I wish the navy would let someone restore one and fly it at airshows. There is a company restoring a f4 phantom. There is a guy in Ohio that restored a few harriers.
Absolutely! I find it so pity when I read comments bashing the tomcat as inferior to the F-15 eagle or the F/A-18. I think it’s interesting that Grumman went playing such a pivotal role as a fighter manufacturer to losing their place almost entirely. I think something really unfair happened, maybe bad management, who knows. I love this fighter it truly is iconic and it has a special place that no other fighter has, not even the modern state of the art fighters have.
I guess I'm lucky, I got to see 5 or 6 Tomcat demo's in various airshows over the years. I remember how my heart would pound with excitement and pride as my ears were hammered. Now I watch these old videos with tears in my eyes. What a beautiful, incredible machine these birds were! :(
I was on board the USS Saratoga CVA 60 in 1969 and we had f4j phantoms on board. To this day. They are my favorite plane. However, the f-14 tomcat to me is simply irreplaceable and is to me, one of the greatest planes of all time. Absolutely love it. Wish we had some more.
Same. I worked on F-15s when I joined the Air Force and it is dear to me. But there’s no denying that the Tomcat is a rad jet. One of the baddest ever.
Onboard CV-64 WEAPONS DEPT. G-1 DIV. VF-24 & VF-211. i have yet to see an aircraft blow me away as much as the first time i saw my boats F-14 Squadrons in 1981'.
The thing was an absolute monster. Extremely nimble and maneuverable for its size and with the GE-F110 engines, it produced so much thrust that it could rocket up to 50,0000+ feet in less than 45 - 50 seconds.
There's nothing better than watching the wings of the f-14 or f-111 flex at the tips while pulling up at full forward sweep. That shit has to rattle your teeth as it fights to raise the you, your tennis partner, and the tennis court into the clouds.
@@geemanbmw True, the GE engines…but having been to many air shows…the Navy boys just put on a better show, they fly lower, faster, louder than the Air Force jocks. The F-14 was such a crowd pleaser.
Love it!!! These jets are Badass! To bad they are retired. They still have a great radar system and I believe they could/should be used still(to this day),by our NAVY,and could still be relevant in todays battles...IMO
Extremely relevant. Especially since we're moving towards super cruise stealth fighters that launch missiles beyond visual range. The tomcat would carry the phoenix missiles, the longest range of all A2A missiles and they can only fit the big girl - no other jet can mount them. Would be awesome to see a stealth, modernized return of the big cat.
@@qasimmir7117 Partially agreed. On the one side the almighty buck rules everything, while at the same time our Congress thinks nothing of throwing our money away by the billions anyway. I don't know how it would or could compare today to our newest Super Hornets, but as Hogan's above comments, a major upgrade/rebuild may have also addressed the cost per flight hour as well. A Super Tomcat might have been a spectacular aircraft, but we'll never know now. The Tomcat is one of my all time favorite machines on the planet and I'm sick every time I think of what they did to them.
Maybe you didn't catch the guy, "last Tomcat demonstration". That plane, unless it was one of the lucky few that went to a museum, is now cut and ground up into 10's of 1,000's of useless little pieces! All Tomcats were completely destroyed. There will never be another Tomcat demo. Ever.
@@benjaminperez7328 Actually I think there are 5! Forgot the imagery date but it was fairly recent, like early '21 I think. I don't know how or why they escaped the grinders but I'm so far grateful!
Meagan Varley said she got a stern speaking to for telling a hornet pilot going into the break at 350 was too slow for her to easily control the Tomcat with swept wings. In this and other demo videos the announcers unapologetically tell the crowd they hit the break at 450 to 500 Lovely airplane!
Tomcats have been getting told off for hitting the Nellis Speed limits and the CO tryign to speed measure em with markers on the window, but then the tomcats just went lower or did other tricks to keep up the the speed.. including tapping the burner in the break to keep it sporting.
@@stijnvandamme76 and they wonder why people leave for the airlines. Edit And they wonder why people who train for years to get their dream job leave for the airlines as soon as they are eligible.
@@navymace8083 because this F-14 from this video, I mean totally confused. And I meant to say on my comment: it almost looks like the F-14B, but I'm not really sure if this is the d model. That's what I meant to say on my comment. So anyway on this video of watching the F-14, I really got very confused if this is the F-14B or F-14D. And if it was the F-14D they could have said super tomcat instead of tomcat on this video, because I found out that's what they call the F-14D. They call it the super tomcat. So again I want to know if this is really the F-14B or the F-14D ?
I love the Tomcat too. As well as Capt. Snort Snodgrass, but I think the F-14 and its variants were kinda underpowered. Especially the A model. It was just too big a fighter in my opinion with limited maneuverability. Forget Top Gun. Unless Snort was flying, an F-15 or F-16 could easily have taken it. The Navy has always done the best with what they have been given. Don't get me started on the Marines.
You know honestly, they should have kept this Jet Fighter in the Air Force, for at least another ten years. You're correct that it did require a ton of maitenance hours, per flight hours. There were a few reasons, this sexy Jet Fighter was retired. One big reason, it's size, check out some videos and/or photos of a top-down view of these beasts on the Flight Deck of their Aircraft Carriers. It's all about that Mighty Dollar in the end, though. The Big Wigs start looking at how much money is going into an aging platform. If they don't like what they are seeing, that certain platform is placed on the Chopping Block.
No that is not the reason. Navy was asking for NEW F-14D Super Tomcats that were built/developed in the 90s. Navy wanted 155 new F-14D of them. In the early 90s, Navy pushed hard for new Tomcats to be built because the Super Tomcat was the best fighter Navy ever had. However, Dick Cheney/Congress were in the pocket of Hornet mafia. It is a well known fact in the Navy circles. The F-14D Super Tomcat could today with minor upgrades be absolutely one of the best 4th generation fighter. It was an absolute beast with full digital avionics and 60,000 lbsf of thrust.
It is definitely not haha. All leftover Tomcats in museums are highly regulated by the US Navy due to Iran and there are no civilian owned F-14s. The hoops to jump through, let alone Iran, would preclude that from happening.
