The Grumman F-14 Tomcat, under contract with the Navy, went through an intense program of testing... with the very first flight of the #1 prototype taking place on December 21, 1970. Subsequent prototypes were subjected to a variety of tests to meet the stringent deadline and performance requirements, and the F-14 shown in this film was the 12th one, known as Prototype 1X. This was used for high-speed handling tests.
This rare and beautiful 10-minute 16mm film came in the door at Harbor Digitizing (Friday Harbor, Washington), along with a large batch of other aero footage from the time. The test-pilot client, who prefers to remain anonymous, has kindly agreed to let me post this on RU-vid for posterity.
The film shows the 1X prototype on its first three flights, between August 31 and September 2, 1971. It was digitized at 2K resolution, with no post-processing other than the credit line on the title screen. It was professionally produced by Grumman, with excellent color and stability.
Movie, video, and still-image digitizing:
harbordigitizi...
Nomadic Research Labs archive (microship.com)
26 авг 2024