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The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, twin-tail, all-weather-capable variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft.The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program after the collapse of the General Dynamics-Grumman F-111B project.
The F-14 primarily conducted air-to-air and reconnaissance missions with the U.S. Navy until the 1990s, when it was also employed as a long-range strike fighter. [2] It saw considerable action in the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf and was used as a strike platform in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq until its final deployment with the United States in 2006.
The dogfighting dynamo was designed to win a war that never happened. Several decades—and one star-making turn in Top Gun—later, it’s now an endangered species.
A Prototype Tomcat, Grumman F-14-01-GR Tomcat, 157980, suffered a hydraulic fluid leak on its second flight. The crew attempted return to the Grumman plant at Calverton, New York, but lost flight controls just before crossing the airfield threshold. Both crewmembers ejected as the airframe plunged into woods short of the runway.
The first air-to-air victory by a female pilot comes 30 years after Lt. Kara Hultgreen became the first carrier-based female fighter pilot in the Navy, flying the F-14 Tomcat off the USS Abraham ...
The crash was the result of the aircraft missing the last arresting cable, while ignoring a wave-off command. Two Grumman F-14 Tomcats struck and destroyed (BuNos. 161138 and 160385), three F-14s, nine LTV A-7 Corsair IIs, three S-3A Vikings, one Grumman A-6 Intruder and one Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King damaged. [44]
VFAX was revived in the 1970s when it was realized that although the F-14 was smaller than the F-111B, it was still a very large plane. It was a very expensive to replace all of the attack fighters and USMC F-4 Phantom IIs , which had passed on the Tomcat's cost and initial lack of ground attack capability (which the fighter wouldn't get until ...
An AIM-54 Phoenix being attached to an F-14 wing pylon before the forward fins were installed (2003). The AIM-54 Phoenix was retired from USN service on September 30, 2004. F-14 Tomcats were retired on September 22, 2006. They were replaced by shorter-range AIM-120 AMRAAMs, employed on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.