Posted on 10/01/2005 12:06:14 AM PDT by mcgiver38
Tried to post a picture, don't do it often enough.
Bump this......to the Top.
I'm not ConUs and have a bit of trouble with .mil addresses.
Sad day ping.
[sigh] Say it ain't so. Beautiful planes.
Sure, all good things must end... but damn...
it sucks. congress killed the plane. money went to mcdonnell douglas instead. pure stupid pork politics. i could scream.
Because its that or find another job.
The Tomcat has never lost an air to air combat sim to an F18.
It was too big for the deck space, and required two to fly it. F18 was smaller and required 1 pilot. But the fist thing the Navy did was increase the size of the F18 and go to a two seat version.
what a painting ! no?....
Heh. Great painting.
I had the unique honor of having my CG Cutter buzzed by a pair of F-14's moving supersonic somewhere off the coast of San Diego some years ago. It was magnificent.
I'll never forget it. They came at us at pretty much wavetop level. They were tight together and both had to tip up slightly about a half mile out just to clear our antennas in time.
I know they were supersonic. That part is impossible to miss.
The whole thing only lasted seconds. The lookout spotted them just in time shout down the voicetube "Aircraft appro..." BAM BAM. ...and they were gone. I remember feeling grateful that they were on our side.
:-)
It seems the only Tomcats flying will be those with Iranian colors. Oh, and I just loved the proposals for the QuickStrike, the SuperTomCat 21 and the AttackSuperTomCat 21, variants that were supposed to make the TomCat have a new lease of life (and make it even mroe lethal than it already ways). The AttackSuperTomcat21 -AST21- would have been basically bad-@$$. With twice the range of the F-14D, and note the F-14D has far greater range than any Hornet or SuperHornet that ever flew -and with capabilities that would have been second only to the F-22 in A2A, and unsurpassed by any fighter in the air2mud role. Obviously they cancelled since the TomCat had to die (had the SuperTomcat 21 come out several things would have happened ....for one there would have been no need for a SuperHornet, and secondly the JSF project would have gone the way of the A12 project. Thus it was a political stinky-poo and had to be cancelled).
Here is a drawing of the then-proposed ST21 SuperTomcat:
And here is an article questioning the prudence of replacing the TomCat with the SuperHornet. This is a rather interesting article:
http://www.flightjournal.com/articles/f14f18/f14f18_1.asp
Thanks, the Aardvarks!!! of VF-114!! my roomates were in that squadron. In fact I have a 8X10 of that very picture. And look at that Phoenix, my job! I fixed the AWG-9 for 6 years and taught it for another 3. Great job.
There was nothing like that, I saw it many times, could never believe how you could just make it out and BAM BAM! it was gone, many times sucking water up to the plane. What a sexy plane! And the saddest thing is we dont have anything today that can compete with its standoff capability. Sad, just sad.
BUMP!
http://iiaf.net/archive/aircraft/images/F14AtaxiKhatamiAFB_jpg.jpg
http://iiaf.net/archive/aircraft/images/f14sweptwing2_jpg.jpg
http://iiaf.net/archive/aircraft/images/iiaff14s_jpg.jpg
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