And lost air superiority (and a lot of pilots lives) in combat. 35 years is a good run, no way this one was going to reach an operational age of 55 years) but this bird belongs to history now.
Just for the F-18 development money we could have continued building the F-14 for another twenty years.And lost air superiority (and a lot of pilots lives) in combat.
That would make sense if you could specify which carrier-suitable plane is superior to the F-14 in performance. The F - 18 was designed to be lower in cost than the F-14, not to have superior performance. It doesn't offer a performance advantage at any altitude whatsoever, and it can't maneuver better either.The F-14 has the performance edge everywhere, and it especially performs better when the F-18 is out of gas. Which happens remarkably quickly in high speed - for a slow plane like the F-18 - flight.
According to this thread, even the E/F "version of the F-18" - it's actually essentially an entirely new aircraft compared to prior versions of the F-18 - can't carry a weapon load to a target as distant as you almost inevitably want to engage. And with the retirement of the "obsolete" KA-6D, the Navy doesn't have a carrier - suitable airframe which has the speed and payload to refuel jet fighters.
The most you can do with the F-18 is defend the surface fleet from air attack. If you try to attack a land target, you need to get your carrier close enough to the target that it is hard to defend the carrier from counterattack. Lacking a fighter bomber with the range and payload of the F-14, the carrier as a weapon is in danger of obsolescence.