots coaching towards Tomcats in F-15s and F-16s quickly started reporting that the shifts in wing place helped them rapidly assess the F-14’s power state and momentum throughout maneuvers. Like a boxer telegraphing his punch, the F-14 Tomcat telegraphed its maneuvers, making them simpler for expert and skilled opponents to learn and predict.

F-14 Tomcat Fighters. Picture Credit score: Inventive Commons.

Had the Navy been compelled to place their F-14s in to fight, it’s seemingly the department would have misplaced extra plane to engine failures than it must enemy fireplace, and even its unimaginable Phoenix missile was unlikely to vary that truth.

Whereas later F-14 iterations just like the F-14B and F-14D got here with higher engines, a digital cockpit, and improved avionics, a great portion of the fleet operated sub-standard TF30 engines for almost all of the fighter’s service life. These jets had been restricted to only 6.5G maneuvers with the intention to alleviate considerations in regards to the compressor stalls within the engines, however that put the Tomcat at a definite drawback towards fashionable fighters just like the F-15, which had been rated to exceed 9 Gs. Some, nonetheless, nonetheless contended that the F-14 Tomcat didn’t must be acrobatic because of it’s superb new weapon system: the Phoenix missile.

The famed AIM-54 Phoenix missile and AN/AWG-9 radar developed particularly to leverage it actually does deserve the respect its gained over time. The AN/AWG-9 radar might determine and observe as much as six targets from 100 miles out, and when armed with six AIM-54 Pheonix missiles, the F-14 might deploy all of its weapons in simply 38 seconds. It was an air-to-air weapon the ultimate in its day, nevertheless it simply wasn’t actually supposed to be used towards enemy fighters.

The AIM-54 Phoenix was 13 ft lengthy, 15 inches in diameter, and technically had a most vary of 125 miles (although focusing on was restricted to 100). It was dropped like a bomb earlier than igniting its huge engine, which might instantly propel the missile as much as 80,000 ft the place it might shut with its goal and use its kinetic power to information it down into its supposed goal. This strategy to long-range engagements would work towards massive, sluggish shifting, prop-driven bombers like these employed by the Soviet Union, however weren’t a lot use towards sooner and extra nimble fighters. Overlaying such lengthy distances simply gave enemy fighters an excessive amount of alternative to acknowledge that they had been targetted and take adequate evasive motion.

In January of 1999, two F-14s every fired one Phoenix missile at two Iraqi MiG-25s, solely to have each miss. Later that very same 12 months, one other F-14 fired a Phoenix at a MiG-23, solely to overlook as soon as once more. No F-14 ever shot down an enemy plane with the missile it was designed to hold.

F-14 Tomcat

The AIM-54 Phoenix was 13 ft lengthy, 15 inches in diameter, and technically had a most vary of 125 miles (although focusing on was restricted to 100). It was dropped like a bomb earlier than igniting its huge engine, which might instantly propel the missile as much as 80,000 ft the place it might shut with its goal and use its kinetic power to information it down into its supposed goal. This strategy to long-range engagements would work towards massive, sluggish shifting, prop-driven bombers like these employed by the Soviet Union, however weren’t a lot use towards sooner and extra nimble fighters. Overlaying such lengthy distances simply gave enemy fighters an excessive amount of alternative to acknowledge that they had been targetted and take adequate evasive motion.

In January of 1999, two F-14s every fired one Phoenix missile at two Iraqi MiG-25s, solely to have each miss. Later that very same 12 months, one other F-14 fired a Phoenix at a MiG-23, solely to overlook as soon as once more. No F-14 ever shot down an enemy plane with the missile it was designed to hold.

In case you began studying this text with a particular place in your coronary heart reserved for the F-14, you could be grinding your enamel by now–nevertheless it’s vital to do not forget that being costly and problematic doesn’t imply the Tomcat wasn’t additionally a mind-boggling performer with no actual peer in its period. Once more, it pays to attract comparisons between Maverick’s fighter and the fashionable F-35.

Right this moment, you don’t must go far to seek out individuals calling the F-35 a failure due to price over-runs, manufacturing delays, and a few early stories of the fighter’s poor efficiency towards older jets. The individuals you gained’t discover calling the F-35 a failure, nonetheless, are the women and men who fly the Fifth-generation energy home in fight. The F-35 is simply too completely different to grade utilizing the identical metrics we use for fighters just like the F-15. It depends on know-how, not brute pressure, to win fights–and efficient as that strategy could also be, it doesn’t make for thrilling press releases.

The F-14 Tomcat additionally had a troubled growth run and typically acquired beat up by America’s different fighters in wargames, however just like the F-35… it was constructed to do issues no different fighter was able to doing on the time.

Naval Air Station Oceana, Va. (Sept. 25, 2004) – An F-14D Tomcat assigned to the “Black Lions” of Fighter Squadron Two One Three (VF-213), conducts a high-speed cross on the conclusion of the tactical air energy demonstration on the 2004 “In Pursuit of Liberty,” Naval Air Station Oceana Air Present. The demonstration showcased a number of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets displaying varied maneuvers and simulated bomb and staffing passes in entrance of the group. The air present, held Sept. 24-26, showcased civilian and navy plane from the Nation’s armed forces, which offered many flight demonstrations and static shows. U.S. Navy picture by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Daniel J. McLain (RELEASED).

When the F-14 first took to the skies, it was greater, heavier, and will carry extra ordnance than any provider fighter in historical past. It might observe and interact enemy bombers from triple-digit ranges in a time when many nationwide Air Forces had been nonetheless centered on weapons and cannons for air-to-air combating. By means of subsequent upgrades, it was on the chopping fringe of avionic methods and ultimately even picked up respectable air-to-ground capabilities like its multi-role friends.

However reaching up to now forward is pricey… and in the end, it’s {dollars} and cents that dictate the make-up of America’s fighter fleets. Might the F-14 have been modernized, upgraded, and improved to nonetheless be flying right now? In fact it might. However just like the bringing the F-22 Raptor again from the lifeless… typically it might price extra to maintain a extremely good older fighter than it might price to design and construct an incredible new one. The F-14 might have had a brief shelf-life in comparison with a few of its sister jets of the 70s, however there’s no denying… the mighty Tomcat’s presence had lasting results on Naval aviation and even on overseas relations world wide.

The F-15 and F-16 might have gotten to stay round longer, however the F-14 will at all times be the Prime Gun for a few of us.

In regards to the Creator: Alex Hollings 

Alex Hollings is a author, dad, and Marine veteran who makes a speciality of overseas coverage and protection know-how evaluation. He’s Editor of Sandboxx, the place this primary appeared.