Since the introduction of the Top Gun movie, this fighter aircraft has become one of my favorite. It is a dedicated fighter interceptor that can fight any fighter in the enemy's inventory. The Navy should never retire the F-14, but instead they should keep and upgrade it like their predecessors, the Viper and the Eagle. The deadly arsenal of the Tomcats is over 100 mile range Phoenix missle .
Costs The A-10 upgrade package, per airframe, is as expensive as an F-35A, new if the production line, per unit. Or laymans terms, you can either Upgrade each A-10 or procure a similar amount of F-35A's for about the same money For the Tomcat, Aerodynamic understanding had allowed for many aircrafts to Fly Supersonic without sacrificing much low-speed capabilities, making a Variable-Sweep wing more of a liability, especially in maintenance, the Phoenix was also another reason for debacle, as it stands, the AIM-120D can reach a reported possible range of 100 miles, knowing anything about US statement of capabilities, its an undershoot, and AIM-260 is busy in the works So you mean to tell me that the USN is better off with a Maintenance nightmare of an Aircraft, that costs per unit on F-22 RAPTOR levels, whose production run ended in 1991,with a Missile older than either of us, with a cost of $3M/unit, than with a 5th Gen Stealth Fighter, with state of the art sensors, jamming, costing 1/3rd of the Tomcat per unit, currently under production, armed with a Missile matching the Phoenix's capability at 1/3rd of the price, and soon to be armed with a missile surpassing all known MRAAM's & LRAAM's As much as I like the Tomcat, the writing was on the wall in 1991, had it not been for the D model, the Tomcat wouldn't see the turn of the century while in American Service, and the only reasons why we so fondly remember it, is because Topgun, muh swing-wing, and muh phoenix, because cool factor
Hahaha. What a funny joke. By the way, Iran also claim they have the Qaher stealth fighter usually seen taxiing on their runway. Iran should let it go and fight F-35 for allahufackbar.
