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Posted on 09/08/2025 11:00:57 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
To see the F-14 Tomcat for myself, I ventured out to the Air and Space Museum near Dulles International Airport in the Washington, DC, metro area. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Manassas, Virginia, has every airplane and spacecraft that you can imagine.
I was fortunate to interview an F-14 pilot who actually flew the Tomcat that is on display at the Air and Space Museum in Virginia.
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I've read that it was very painful to maintain.
I also just read that its primary long range weapon, the AIM-54 Phoenix missile, was just fired three times in combat, and missed all three targets. Take from that what you will.
Like the F-4, F-111, one of the pre-“black box” planes.
The early version F-14 Tomcat’s with TF30 engines had a lot of problems. The TF30 engines were originally designed for a subsonic bomber. Navy Secretary John Lehman famously called the TF30 “the worst engine-airplane mismatch we have had in many years”.
F-14 maintenance costs were much higher than the F-18. The
F-14 swing wing made engine access difficult for maintenance crews.
An F-14 fully loaded with six Phoenix missiles was too heavy to land on an aircraft carrier. If the missiles were not fired during a mission, some would need to be jettisoned before landing.
“Maybe retired too soon?”
Maybe not. According to the article is was retired on Sept. 22, 2026!(?) Lol.
My uncle was a test pilot for the Navy. In my younger days he took me on a tour of the base where he was stationed. I distictly recall him saying, as we strolled past an enormous pile of wreckage in a hangar: “That was an F-14 Tomcat.”
The jolly rogers squadron was on our first med cruise on the Nimitz. I was on the South Carolina. On the way back to NOB Norfolk two of those jokers flew up the starboard side fast and low, very low. Very loud, very close. Fun.
I saw that too and had to look it up. Must be the Iranian timeline. Actual retirement was 2006.
Was it true that every time the F-14 pilot started the engines Loggins’ and Messina’s “Danger Zone” came on?
There’s missed, and there’s “missed.” Is it like the AIM-7 , which rarely hit a target, but detonated when it detected a doppler shift indicating it had overtaken the target, and exploded in front of it, creating a debris field which the target then flew through (fingers crossed). The -54 may have exceeded the practical range for that concept.
But Browne explained there were times when the F-14 could be a handful. “The earlier versions of the F-14 equipped with the Pratt & Whitney TF-30 engines were prone to compressor stalls [and usually at the most inopportune moment]. Pilots ended up having to ‘fly the engine’ and not the aircraft.
Special people doing special things and no brown alerts.
Trained to fly
VX-4 at Pt Mugu flew them.
The puddles of various fluids when parked was alarming.
They sure sounded great when they did a carrier break overhead and lit the burners.
The first two were improperly installed by the crew on the aircraft carrier, and the rocket motors of both Phoenix missiles didn't light after launch.
The third and final launch of a US Phoenix in anger was from a distance of 70 miles. The MiG turned around, sped off, and crashed. Note that 70 miles was twice the distance of the AMRAAM's range, so that missile wouldn't have hit either.
While the US only used the Phoenix missiles three times, Iranian Phoenix missiles knocked roughly 60 to 70 Iraqi aircraft down.
There was a navy gal flying the bogy on a computer outside. The F-18 is single seat so I had to watch standing on the catwalk holding onto the plane (for dear life).
That sure was cool.
Bfl
Wow. The brain probably had you feeling Gs.
They also shredded most of the airframes.
We had sold some to the Shah of Iran, and until recently they were still flying them. To prevent Iran from getting spare parts they shredded the majority of the old airframes, except for a few museum pieces.
I worked the flight deck on the JFK when she flew F-14’s.
They cut 55 gallon drums in half, put them on wheels, and would place several under the F-14’s to catch the leaking hydraulic fluid....
As I recall the last ones were forcibly retired the day we hit the Iranian nuke sites.
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