That’s my big brother! LT. Mike “Smitty” Smith. Protege of the late - GREAT - Dale “Snort” Snodgrass and an aerial artist in his own right. I must have seen this routine at least a half dozen times and it never got old; especially from the VIP tent! “Thunderstruck,” “Why” and “Good Riddance.” How else does one sum up the ‘90s?! Hat’s off to ya brutha! Thanks for posting.
Only the top 2% of pilots and RIOs go to the RAG to instruct. Then being selected to be a demo pilot is an honor above that. I always called the Tomcat demo team the Blue Angels varsity team.
That's awesome! The Tomcat is my favorite plane. I've never gotten to see it fly.. missing my only opportunity at an airshow by MINUTES. I've been working on memorizing your brother's specific routine practicing it often in Microsoft Flight Simulator.
This is the aircraft that brought me into the world of Aviation since when I was 3 years old. On 2006, when they announce the retirement, I was doubting it until I saw the news. I was heartbroken. This F-14D Super Tomcat is a certify celebration in the Aviation world. He has his own movie "Top Gun 1986", Video games from Genesis to today's gaming like Ace Combat, Books, comics, cartoon shows "Swat Katz", Shirts, and many more than any other fighter aircraft in existence. We miss you F-14 Tomcat!
I feel lucky to have been able to witness in person the mighty Tomcat as I attended a few airshows as a kid. It’s sad to know that those generations that missed it will never experience something quite like it.
You are lucky Myf attended NAS Alameda CA air show in the late 60s with Blue Angels in F4s flying supersonic at low level over the airfield. You couldn't follow with your eyes like snapshots they were gone and then BOOM! That was last supersonic flight over the Bay Area as it was then banned by commies.
I miss the Big Cat! :( best plane that ever existed! I would sign a million petitions to congress to have Grumman build at least a couple of Tomcats just for airshows! Would love to see one fly in person someday.. I never got a chance
It's the love of my life too! And I got to touch a couple at a museum and on the USS Hornet :D you should go there! The Hornet is in Alameda, California and the other Tomcat is at the Aerospace Museum of California at Mcclellan
Ohhh I'm so jealous! Would love to see them there! I know our country nowadays thinks that Iran is an "enemy" but I haven't seen any indications lol I consider you an ally and a friend :)
***** I just LOVE the way they look and sound :D I love how enormous and beautiful they are. Also is super duper fast and can turn like crazy despite its huge size!
@@SerratedEdges1 Um... its very clearly NOT sped up. No idea how people actually think that. If you watch any snodgrass demos, he does stuff like this quite often. Also, the f14 was known for its turning ability...
@@jonnyj. This is NOT Snodgrass at the controls. That is Smitty piloting. You even see Snodgrass walk up at the end to shake hands with the pilot and RIO.
Totally agree. The Navy try to make the Hornet to be "cheap Tomcat," which they failed miserably, that they had to enlarge the original Hornet design, and still falls far short of Tomcat's legendary performance, especially, in terms of maneuverability, payload/range, and to sneak up at someone at sea level at supersonic speed, where Hornet/Super Hornet failed miserably due to excessive drag and excessive fuel consumption. Try hanging a couple of Phoenix missile on Super Hornet and it will become a truck, while the Tomcat can carry 4 of them comfortably.
It was killed due to Hornet mafia politics feeding a lot of money to the Congress. It is well documented. ALL agree in the Navy that F-8 Hornet or Super Hornet had nothing on the F-14 except modern control systems and better avionics. That is it. When it came to raw airframe performance, efficiency, power, thrust, energy management, combat range, payload capacity and flexibility and turn capabilities, F-14 was all over the F-18 so much so that Navy would send a pair of F-14s on strike missions in Iraq in 2003 - 2006 to protect the Hornet strike from the MIGs.
I'd say the Cat was definitely at the end of its service life. A shame they couldn't have given it the redesign effort that the F-15 is getting, with all the modern avionics and fly by wire controls.
@@CaptainFantastik1 That is a myth. Navy wanted brand new F-14D Super Tomcats to be built. It was not about extending life of old airframes. It was about building upon the very successful F-14D Super Tomcat and getting more built. It eas the best fighter/interceptor/air to ground strike fighter Navy ever got. Congress in the pockets of Hornet mafia (especially Dick Cheney), decided to funnel all of that money at over $5 billion for research and development of a far inferior Super Hornet.
Turned a lot of wrenches on those birds for the Reapers, 87-90! I've watched a lot of PMCF's close to this... but not as good. Great flying!!!😊 RIP Snort. You're sorely missed.😢
HOLY SHIT! This F-14 kicked the skies' ass hard! And what the hell is up with that climb rate at 5:55? Was it an F-14 or was it a rocket? My girlfriend can wait because im getting off on the Tomcat tonight!.....
Still the baddest cat on the block! After the bump in thrust with the 32,000lbs X2 GE engines it became the Navy's force to be reckoned with. They needed that upgrade 15 years earlier along with the 15 year to late digital!
Hands down the best Tomcat demo I have ever seen. Got a chance to see a demo in '97 at Charleston AFB, but nowhere near the level this pilot is pushing it!!
That is a bad ass plane. There is nothing today to match it real talk. It has great power and excellent maneuvering. If the would equip it with todays specifications that plane would be elite!
Saw them at Dayton a few times. Definitely the most impressive displays I ever saw. The F-35 at Paris was so sad. And they are killing the A-10! That's just so wrong.
F-14 Tomcat Forever! The one and only. The greatest! Dale 'Snort' Snodgrass was arguably the best F-14 pilot bar none. Takes off and immediately does an inverted roll in full zone 5 afterburn while still being under 100 feet from the ground. This is the F-14B and at 5:55 you see that climb rate at how it goes up to around 15,000 feet in no time.
He wasn't flying this demo. You can see him praising the crew who did, both Lieutenants (10:46), at the end of the video (13:15). Snodgrass was a Captain by 1998.
was that Dale Snodgrass flying? If not, this pilot threw that Cat around the sky just like Dale liked to. Very sharp and distinctive piloting. Took an real awesome pilot and Rio to get F14 to dance like that.
One of my dads friends got to go up in the f 14 tomcat with his college partner they launch off a air craft carrier in 1983 they launched off the us midway it was the craziest story my dad told me
Tomcat has variable intakes, there are parts moving inside the intake duct...we can't actually see them moving but they do....in the f-15 the whole intake moves and we can easily see it moving
My brother flew the tomcat and was in desert storm and even went to top gun not bad for an old country boy from North Carolina he took my sister and brother in-law up near Maryland area where pilots trained touch and go landings they had a run way painted to look like a carrier deck and a light to copy a moving deck 4 planes 1 touch then 2 nd four in All just like a merry go round pretty cool 😮😊
Dickhead Cheney, who was in the pockets of the so called McDonnell Douglas F18 gang. They gave him a lot of money to make sure the Tomcat refit was cancelled and the garbage Hornet got all the money.
Well the F-14 has 55,000 pounds of thrust over the F-15 30,000 pounds of thrust. When the F-14 has it's wings swept back to 68 degrees it's speed is greatly increased. Not to mention it's problems with the airframe.
The Government really screwed up when it parked the Tom Cat. a set of New GE engines would had been the ticket. bringing it up to date tech wise it still be the air boss of today. Amazing display.
Hi wittmann51. I'm an aviation enthusiast and have an instrumental music project called Turn 'n Burn in which I try to pay homage to the F-14 (I use F-14s in any visual artwork and song titles are Top Gun references. The name Turn 'n Burn is itself a Top Gun reference). I'd love to take this footage of the F-14 in flight and cut it with my music. Would you allow for this, provided I give full credit and link viewers back to this video? Appreciate you either way, thanks for making this footage available to watch for all of us on RU-vid.
I would love to grab all of the politicians that had a hand in canceling the F-14, show them the takeoff & the climb @ 5:55, and slap the crap out of them! With all the money they wasted on the F-22 & JSF, they could've easily updated the Tomcats! Even cycled out the older models with more up to date ones!
How in fucks name is the F-14 even on par with the F-22 and F-35? You have no idea what you are talking about. The F-14 provides nothing special in terms of capability. It is old, complicated, and very expensive. THe AIM-54 isn't even that great. Its range is matched by AIM-120D and the AWG-9 isn't particularly impressive compared to other radar systems. F-35 and F-22 have better range and on top of that, they are both more agile. Stop being nostalgic.
@@Nine-TailedFox4 the f14 nowadays would be a better aircraft than the f15, it was just a matter of upgrading the tecnology, electronic system, and those stuff and we'd have an incredible machine now. The f35 and f22 are a failure, they are also too expensive too maintain.
@@lobo3695 take a look at the 2019 SAR documents and then talk to me about "failures". Ignorant fools constantly talking about thing sthey don't know. Too costly to maintain? The F-14 was upwards of 40,000 dollars CPFH. The F-35 is 36k. Miss me with your nonsense.
No, it's a B. It has the silver nozzle petals of the General Electric engines and the "face curtain" black/yellow ejection seat handles above the crew's heads. The A models had the black Pratt and Whitney nozzles and the same face curtain ejection handles, while a D variant would have teh same silver engine nozzles as the B but since teh D was the only Tomcat to get the newer NACES ejection seat, the overhead face curtain ejection handles were gone, leaving the crotch ejection handle alone. A's= face curtain & crotch ejection handles, black P&W engine nozzles A+'s/B's=face curtain & crotch handles and silver engine nozzles D's=crotch handles and silver engine nozzles
What are you talking about? The F-14D's engine are rated at 27,800 lbs/thust each and the F-15E is rated at 29,160 lbs/thrust with both planes having two engines.
