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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.
A Grumman F-14 Tomcat on a platform with the Chief Master at Arms house in the background. The house is now the location of the DeLand Naval Air Station Museum. Nine Mile Point on Lake George was also under NAS DeLand's control and was used as a practice bombing site with a Navy Consolidated PBY Catalina seaplane stationed nearby in the event of an aircraft mishap on the lake.
After the West Coast FRS for the F-14 Tomcat, VF-124, was disestablished in the mid-1990s, VF-101 became the sole F-14 FRS. At the time it was based at NAS Oceana in Virginia. With the retirement of the F-14, VF-101 was deactivated in 2005. It was reactivated in 2012 and redesignated Strike Fighter Squadron 101 (VFA-101).
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.
The F-14 was piloted by Lieutenant Hermon C. Cook III and Lieutenant Commander Steven Patrick Collins. [3] January 4, 1989 – A Grumman F-14A Tomcat (Bureau Number : 159610) shot down a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 using an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. The F-14 was piloted by Commander Joseph Bernard Connelly and Commander Leo F. Enwright. [4]
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. [3] 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.
Snodgrass was the "highest time Tomcat pilot," after having accumulated more than 4,800 hours in the F-14 and more than 1,200 arrested carrier landings, both more than any other pilot. [3] He was called "The Real Top Gun" [3] or the real "Maverick" [1] [2] [4] in reference to Tom Cruise's character in the movie, Top Gun.
Later, the company built McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom II tail sections, Grumman F-14 Tomcat tails, and Space Shuttle orbiter stabilizers. In 1964, the company purchased Hiller Aircraft, changing its name to Fairchild Hiller and producing the FH-1100, until 1973 when the helicopter division was sold back to Stanley Hiller.