The McDonnell Douglas F-15N Sea Eagle; Tomcat Rival 

I’m mildly disappointed they didn’t call the navalised version the F-15 Seagle.

Ironically the USAF evaluated the F-14 as a possible replacement for the F-106 in the dedicated interceptor role.

It isn't a trivial matter to navalize a land- based tactical aircraft (especially a fighter). This is why it's been so rarely successful. It requires not only beefier landing gear, enlarged and folding wings, and a tailhook, but also a stronger airframe and special design attention to saltwater corrosion. Usually by the time you do this, your fighter has lost all or most of its performance due to weight penalties. In contrast all carrier based aircraft are land compatible out of the gate, which is why you see so many successful land based tactical aircraft that were originally carrier designs. I suspect that had McDD ever brought the F-15N to fruition, it would've proven both less capable and more expensive than the F-14.

No aircraft in history has looked more potent than an F14A kneeling at the shuttle in zone 5. Great information. Thank you.

Here's an idea for a topic: The Convair Model 200 VTOL fighter concept.

You know, i actually remember seeing a photo of some declassified early blueprints for the F-14, and apparently the Grumman design team apparently started out by using fixed wings, the tomcat pretty much looked like an F-15 with a longer neck

I was at an airshow in the Midwest in 1987, saw an F-14 on the tarmac, pilot taking questions. He answered one to the effect "Only one aircraft in the world can beat us". I blurted out "F-15"... he just smiled knowingly. Yep, thought so.

The F14 was a excellent design for the role it was made for but had limited versions potential. The F15 started out that way but was designed so well from the start it can do just about anything one can possibly think of and do them well. That my friend is one amazing aircraft.

About the F-111B, Grumman was already the subcontractor to General Dynamics, an d was in charge of the F-111B project. I do think that their experience with the F-111B was what gave inspiration to the F-14 Tomcat.

While serving on board the USS Midway we had to catch two of the USS Enterprises F-14's. Wonderful airplane. We later launched them off the port catapult as our jet blast deflectors were a bit small for that type of aircraft. The Midway used the F-4S model at the time. Big difference between the two aircraft.

This was fantastic. I'm a lover of BOTH of these aircraft. I miss the Tomcat.

The biggest thing I miss about the F-14 Tomcat is the ability to carry the AIM-54 Phoenix Missiles with the over 100 mile range.

If the F-15N-PHX were to really weigh 9000lbs more than the standard F-15A, it would mean that the F-15N-PHX would've weighed almost the same as the F-14A. Had it been fitted with the PW F100-PW100 like the standard F-15A, it would have had the same thrust-to-weight ratio as the F-14A. In which case, in a F-14A vs F-15N-PHX BFM dogfight, my money's on the F-14A, given the same T/W ratio, but superior wing loading. (As long as the TF30 didn't flame out that is)

...another great vid. I'm glad that this channel is getting the views that it deserves- personally, I look forward to each post, as I'm a fan of aviation in general, and the uncommon aircraft that are rarely covered, in particular) Cheers!

Woulda, coulda, shoulda is the mantra of all the designs that never made it. There are so many good ideas and designs that were proposed but times and challenges change even while exploring new designs. Just like the F-22 when it was begun, fighting Russia was the primary use for that wonderful plane, but by the time it came online, that mission was no longer the primary goal of needed aircraft. A strike plane was needed with dogfighting capability. The Navy has pondered many designs but has a much more complex set of requirements than the USAF. They had the F-8U Mach 2.5+ fighter and the SuperTomcat F-14. Early on they had the F-11 with a J79 engine that would have probably been the fastest jet in the world at that time. Many existing aircraft would have been massively improved with an engine upgrade including the F-14. I love to see all of these videos and think "What if".

This and the Vought V-1600 are some of the goofiest proposals that probably would've worked somewhat decently. Speaking of, any plans to do a video on the V-1600 and possibly F/A-18L?

In 1988-1990 I served in the 318th FIS, working on F-15A/Bs. We once went to Miramar to fly against the F-14s. The exercise area was too small to use the Phoenix missile and after all, this was a dogfighting exercise, which the missile was not useful for. We wiped the skies with them all week. Then on the last day, they got to use the phoenix and on the screens back at the base, they became coffins 50 miles outside the exercise area. The main reason the Eagles could beat the Tomcat was that a swing wing fighter is always displaying its energy state by the position of its wings, so the Eagle could take advantage of that to get a superior firing position.

RE: the lecture by the F-14 designer at 3:05. Any airplane can "take" another in the right circumstances. However under most circumstances the F-15 had superior maneuverability. This is only natural, as the F-14 was handicapped by the weight and wing needed for the fleet defense role the F-15 did not have to perform.

Given the heavy weight of the AIM-54 Phoenixes, the F-15N Sea Eagle would have been more suited as a naval dogfighter with its AIM-9 Sidewinders, AIM-7 Sparrows, and AIM-120 AMRAAMs. Still, it would have been interesting to imagine an alternate timeline in which the Sea Eagle and Tomcat are flying alongside together for the United States Navy.

For some time it was consdered to give the F-16 'sea-legs' too...! In the 1980, when the Navy was looking for a replacement for their ageing 'Buckeyes' France and Germany proposed a navalized version of the Alpha-Jet... With 2 engines it would be saver over sea... But it wasn't th happen... 🙁 The winner was the BEA Hawk, that became the T-45...! 😢 P.S. Would be nice to have a serie about (good) planes, that didn't make it, like the mentioned F-15N Sea-Eagle, the double-seated A-10 'Night-Warthog' or the YF-12 'Blackbird-Fighter'...

Ed, the Fokker S-14, one of the world's first (if not THE first) dedicated jet training aircraft, and yet largely forgotten by everyone. This would be interesting.

Most of the cost involved the swing-wing design and its extremely expensive titanium electron-beam-welded carry-through wing box structure. I wish more people talked about this, as it’s kinda it’s own marvel of engineering - especially for the time. Anyways, that swing-wing is the key here. It’s why the Tomcat was so much more expensive, but also why it was so flexible. I HIGHLY doubt that the “sea eagle” would have had even acceptable low-speed handling performance for the USN, the F-14 was just incredible in that regard. You just don’t get a big Mach 2.3+ two-seat strike aircraft to land at 130mph, that was (and is) just amazing - PLUS it would still out-turn an F-15 at certain speeds (a good tomcat pilot would know / use these min. radius turn figures.) It really was an amazing machine, and I highly recommend everyone watch the Peninsula Srs. video mentioned in the comments. FWIW that channel has many other fascinating lectures and interviews as well, from the space shuttle to the SR-71. 👍

What's with the snide against the Su-27? I think it is the most beautiful of all modern fighter jets and the way they managed to decrease the wing loading without increasing drag by making the body create lift and act as a 3rd wing is quite ingenious, kind of a "eat your cake and still have it"-thing, as anyone who knows something about aircraft design and the necessary trade-offs and compromises made between maneuverability/wing loading and speed/low drag knows and should be able to appreciate. That is quite a feat, from an engineering perspective. Add to that the enormous internal fuel capacity making external drop tanks optional instead of mandatory and that despite being more maneuverable, it still has a decent max speed and it is a very impressive machine, at least in theory. It might be let down by the avionics, radar and the training levels of the pilots flying it, or the commanding officers deciding how it is flown and when, but it arguably is the better aircraft, compared to the comparably simple "modern boom and zoom fighter with a big radar"-design of the F-15. And no, I'm not a Russian troll or military fanboy. I am a interested outsider from a country that neither operates F-15, nor any variant of the Su and have no personal, nationalistic dog in that game. Subjectively, as a "aircraft porn pervert", I like both. The F-14, not so much to be honest. It always looked too bulky to me and kind of lazy in its design. It looks like something a amateur using a 3d modeling software to design his own fighter aircraft would come up with. Just 2 engines with a cockpit and all the other stuff a fighter needs slapped on to it in kind of a slapdash "good enough to work" matter. It is nowhere near as elegant as a Su-27, which looks like a mix between a eagle, a crane and a shark. I think without the original Top Gun movie, only a small niche minority among military aircraft fans would count it as one of their favorites. In that regard it kind of is like the "Paris Hilton" of fighter jets. People find her sexy because the media told them so but nobody really can explain why they ride the bandwagon of finding her hot. Yeah, Paris Hilton is a 20 year late, dated reference, but I don't know enough about modern "sex symbols" to make the comparison with a more up to date example, hehe.

9:37 Senator Eagleton represented Missouri, home to McDonnell Douglas

A navalized F-15 reminds me of the Vought Model 1600 which was a navalized F-16, which could be the topic of a future video. I also recommend a video on the F-18L version that was proposed but never built.

Great video, Ed.

Wonderful video!

Thanks, Ed. Never knew about the F-15N! But even if it had come to pass I have a feeling the F-15N would have met the same fate as the F-14 (for the same reasons), and would have been replaced by the F-18 anyways.

The F14 for land based duties, lightened as carrier requirements are not required, would have been interesting. The performance would have improved,.tbough I do understand that pilots that flew against the F14 in mock dogfights, said the F14 was easy to predict due to watching the wing sweep. I wish the resources were put into modifying the F14 to take the excellent engines in the F15.

My Dad (RIP) was an F-4 Pilot with time on carriers in Nam and VX5 in China Lake Ca. Later to become a Radar Engineer for Grumman in the F-14. when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was working @ Pt Mugu Ca VX4. As he was about to “Retire” from Grumman/Life the Navy gave him a flight in the F-14. He was a Rio in the F-4 before and was way too sick to be allowed. The Base commander authorized it anyways.

Thanks Ed.

Talking about recruiting; I was in the Navy in the early 1990's. I would say 80% - 90% of the people I was in the service with told me that the reason they joined the navy was because of the movie "Top Gun". I wonder, with military participation at an all time low in America, if the sequel "Top Gun Maverick" will have the same effect it did following the original movie?

1st class Ed...thanks for sharing

I has to pause the video because I was laughing so hard when you said "Sea Pig"

Great video 👍

Hopefully, the US Navy's reliance on F18s / F35s for fleet air defence works out against peer to near peer adversaries.

One thing that is seldom mentioned is, by the time the F-15's frame is strengthened for carrier operations, change some materials to fight off the corrosive effects of saltwater exposure, the weight gain of the F-15N offset any projected advantages the F-15A had over the F-14A. The F-14D's performance came close to matching the F-15C when the F-14Ds received the new GE F-110 engines. NOW, the F-14As ability to take-off from the carrier, goes several hundred miles, time of patrol station to intercept the Tu-95s with anti-ship missiles, the F-14 would still be better interceptor.

Could the undefeated champion of the skies have got it's feet wet? I would say yes but I guess we will never know. Great video Ed. Thanks.

I was a little kid when the F-15 came out. Man did that start a lot of fights. Which one was better.

The F15 Sea Eagle would get renamed to the "Seagull" so quickly by the troops.

Just a nit, but Sen. Eagleton's backing of the F-15 likely had everything to do with the fact that it was designed and built in Missouri where he was Senator. But maybe I'm just too cynical.

As always a great amazing very interesting video about an aircraft I knew nothing about Mr.Ed.Not that I do not like the videos about the canvas and wicket two storey biplanes but something with a bit of electric circuitry is welcome indeed. Can you make some videos about the C130 A400M or the soviet four engined turbo prop transport planes? Have a good one and I find the fact that the F14 had the nose camera capable of identifying targets 40kilometers away mind blowing.

Looks like i am a day late here....Thanks Ed Nash..... Shoe🇺🇸

I'm a big F14 fan but the initial engines were so underpowered they were dangerous. The aircraft was designed in conjunction with to carry the AIM54 Phoenix AA missile which had a huge range and glided to it's target. The use of the AIM 54 goes against normal fighter doctrine to fly high and shoot down, when it became public that if they were going to use that weapon they would go low and fire upwards to avoid heat sources was incredible. It was then that the problem of identifying your target over that range made that weapon impossible to use. The F14 had a brilliant gun cam but it couldn't see 120 miles. There were also so many service issues as it was a complicated aircraft that eventually the F18 and the super took over it;s roll especially as both amraam & sidewinder missiles had huge range increases.

The Sea Eagle finally gets mentioned at 5:48.

For some reason I liked the Republic Aviation F-15 proposal. It looked like a single tail, fixed wing F-14

Brilliant video. What about the 'Sea Horse', the navalized project for the P51 Mustang.?

Excellent.

Could you do a video on the original F-14B & C? Or even on the Grumman pitch to replace the F-106 in US Air Force service with the F-14?

Anytime baby!

The MiG 29 Fulcrum, you forgot about!!!!

considering the interservice rivalry, I doubt that the Navy would ever have accepted an air force fighter especially, as you said, after the disastrous TFX program. The Navy fought hard to kill TFX with some of the most unreasonable requirements imaginable, and I'm sure that they would have worked their magic on the F-15N to make it as profoundly unappealing to congress as possible And let's face it, Top Gun would never have felt as profoundly pro-navy as it did without the Navy's own F-14 Tomcat

TY 🙏🙏

excellent!

Its more about the pilot. I once watched an ANG F-4 phantom kick the crap out of a Navy F-14 in what could best be described as a "guns only dogfight challenge". The old F-4 got behind the F-14 and there was nothing the F-14 could do.

it would have given the naval air wing some serious legs if it had remained in service into the modern day. The newer F-15 variants have massive fuel capacity and flight time.

Also, I disagree with the idea that the F-15N would've still been in service today had it been selected. The Legacy Hornet, developed a full decade *after* the F-15, is now retired. Carrier operation is a lot more punishing to airframes than land based operation and they eventually wear out.

Air force aircraft hooks were for emergency use only and were single use only. Mainly for landing on taxiways if the runways were bombed out.

1:30 _Well played!_

Here's an open question: not considering 'maintenance costs', would the Tomcat offer anything unique for the battlefield of 2023? Or, is it still being flown in 2023, like the 'cancelled' F-117?

With adjustment for inflation the purchase price of the F-14 was over $250,000,000.

How close are F15 C and Flankers conceptually?

interesting idea.

Was the F-15N considered as alternative when the Navy began to develop the F-18?

Ed would you be able to cover the DAR-10? Its a Bulgarian WW2 Light bomber, but due to lack of ablity and mitivation i couldn't find much info other than that on Wikipedia.

while the F-15N concept made sense, i wouldnt see the Navy buying an Air Force design (althought vice versa it was sometimes the case, just look at the F-4, A-7 and the A-3/EB-66 among others, although these were exceptional cases).

The F-14 is a childhood favorite of mine, but the carrier-intercept mission it was designed for never really happened. The AIM-54 was about a mission critical as traveling Mach 2 has proven to be. The amount of money wasted on these features by the military-indistrial complex is staggering. For my money, I guessing "drone wingman" is the next weapons feature that is never used against an enemy.

I usually think converting a land based aircraft to CV capable as a mistake. But as the F-15 was a McD-Douglas creation it bears consideration.

This is interesting.

…ah the Flanker is definitely up there. Nostalgic feelings aside, I love the 1960-ies era of fighters, especially the F-4 and MiG-21 (and Mirage III), and in the 70-ies the F-14, F-15 and F-16, I really like the lines of the Flanker family more than the contemporary US birds, with the exception of the early F-16s with its clean lines (now it is an ugly hunchback of a mule). The F-15 has proven to be a very capable multirole platform, just like the F-4 before it. So it is not wrong to speculate its potential as a carrier fighter.

if the USN use the F-15N, top gun movie would've out of story to tell

Grumman made a very elegant fixed wing, single-seat concept for the F-14. Looked like an SU-27 and an F-14 had a love child. The reason was cost, but I wager it'd have been the way to go. The swing-wings, while sexy, were a rapidly aging technology. Take a look at the crazy things a Flanker can do, and tell me superior aerodynamics are in action. Every subsequent iteration of the Tomcat was saddled with the swing-wings, and it's simply not necessary. The stealthy Tomcat would be hampered by them. Their load carrying capacity was limited by them. And the additional weight and complexity of them made for additional maintenance. Am I suggesting the Tomcat isn't a thoroughbred? Hardly. I am suggesting the swing-wings were unnecessary. Trust me when I say the fixed-wing Tomcat was nothing to sneeze at. It would have done everything with two seats the existing one could do. The modern iteration would be something like the F-15EX, with a dash of Su-35 thrown in for good measure. Grumman likely stuck with the swing-wings because of the investment they had made developing them prior to the F-14 program. However, if they had done what Sukhoi did and nailed down the aerodynamics, they would have produced an excellent product. This was the Ironworks, after all, and they knew how to make a Navy jet. Had the GE F110 engines been available at the time, it would have been unbeatable. Similarly, if the Pratt anf Whitney J75 engine been studied, the TF30 could have been let go.

Ironically the USAF ended up using Phoenix rounds as targets, launched from... F-15s.

Was some of that tomcat footage from The Final Countdown?

I personally think, that your speculations are very correct. But it was not to happen.

This wasn’t the first time a land based plane would be adapted for use by the Navy. There was the P51H, a version of the Mustang that was considered for use on aircraft carriers. A Navy version of the F15 is a new one on me…. I wonder, how many Air Force planes were considered for Navy use?

"Sea Eagle?" Seagull? I can hear it now. 😅

Funny thing is that the navy put out its best in top gun but the air force used f16s in Iron eagle kinda of strange but nothing good is out but these

in procurement , often logic is set aside for any number of reasons. the aim 54 needed a big radar, which needed a big AC --and thats why the tomcat. the tomcat was a quite capable fighter and it could often out turn and burn much smaller fighters . the downside was it took many man hours to keep it AW, and was frightfully expensive to operate. when the aim54 was finally OBE, smaller ac looked to be a less costly solution.

I LOVE the F-14, but it probably would have been for the best if they had gone with the F-15N over the F-14.

Ed. Looking at most (all) of the comments it seems you've captured a particularly knowledgeable audience ........well not quite . You lost me at 9 minutes !!!! Thanks Ed.

The F-15N Sea Eagle, or Seagull for short...

The decision to save relative pennies on the F-14's engines needlessly cost several lives of US Navy fliers. However Iran (pre-revolution) was in the market for a heavy fighter. They evaluated F-15s & F-14s and chose the more costly F-14 IIRC, in their view it was the more agile yet could lift more ordinance.

Hmmm, pity we didn't see them go the other way with an F-14 program shared by the US Air Force. You get the better engines installed at scale, rather than dribbled out and likely an emphasis on Non-Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR) in radar upgrade packages. The cost saving between the Eagle and Tomcat are substantial, but factoring in scale I think you'd come close. Having only one High capability fighter would have been a huge benefit for upgrade programs. Scroll forward and we've got people looking for a Strike Eagle in the Tomcat, which we know was doable even on a shoe-string budget.

Leave it to Naval Tradition and Grumman`s `Cats`. TWO Superb Aircraft but, each to their own - Oh and F*ck the Bean Counters!

What happened to all the AIM-54s?

I remember playing microprose F15 strike eagle and many missions would end by landing on an aircraft carrier at the time i did think it was a good idea at the time. Dont get me wrong the Tomcat owns my heart and always will but the Eagle is a beast. Great video, thanks Ed

The F-15 Seagull

A naval f-15 would have been slower, with less range than the tomcat. It would have required a redesigned wing to give it better handling at slow speeds. It might have been easier to fly tough.

I like the way the US keeps developing all these hyper expensive new planes. And yet alot of them have already gone and yes they still keep using the old ones from the 70s.

F14 should have been upgraded to super Tomcat 21 variants and beyond. You don’t need too many of them because they are highly advanced multi role interceptors-bombers that will supplement the F18s. With AMRAAMS the F14 would be stowing 12-16 of them easily given her ability to hold space for much air to air munitions. Secondly the extended range of flight combat radius over F18 plus the requirement for the best radars in the naval aviation world meant that the F14 could have been the Navy’s do it all multi mission Gen 4.5++ strike fighter comparable to the EX F15s, which elevates the force multiplier effect.

If we are playing 'the path not taken!' - If the British Government had gone ahead and built the CVA-01 aircraft carriers in 1966, they would have entered service in the early 70s - right when this battle between F-15N and F-14A was being fought. Now the British carriers would have been flying the Buccaneer S.2 (since 1966) and Phantom (since 1968), but the RN only got a very few of each and with attritional replacement they would probably have been spent by 1980, unless more aircraft were purchased in the early 1970s. What do they buy - ageing S.2s and F-4Ks, the F-14A or F-15N? F-14A would not have been able to operate from CVA-01, (which was limited to a pair of 250ft catapults) but the smaller F-15N could have. Even a small foreign purchase would offset so much cost of the F-15N development programme, I can see that being a big swing towards the McDonnell Douglas aircraft in USN service. The knives were really out for the F-14, it only survived because Iran bought some.

Na na na na na🎶 Na na na na🎶 Take my breath away…🎶

Wait what a Navy F-15?!

regarding F-14 prpganda you forogt The Final Countdown film with Kirk Douglas

The relative maintenance costs might be interesting. The F-14 was notoriously labour-intensive, probably because of its complexity. The F-15 is simpler.

What if the USAF Eagles had got the Phoenix AAM?

I read that as "...Edna Shio". Sorry Ed.

And now we would like to see a video about Luftwaffes "Sea Eagle" , the Messerschmitt 109 T .

The reason that the F-14 isn't still in service like the F-15 is that Dick Cheney had a seemingly pathological hatred of Grumman.