Interview with Dave 'BIO' Baranek on the F-14 and TOPGUN 

Cheers Will!

Pro tip: watch series on flixzone. I've been using it for watching lots of of movies these days.

@Sonny Ronin Yup, been using Flixzone for since december myself =)

thanks for sharing your killed dreams. sorry to hear that but at least it it was your that and not people around you who killed it - the worst case scenario that I know. there is a saying 'bitterness prevent people from flying'

Similar here. So I skydived a lot........ got commercial and helicopter ratings, all for fun. Old now, retired.

TechGaming45 Cheers :)

Aircrew Interview keep them coming.

End of this month hopefully! :P

2 more weeks :)

I am too, still waiting.

Snort passed away

@@shannahuffman4655 Did he crash?

@@patrickflohe7427 in a different plane, yes and passed away

@@shannahuffman4655 Dang, that’s too bad. Very sad.

@@patrickflohe7427 Wasn’t that long ago maybe year. They just come out with the crash result s Not good

Glad to hear you enjoyed it, Tom!

A follow on of the Tomcat won't happen. Its role died with the Cold War, the F-35 has the legs and capabilities the Navy needs, the F-18 is a nice plane but it should have been kept alongside the F-14, way too short legged for a real conflict.

Thanks :). Hopefully we will get there one day.

Alexander Ryan-Jones I would be happy to interview him so maybe in the future.

He gets slated by fellow pilots, meant to be a proper bell-end. Would be interesting to see if they're right.

I think this would be the only Aircraft Interview video I would choose not to watch. But it's horses for courses, right? :)

Interesting question. On the one hand, it's nice that my former aircraft is still being flown "somewhere," but the bigger factor is that it is being flown by a regime that is the sworn enemy of my country, the USA. Is it still a threat? Yes. I'm sure that American and any potential coalition aircrews can handle it because we put a great deal of effort into our training, but they should not ignore it and I don't think they will. I suspect they would love to shoot down a Tomcat. When I was flying, some countries still flew the MiG-17, which was quite old by then. But we didn't ignore it, we trained to defeat it, along with other threats.

@@dandlb thank you for your wisdom.

Thanks very much :) Looks like a great lineup this year.

Cheers Takis.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-imv9ZH4kFy8.html

It wasn't live, however, we are doing a live Q&A with Dave on 30th July 7 pm UK time. Glad you enjoyed it Declan

Right awesome will look forward to seeing it loved the live thing you did with Mark Hasara was great thanks for the awesome videos

thefrecklepuny thanks very much.

Cheers mate!

Cheers! BIO kindly sent me a signed copy after the interview, and I can highly recommend it. Great stories, great photos and a top chap.

Cheers Simon. I shall keep an eye out for it

Cheers mate. I agree, his books are brilliant.

Roger Mahajan it is indeed!

Yeah, I think when Goose said "engine one is out," he meant "we've lost one of our two engines." They probably wrote it that way to emphasize that there are two engines. In my experience, we did not refer to them as 1 or 2, but Left and Right. So, this is yet another technical inaccuracy of the movie. But I still think it's a great movie: people are still watching it 37 years after it came out!

Cheers Marcel!

Thanks. I hope you enjoy what we have to offer :)

BIO is a top bloke.

Cheers

Cheers Simon.

It was the biggest one I had to hold coffee lol.

Thanks Jesse.

He was a Lieutenant jg, there are no Ltjg´s who are flight officers or aviators at 35+ years of age, hehe.

F-15

Sure I bet it does. Tomcat fanboys will never just give it up. Why doesn't the F-22 or F-35 have? Or any other jet in the past 40 years? Do you actually think the Tomcat's or Eagle's giant VG intakes are good for stealth? Both F-15 and F-14 designs are outdated. Stop trying to live vicariously with Tom Cruise.

It should say "Why doesn't the F-22 or F-35 have VG wings?"

Stealth is a useless concept? Gee, what was the only jet that went to downtown Baghdad the night of Desert Storm? The F-117. F-15, F-14, F-18, F-16, F-111 were not put in high ADZ, what was the reasoning? The teen series were great in the 1970's-1990's, but their days are over. Even China and the Russians are developing low observable jets. Although, I do agree with you the F-14D did have a good IRST and TVSU.

F-35C has a lot of legs, and the F-35A has more legs than most 4th Gen birds. F-35C has a longer combat radius than the F-14 with 2 tanks.

I think the F14s intakes are better for stealth than the F35, because the F35 is a hanger bird and the F14 will be in the air, although I suppose by that criteria a Cesna is a better fighter plane than the F35, and heck, maybe it is... Point is F35 and F22 aren't the soloution, just as much as Cesnas or F18s and F14s aren't, new planes are needed, the F14 went from table to IOC in a 4 year period, the F35 has been in development since about the late 80s early 90s, it's too outdated and old to be relevant anymore. A new series of fighter planes with a 4 year table to IOC is needed.

Are you 10, Mike, because that's what you sound like... A 10-year-old pissing all over the guy who owned a 1960s Mustang. And FYI, NOT all the F-14s were destroyed. There were around 100 preserved in museums around the US and at least one preserved at a aircraft museum in the UK. The USN still has RIOs so your point about Dave Baranek's knowledge not being useful is utter bullshit I'm happy to say. The mentality you express is what gets us into trouble in new wars when the mission planners and trainers forget the old tactics and training that have worked again and again in the past. It's utterly stupid to place complete faith in technology, especially newer, unproven technology. That attitude got the US military into a lot of trouble in Vietnam and before that Korea and World War II. The F-14 community had enough clout and somebody at NavAIR listened because almost half the Super Hornets built were two-seaters. They have a bunch of F-18F squadrons in service specifically because they value the second seater as the RIO/bombadier/navigator. There are too many instances where that second man has proven invaluable in reducing the pilot's workload and having a second seater has saved planes in any number of circumstances. The Tomcats that were SUPPOSED to be preserved at AMARC were destroyed because of politics (there's been a LOT bandied about online about Dick Cheney and his connection to McDonnell Douglas and favoritism on projects) NOT because the planes were obsolete. Those airframes had possibilities for being rehabbed and updated with the latest avionics and engines but they weren't. There have been planes preserved in the desert LONGER than those F-14s were that were reactivated for use by the US military or resold used to other countries so the issue was never the planes being "too worn" to be reused. Uh-uh. The "official story" is that the planes were destroyed to keep the Iranians from getting their hands on spare parts for their F-14s which is total B.S. I'm sorry but the Iranians can barely keep 10 of their planes together (of ANY kind) flying at any one time -- and that's with the black market AND their reverse engineering! The F-14s at AMARC were destroyed to keep them from EVER being reused by the USN... Somebody in the government WANTED the Navy to be forced to buy new planes but they were never going to be GRUMMAN planes after 1994! The reality is that Grumman Aerospace lost the political battle in Congress to McDonnell Douglas in the 1980s. There were problems with the F-14 but they were all fixable with the right technology, money, and politicial will. They NEVER had all those factors in place at one time so the F-14 became the redheaded stepchild while the newer kid on the block (the F-18) was talked up as the ultimate answer to the Navy's prayers all the while ignoring all the problems THAT design had! (That situation ultimately didn't help McD much, either... They lost contract after contract for follow-on planes like the A-12 and their civilian airliner business dried up. The F-15 was never a huge export success and even the F-18 had limited export appeal. They eventually merged with Boeing in the mid-1990s. That was only shortly after Grumman merged with Northrop in 1994.) The problem with the F-18 was that it was a compromised design from the start. It had significant drag and range issues stemming from the original YF-17 design (which is partly why that plane lost out to the F-16) that only got worse when the plane was redesigned for carrier use. It was reliable from an engine and overall maintenance standpoint BUT it was slower and had less range than most of its American contemporaries and even its immediate predecessor (F-4)! They're (F-18s) wonderful planes to watch fly overhead but the fact is they have to refuel more often and can't carry a weapons load as far as the A-6, the A-7, the F-4, or the F-14. That became very evident when they flew Navy planes over the Persian Gulf and Yugoslavia in the 1990s and early 2000s. What was the Navy plane that became the star of ground support and the go-to vehicle for BDA in the front theater? The F-14! It was incredibly adaptable and long-ranged but those qualities were only appreciated in the last decade of service when it was well past the production shutdown. The problem with reviving production isn't that they can't build the planes new. The issue is the subcontractors. Some of those companies were set up to supply specific parts for one program and when that weapons program is shut down, that's it for the supply of those parts that subcontractor built. That's what make program restarts expensive.

Mike, The Tomcat argument is secondary to what you did. You INSULTED a retired serviceman in your comments whether you realize that or not. He gave 20 years of his life in service to his country. Secondly, you insulted his work experience by stating explicitly that it was worth nothing in the present-day. YOU SAID THAT. You want to spin it and make it sound otherwise, go head, but 100 other people have probably read your words since yesterday so they know what you said! That was extremely ignorant writing and completely false given what happened with the F-18 Super Hornet situation. The US Navy bought almost half those planes set up as two-seaters specifically to maintain continuity between two-men teams. RIOs are still around in the US Navy! The RIO's have been extremely beneficial for naval aviation since the F-4 days and you don't throw away the knowledge and two-men teams unless you're a complete moron. I'm done with this. Not gonna argue with you anymore because you don't know what you're talking about.

You're comment seems a bit odd. The reason you may hear the same stories from this man is that he's asked to tell them. He's written a book that he has done and continues to do press for. He is invited to speaking engagements for various subjects, and also to talk about his experiences. People attend these functions. Hell, I even bought his book in Ithaca, NY, while I was doing a job out there, and then just happened to run into him at a museum near my home the following weekend and asked him to sign my copy (I had to go home and get the book). We chatted about fighter tactics, energy management, some of the changes over the years in tactics, and it was a really fun one on one discussion. It was also insightful to hear about how they developed their train His path to being able to obtain that particular job is still valid to this day. I also believe his civilian job relies on his experience as a RIO, as it also has many other people who had flown that generation of aircraft, including WSO's and BN's. I can understand why YOU may be totally disinterested by what he has to say. Why do you presume that few others actually do?

Who are you to say what is or isn't interesting? Jesus you're cringe as hell and you sound like a sanctimonious prick that no one wants to be around. It's actually embarrassing some of this drivel.

If you didnt like the stories, find another channel. Seems like you would have been more interested in hearing how the Soviet Union was born and how The Hunt For Red October got filmed. Last time I checked there were no F-14 Tomcat pilots still in high school. Regardless if you feel his stories were obsolete there are tons of DCS F-14 Tomcat drivers interested in hearing his "stories". Also his Ace Combat Experience channel with CRASH is even more interesting than this interview. I'm sure he doesnt need you of all people to feel sad for him, the checks he's getting far outweigh yours.