> Cheney killed the F-14.
I loved the F-14. Favorite plane, looked like a predator when it flew, and when you saw one with the rare configuration of four Phoenix, two Sparrow and two Sidewinder missiles, with the drop tanks on, it looked like a killing machine.
And when it took off in afterburner, it was the kind of thing any normal man gets a kick out of...loud noise and big flames.
The first time I ever saw a plane supersonic was a Tomcat, and it was...alien. It was unreal, to see this thing go zooming by faster than anything I had ever seen, and make absolutely no sound at all. It was unworldly to me, like a UFO.
Then the incredibly loud and hard edged “BOOOOOOM!”
But that said, the plane, I suspect, did have to go, I was told it was difficult to maintain, took a lot of man-hours and money to keep it going.
I believe it. I used to see three of them tied up on the fantail, side by side, nose cones pointed towards the bow, and trash cans underneath the planes to catch dripping fuel.
But, wow. what a plane.