The YF-23: This Is What Regret Looks Like To The US Air Force
Posted on 02/25/2015 9:52:46 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Several years since it was eventually retired from the U.S. Navy, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat remains one of the most loved planes by aviation enthusiasts. Any article about this iconic fighter plane, still operating with the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, its story, capabilities, records and surrounding anecdotes, always become a much debated and commented post on The Aviationist. For this reason, we will continue writing about this legendary plane and its replacement: the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
After the Tomcat retirement, the Rhino (as the F/A-18E/F is nicknamed by its aircrews) has not only quickly become the backbone of every Carrier Air Wing (CVW), but it has also replaced some of the oldest Legacy Hornets on the American flattops. Having fulfilled such a difficult task, the Super Hornet has demonstrated to be one of the best multirole jets available today. But could an advanced version of the F-14 have been even better?
LCDR Joe “Smokin” Ruzicka, who was the Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) who flew the last F-14 Demonstration before the Tomcat’s retirement in 2006, last year released an interesting interview to Foxtrot Alpha’s Tyler Rogoway. Among all the other things, Ruzicka explained that, while the Super Hornet is a great plane, it seems like its strength mainly comes from technology. “In the Tomcat, I think you had to be a better aviator because the technology just wasn’t there. It was up to the aircrew to maximize its performance (or minimize it if you sucked).”
That said, one might wonder whether integrating the same technology in the F-14 would have been possible.
By 1987, Grumman realized that the potential for growth had not yet been reached by the F-14 airframe, and they proposed to the U.S. Navy four advanced versions of the F-14, as told by Tim Callaway in Issue 13 “Grumman F-14 Tomcat” of Aviation Classics magazine.
The F-14D Quickstrike was the first proposal: featuring an enhanced version of the APG-71 radar, this advanced Tomcat version would have carried stand off weapons such as the Harpoon, HARM and SLAM (Standoff Land Attack Missile) missiles.
Requiring only new software and minor modifications to existing F-14Ds, the Quickstrike would have been a cost-effective attack platform but it didn’t meet the Advanced Tactical Fighter specification and the U.S. Navy chose the shorter ranged F/A-18E/F.
The second proposal was the ST21, the Super Tomcat for the 21st Century. The latter would have been a structural upgrade to the existing F-14Ds, that would have introduced a new wing glove design and single piece windscreen, while sensors positioned in front of the under fuselage weapons rails would have supplemented the chin pods. Moreover the ST21 would have also received a new engine the F110-GE-129 of 13,154kg of thrust, which would have provided a supercruise speed of Mach 1.3 featuring also thrust vectoring nozzles for greater maneuverability. These new engines would have supplied to the ST21 a tremendous acceleration alongside with a greatly increased range of the aircraft.
Another modification to the standard F-14D would have been the AST21, the Attack Super Tomcat for the 21st Century.
This advanced Tomcat would have been fitted with additional extra bomb pylons under the engine nacelles, a nuclear weapons capability, a modified radar with a Forward Air Controller (FAC) mode and an Integrated Defensive Avionics Package (IDAP) to improve survivability in the air to ground environment. The last proposal, as Callaway explains, was the ASF-14 Advanced Strike Fighter.
The ASF-14 would have been a totally new aircraft with the F-14 shape and it would have taken advantages of the new materials and new technologies developed for the Advanced Tactical Fighter and Advanced Tactical Attack Aircraft programs.
None of these proposals has been built and we’ll never know if an advanced Tomcat would have been better than the actual Super Hornet, but for sure these two fighters are two different aircraft as explained by Ruzicka, who told to Rogoway that the better way to understand the differences between the F-14 and the F/A-18E/F is using the analogy of a muscle car to a mini-van, “with the Tomcat being the former and the Super Hornet being the latter. The muscle car doesn’t have much to it in the way of fancy technology, just some raw speed and the coolness of a Steve McQueen movie, but it gets the job done. The mini-van on the other hand is a very nice car, complete with DVR’s for the kids, Air Conditioning, power windows, and lots of places to put your sippy cup. It’s a great car—-but it’s still a mini-van.”
Image credit: U.S. Navy
“What a freaking laugh. The regular Tomcat outclasses the Super Hornet any day of the week.”
In what manner? Range? Top speed? That’s about it. The Super Bug’s AESA radar is superior to the AWG-9 in every possible way. The Phoenix missile is irrelevant since it was a Potemkin piece of junk that never worked. It missed both times it was fired in anger. An old Navy Test buddy of mine that flew Tomcats confirmed this to me... “We really had the Soviets fooled with those things”. He spent enough time firing them at China Lake to know.
In the merge, there’s absolutely no comparison between the Tomcat and the Super Bug... the Bug is better in every respect. And the most important reason the Super Bug was chosen: operating costs. The Bug is far, far less expensive to operate and far easier to maintain. It’s also more versitile.
F-15 - Salma Hayek
The perfect Sensuous Air Superiority Triumvirate.
Don’t forget the super bug also replaced the A6 despite the fact that a rewinged A6 (A6F) would have been cheaper, have better range and payload, and still have an unmatched CEP in a N/AW environment.
An even better plan would be to "navalize" the YF-23 the same way the YF-17 was "navalized" to become the F/A-18.
Guess we'll never know...
Yes, good one!
I dunno, wish Pukin Dog were still around to chime in.
my memory also about the Phantom
Imho of course.
Ok, so hate me...
5.56mm
So, how many F-14s did we give away to allied/neutral nations, and how many are mothballed at Davis-Monthan?
Hehe....Salma's got those magnificent twin...err...umm...Pratt & Whitney F100s.
I am biased. I worked flight deck control on the Connie. Watching Tomcats being shot off the cats with full burners are some of my most cherished memories. Lord I loved those planes.
My wife called the Phantom a great place to nap.
She did NDI (Non-Destructive Inspections) while in the Air Force.
She could crawl up in the intake and catch a few winks before signing off so it could fly or not.
She is a lot more mature now. :D
And maybe....
F-18 - Penelope Cruz
Not a fighter but...
A-10 - Michelle Rodriguez
Yup. She fits the profile. Very good looking lines, solid, agile and able to make it home after a tough tussle.
The F-16 would be in the shorts of the F-14 and the original F-18,Which was previously known as the YF-17.When it,The F-16 was placed in a completion with the F-18 the 16 got on its six in a hurry.
i was in the navy during the late ‘70’s (carter years)...
i was on the FID with the F-4’s, and the Kennedy with the F-14’s ( i was a plane captain, worked the flight deck )..
the F-14’s were magnificent birds, with one problem..
after they landed and shut down, you needed at least 6 55 gallon drums, with the top cut off and on wheels, to catch the hydraulic fluid that would leak out of them..
then, before they took off ( after they had been started ) you would have to pump close to 200 gallons of fluid into them so they could fly...
basic design flaw, and it pretty much rendered the bird useless...
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