Interview with Kurt Schroeder on Testing and Developing the F-14 (Part 2)

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Kurt Schroeder was a US Navy F-4 and F-8 pilot and eventually became the Chief test pilot for Grumman flying the F-14 Tomcat.
Kurt talks about the F-14 programme in detail and how it progressed over time.
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12 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 48

@flash7843 6 лет назад

I had the privilege of working with Kurt during the F-14 A+ (aka F-14B) high-alpha testing. Kurt was amazing...he would hang after the formal debrief and help us troubleshoot issues. Kurt is one of the most amazing persons that I have encountered.

@Aircrewinterview 6 лет назад

Wow that must have been awesome.

@timdickson7675 3 года назад

I didn't think these interviews could get much better ..but they have. What a class act this pilot is ? Tail sliding at 40,000ft, departure recovery from single engine failure with the other engine still in afterburner, simulated carrier landings in every possible attitude but the correct one, 800 knots 5,000ft switch of the flight control augmentation control and "hit " the control stick. Well I am very happy the gentleman courtesy of his undoubted skill, professionalism and confidence in the engineers and technicians around .......is now able to enjoy some crab fishing. Fabulous interview.

@Aircrewinterview 3 года назад

Thanks very much, Tim. Great to hear you enjoyed it.

@RaduB. 5 лет назад

Such a great guy! Two videos were certainly not enough... Thanks for introducing him to us!

@jimbrown5268 2 года назад

Loved this. Thanks Kurt and Mike

@AvengerII 7 лет назад

Very good interview! I'm sorry to see some people gave you grief over aspects of the Skype session you couldn't control. That's unfortunate and I wish such people would grow up! Schroeder was an interesting individual, IMHO. He was born at the rate time and had the enviable of flying some of the greatest fighters and experimental machines ever built. I should have recognized him immediately... He gave a talk a while back in California (Peninsula Seniors) about the X-29. He obviously liked that plane quite a bit! As far as the Tomcat goes, the brightly painted plane (gloss white, carmine red stripes with dark blue/black pinstriping) with the legend "Super Tomcat" on the vertical tales was the testbed for the F110 engine back in the 1980s. (This was the original F-14B prototype, in storage for seven years, reactivated twice in 1981 and 1986 to test the F110 engine [originally F101-DFE "derivative fighter engine" in prototype, later redesignated F110]. It was the second American plane -- after the YF-17 -- to supercruise. The F-14 "Super Tomcat" supercruised in flight tests in 1989 I believe. The first supercruising fighter jet was one of the English Electric Lightning prototypes...) You had a picture or two of the "Super Tomcat" courtesy of Mr. Schroeder. It was the Seventh Tomcat, BuAer 157986, which originally flew in 1973-1974 with the TF30 AND F401 engines. First flight was with one TF30 and one F401 before it was fitted with twin F401's. The "Super Tomcat" flew in many test programs until it was retired in the mid-1990s after the F-14 production was cancelled. It's been preserved and sits on top of the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier museum in New York City. They, unfortunately, for whatever reasons, decided to remove the F110 engines (probably to cycle back into the active Navy fleet of F-14s) and refit the airframe with TF30 exhaust nozzles which is ironic... The plane NEVER flew with twin TF30s during its flying career! They really should have retired it with F110 nozzles but I'm guessing economy drove that decision to retire it with the P & W TF30 nozzles. (The F110 nozzles, again, were needed for the active F-14 fleet at the time.) Still, the plane (last I saw in pictures) has the blue General Electric logo painted on the side on one of the engine nacelles! The F401 engine intended for the F-14B in the 1970s had some developmental issues related to the fact that it was a scaled-up F100. The P & W F100, itself, had problems related to flawed presumptions on how the pilots would regulate the engine during dogfights -- these "cyclings" were based on the way the GE J79 was employed in the F-104 and F-4. Pilots tended to leave the engines at full power or in afterburner. The problem was that the new generation of fighters beginning with the F-14 and F-15 were much more maneuverable than their predecessors and aerodynamically leaps and bounds ahead of the F-4. Unlike the F-4, they didn't need to operate in full engine (afterburner) all the time which meant the turbofans (TF30 and F100) were throttled back-and-forth repeatedly and that led to fan sections wearing out quicker, and, in some cases, fanblade components breaking off. The issues with those engines weren't resolved until the next generation of afterburning turbofans (F404 and F110 along with the revised F100-PW-220) entered service in the 1980s. Most Navy guys will say the TF30 was NEVER fully fixed to the satisfaction of the F-14 crews and maintenance guys BUT the money was never there to fully re-engine the F-14 fleet much as the F-14 program managers would have liked that to happen in the early 1980s. Had the money been available, the F-14 managers would haved liked to have at least retired ALL the TF30s from fleet service by 1997 and have an all F-14D fleet (including surviving A- and B-models refit to F-14D standard). As history unfolded, the last TF30-powered F-14A was not decommissioned (along with the AIM-54 Phoenix missile) until 2004. The F-14B followed a year later, and then the last F-14D flew on October 4, 2006 to a museum in New York.

@griffn14 7 лет назад

Do you maybe know why are the vertical stabilizers on the F-14 canted out a couple of degrees? Couldn't find the answer on the web, but it is quite clear that every little detail on these jets is there for a good reason.

@AvengerII 7 лет назад

It's probably a structural strength detail... Who knows? Those tails are probably less than 4-degrees from vertical. I'm sure wind tunnel tests told them this was the best angle to set the vertical tails at for rudder control. Unfortunately, the lead designer, Bob Kress, is dead now. He or one of the other F-14 design engineers would have been able to say. I know that the F-14 is about 16ft tall... The height of the aircraft and clearance needed to service the underbelly is part of the reason why plane was never carried on ships smaller than the Forrestal class carriers. There simply wasn't adequate hangar height clearance on the Midway class ships to comfortably stow Tomcats below deck. The hangar deck on the Midway ships was less than 18 ft tall! F-14s WERE temporarily housed on Midway ships during exercises. They were recovered and launched from those ships so it wasn't that they COULDN'T land F-14s on Midway ships it just wasn't practical to station them permanently there because of the hangar deck issues. (The largest fighter ever carried by Midway ships regularly was the F-4. The Midways ended their service as homes for F-18 squadrons.) I also noticed in video that the F-14s launched clean from the USS Coral Sea with no external stores at military power. Those were A-models. It probably means that the Midway ships did NOT have adequate jet blast deflectors to cope with the TF30 whether it was issues with the temperature of the exhaust or (more likely) the wide spacing of the engines. (There was allegedly an afterburner launch of an F-14A from USS Midway but they had to clear off every other plane from deck because the afterburner blast extends over a hundred feet behind the plane and would have scorched any plane OR person directly behind the Tomcat! Again, the Midway's jet blast deflectors were NOT adequate to deal with F-14 engines in full afterburner. I'm thinking it was more a spacing issue than heat resistance against full afterburner take-off but I could be wrong...) Every other twin-engine jet ever deployed on carriers had its engines positioned side-by-side, close together. F-14 engines have 9-ft separation center-to-center line of the engines! The F-18 has severely outward canted vertical tails (better than 25-degrees from vertical) as a carry-over feature from the YF-17. There are two benefits to this -- 1) you increase the effective rudder control area without making the plane taller (keeping in mind hangar deck restrictions); 2) it's actually a good stealth/RCS reduction measure. Boeing had planned to build a "stealthier" F-15 (called "Silent Eagle"; it would have been an F-15 variant) with canted vertical tails like the F-18 to reduce that plane's RCS which is also considerable. With RCS, any purely vertical structure or junction that meets at 90-degree angles is a good reflective surface. The F-14 and F-15 have tons of 90-degree, close to 90-degree junctions on their airframes AND inlet designs that show off the turbofan compressor blades which are excellent radar wave reflectors. The F-14 and F-15 are horribly non-stealthy -- but then again, so is about any fighter jet designed prior to the F-22! On the SR-71, the vertical tails were canted inward because they were far enough apart to do this and they actually bounced radar waves because and forth between them and scattered radar return. The SR-71 had a FAR smaller RCS return than the F-14. Fighters are too generally too small to cant the vertical tails inward but they've found canting outward is still effective to scatter radar waves (and reduce the RCS return of a plane). The original Have Blue (predecessor to the F-117) had inward canted tails but they reversed the orientation of the vertical tails for the F-117 and canted them outward on the later plane... I imagine it was a control issue because the F-117's vertical tails were also bigger in relation to the rest of the airframe and mounted differently than the Have Blue planes.

@griffn14 7 лет назад

Thanks! One would think that there's not much of a difference if they were set at 0 or 4 degrees, so why not leave it at 0. As you say, probably a result of wind tunnel tests.

@Aircrewinterview 7 лет назад

AvengerII thanks very much. Yeah sometimes Skype interviews can be difficult but as long as the majority are enjoying it and you enjoyed Kurts story that's what matters :)

@griffn14 7 лет назад

F-14 pilot answered me on another video ( F-14 flat spin test goes wrong) that the cant is there to minimize the effect of turbulent air coming off the intakes at high AoA, but he was not completely sure. He also mentioned that the fins were flopping around a lot at high G and AoA - almost +/- a foot at the tip ( WOW!!!! )

@LRRPFco52 6 лет назад

The joke at the end was hilarious. Very good interview with unique insights into the test program of the F-14, different upgrades and production models, as well as program history you won't hear elsewhere.

@thefrecklepuny 7 лет назад

Yet another good interview. Watched pt1 yesterday. The other 'inferior replacement'.......mmmmm.......couldn't be referring to the Super Hornet could he? ;-)

@simonrichardson5077 7 лет назад

Always great videos,thanks :-)

@Tracks777 7 лет назад

Nice video! Keep it up!

@johns.7609 7 лет назад

Find a reason to keep interviewing him please.

@erictaylor5462 3 года назад

He gets lots of great interviews.

@e30kitty 3 года назад

If you haven't seen, this could also be very interessting for you: "F-14 Design Evolution" ( PeninsulaSrsVideos ). It's done byformer Northrop Grumman VP Mike Ciminera

@phillipneal9289 5 лет назад

Top man. Pleasure to listen to him speak

@siyz250 Год назад

Great interview/s! I first listened to Kurt on "The F-14 Tomcast" podcast (it's the first episode). Was fascinated with developing the F-14 and my interest (re kindled childhood interest) was again re kindled. After all I have learned about the machine and it's operators/operations the 1 fact I just can't understand is how hamstrung the aircraft was with the TF30 engines and how neither Pratt & Whitney nor the US Navy got the machine fixed to deliver what was originally planned till more than a decade later. I think 25 aircraft were lost in the first 5 years directly related to the TF30 engine.

@CT-go5ii 5 лет назад

Awesome interview! It was great how he explain how the F14s was much better aircraft then the F18 Super Hornet.

@Josh-hr5mc 5 лет назад

I really can't imagine a F14 with Fly by wire, modern radar and weapons system, thrust vectoring and modern 110 engines. That alone makes it sound a hell of alot better than a 35. I would love to hear from someone at Grumman who was involved in the Super Tomcat 21 planning

@siyz250 Год назад

I believe a big part of why the F-14 was retired was because Grumman fell out with the defense heads in the US government. They canned a machine that had better range, top speed, time to climb, better loiter, better/bigger weapon load equal or better dogfighter with a jack of all trades & master of none F-18. If you watch the doco on the fly off between the F-35 & Boeing product you will see that Boeing wins (or tries to) win contracts on building the cheapest option. Unfortunately the navy always has seemed to have the least money for aircraft of the forces?

@phillipneal9289 5 лет назад

Mobile phones eh! 1-1 on that one. Another excellent interview,it just keeps on coming . Again great work guys 😁

@JamesM-eh5ot 6 лет назад

Seems a great guy, and pilot. Enjoyed listening.

@johngisbourne7197 5 лет назад

Super interesting person and a fantastic listen.

@MattThornton87 6 лет назад

Superb!

@Aircrewinterview 6 лет назад

Cheers

@ryankc3631 6 лет назад

Anytime, Baby!

@thetreblerebel 4 года назад

The F8 was one helluva fighter, true fighter pilots flew that bad boy

@erictaylor5462 3 года назад

38:00 A friend of mine went on a blind date with a guy who said he was a fighter pilot, but she knew right away he was a liar when he wanted to talk about her.

@Aircrewinterview 3 года назад

😆

@Hawktangofive1 5 лет назад

Hi, Great video. Hawk out!!

@Aircrewinterview 5 лет назад

Thanks!

@briancooper2112 5 лет назад

Very cool

@molnibalage83 5 лет назад

With all respect, smart weapons were used long before ODS. Maybe theye were not so smart but in Vietnam in thousand scale were launched Walleye a Bullpup, and about 10 000 AGM-45 were launched and some hundreds of AGM-78. In the last years of Vietnam first generation of LGBs were used. During El Dorado Canyon 2nd generation of LGBs have been developed and used as well as the gamechanger AGM-88. www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2010/March%202010/0310bombs.pdf

@gungriffen 6 лет назад

No mention of the ASF-14 program :(

@thefrecklepuny 7 лет назад

A couple of question's I'd have put to Kurt. 1) How would an F-14 (esp the B and D) fare against any of the Flanker series? 2) Why did the F-14 not have great export success like the F-15?

@Aircrewinterview 7 лет назад

We will no doubt be chatting again in the future so I shall keep them points in mind :)

@rogermahajan7586 6 лет назад

1) F-14A had been in many dogfights against MIGs from MIG-17, MIG-21, MIG-23 up to MIG-29. MIG-29s were the East German MIG-29 after fall of Berlin when the Luftwaffe inherited those MIG-29s. The pilots were trained in Russia by MIG pilots. F-14A had many dog fights against the MIG-29 after fall of Berin in 1990 - 1991. F-14A won every single time. You can find HUD display videos of F-14 getting gun shot lock on the MIG-29s. Now, B and D were much better than the A so you could imagine how that would have turned out 2) Easy answer. It was much more expensive and a lot of the capabilities added were truly useful in a carrier based program while all of the buyers require for Air Force. Nonethless. Shah of Iran did a fly-off competition of F-14A and F-15 A/B and Dennis Romano blew Shah of Iran's mind with an incredible demo pushing the F-14A to a full 9g 360 turn with vapor clouds off the wings (same maneuvers that F-15 was supposed to execute with Burrows as chief test pilot for McDonnell) that he did not even look at the F-15 when both planes landed back. Japan almost switched their orders from F-15 to F-14 once the AIMVL/ACEVAL results got leaked out where F-14 had a better kill ratio against the F-5E compared to the F-15A and also the F-14 won 2v2 dog fights against the F-15A/B, but McDonnell sent a special delegate to Japan to do damage control.