Posted on 04/05/2015 8:55:11 AM PDT by pinochet
Thanks Jimmy Carter
IIRC somebody here said that the F-14 is still better than most planes in the air — but too expensive to maintain?
I would not want to be anywhere near 40 year old jets that have been poorly maintained.
Not to worry I imagine we will soon have a “Diverse” group of pilots admitted by lower standards. That will make things fair if we ever have to engage in aerial combat with Iranians.
No. The best F-14 pilots are now F-18 pilots. The Iranians are the most experienced F-14 pilots still flying F-14’s because they are the ONLY ones still flying F-14’s.
F-14 is obsolete in the U.S. replaced by the F-18. Although I never worked around the Tomcat I know many who did (maintainers, Military and civilian). A lot of folks loved that platform and were saddened to see it go.
Poor analysis based on limited facts.
I’m waiting to hear that Obama has agreed to selling F-14 replacement parts to Iran.
It was a 60's design built in the 70's. They got old and were deck officer nightmares thanks to all the maintenance they required.
It was designed as a platform for the AIM 54 Phoenix missile, a white elephant that never worked as planned. It was only launched twice in combat with no hits.
One of my favorites simply based on looks.
>>>I’m waiting to hear that Obama has agreed to selling F-14 replacement parts to Iran
Iran has gained expertise in reverse engineering. They are already manufacturing spares for their F-14s. Iran began manufacturing its own fighter Jets based on the American F-5 fighter jet in the 1990s, and has already learnt how to make technology upgrades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Saeqeh
How old are those jets and how is the maintenance on them plus where would they get spare parts?
During the 1970’s I trained Iranian pilots at Moody AFB in Valdosta Georgia. I found them to be sex-crazed, booze addled morons. We had to place a safety pilot in the aircraft when they soloed to keep them from getting lost.
So? A bunch of so so Iranian pilots bested a bunch of D+ Iraqi pilots. Now put them up agains’t our Top Guns. Can you say massacre?
Had a friend who worked on the assembly of the F-14’s built at the now defunct Grummans Plant at Bethpage, NY on Long Island. Northrup later bought out Grumman and that was that.
One of the marketing points of the F-18 was a significantly reduced mmh/fh.
And of course, that means more sorties in maintained aircraft, in theory.
How is that a solo then?
The trainers that I knew (in California) said that one of the biggest hurdles in teaching the Iranians/Middle Easterners, was that in their culture, it was denigrating to appear eager to learn and a good student.
Our guys were extremely frustrated by the ‘too cool for school’ attitudes against learning, that made it so hard to teach them well. Pilot trainers said that even when the student loved the classes, that he would act indifferent and as though it was beneath him.
Young Iranian men were also the most cliched rich guys I ever saw, they lived very well in their homes in La Jolla, with silk shirts and rich clothing scattered around the bedrooms and the party life, all being sons of the wealthy leaders from back home in Iran. I did like the Iranians though, both the very rich sons of the 70s, and the “colonels” running small businesses and pizza parlors after the Shah fell, and they fled to America.
I thought all F-14s and parts were destroyed in the US.
To the point that the static F-14 on the JAG TV show had to be surrendered (even though it’s backbone had been severed to make it unusable).
So Iran could get no parts.
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