Farewell to the Tomcat

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Wow, I'm sorry to see it go. I worked on the upper and lower wing assemblies of the F-14 when it was a new plane back in 1974-75, up to about aircraft no.320. The Sha of Iran bailed Grumman out financial trouble by paying for 100 F-14's up front at $10 million each including extra parts. When our Navy did buy they were $3 million each to them. (All this if memory serves me correctly). Some of the senior guys working then were from WWII and the Korean era. I was barely 18. I got overtime working in the paint shop on them and other fighters. Painting that yellow green paint and taping. Once they forgot to empty a gun after sighting it in and there was a AD in the hanger, there was alot of bosses running around after that.
Doesn't seem that long ago but it was.
 
The F-14 was a great aircraft...

... in the 1980s.

However, by the late 90s the ratio of maintenance time to flying time was over 65:1. It was very capable, but desperately in need of replacing.
 
ya , you are right. a 20mm minigun; that's the one that AD'd !!

Somewhere I still have the shoulder patches of the F-14 Tom-Cat with 2 tails says "Anytime Baby" underneath.
What will replace the F-14?
 
Harve Curry said:
I got overtime working in the paint shop on them and other fighters. Painting that yellow green paint and taping.
Click to expand...

That would be zinc chromate primer, which has been since outlawed for use on Naval Weapons systems. When I retired from the Big Grey Boat Club, they were using a 2 part epoxy type primer. Zinc Chromate was awesome stuff, it just had too many heavy metals for the green freaks. One can still get it from a couple of places.

Sad to see the F-14 retired, but all good things must eventually come to an end. I always got shivers when they buzzed our ships or air station. Of course, pictures like this sure are cool:
web_040925-N-0295M-046.jpg
picture courtesy of the U.S. Navy
 
Harve Curry said:
ya , you are right. a 20mm minigun; that's the one that AD'd !!

Somewhere I still have the shoulder patches of the F-14 Tom-Cat with 2 tails says "Anytime Baby" underneath.
What will replace the F-14?
Click to expand...

should be F-18 series fighter if i didn't remember wrongly. :)
 
QUOTE: That would be zinc chromate primer, which has been since outlawed for use on Naval Weapons systems. When I retired from the Big Grey Boat Club, they were using a 2 part epoxy type primer. Zinc Chromate was awesome stuff, it just had too many heavy metals for the green freaks. One can still get it from a couple of places.

Yea, we used lots of that, plus MEK by the 55 gallon barrels, and 55 gallon drums of freon for the drill bits with a dripper . MEK was for everything. Those were the days. The last of the old hands on big-industrial America.
 
Sad to see it go, but a 30+ year service life is one to be proud of.

When I was in college down in San Diego, a few of us used to build recognition models for the F14 pilots going out on floats. We worked out of a little hobby shop called The Command Post (later Hobby City). Pilots would come in all the time and ask us to build models of the aircraft they expected to see during training, etc. Fun stuff. Got lots of neat goodies in trade.
 
The F-14 Tomcat is probably the longest serving fighter ever designed.

Another plane though not a fighter with an exceptionally long service life is the B-52.

I wonder how long will the JSF aircraft will last in our inventory.
 
Best pic is the F-14 Sideways if I can get it out of hiding.
Geez it works, I'm a genius, I can figure out all these buttons.
And the PD 680 came in 55 gallon drums. I can still smell it.

Vick
 

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they are replacing it with the F/A 18 Super hornet which is a faster and better platform from what i hear. the 14s where cool planes though! sad to see them go =( i could never get over how big they are in person though!
 
Really neat pictures. I hadn't thought of this in years.
About the models. When the Tomcat first came out someone leaked detail to one of the big plastic model companies, it even showed the rivit patterns in the wings. Later Grumman carried the models in the company store.

The wings were "wet" and we had to pay alot of time to hole/rivit size. Everything was by hand rivit initially, all the stringers from the wing root pivot to the wing tips, then placed on fixture that went through a computorized rivit driller machine. Computor ran on hole punched cards.

If we got an over size hole had to get QC clearance to go larger, and then the bosses would come out and stand over you while you reamed it, they'd be ready to air gage and ball mike it. Otherwise it could leak fuel.

What surprised me was the canvas like material that covered the bearing at the wing root. Wings back it didn't show. I thought jet age and it still had canvas.
 
M92FS said:
should be F-18 series fighter if i didn't remember wrongly. :)
Click to expand...

Actually it will be replaced by the new Joint Strike Fighter made by the great folks at Lockheed.
This aircraft will be used by the Air Force, Navy, and the Marines in different variants to the needs of each service branch. Yes, it is to replace the Harrier for the Marines and is capable of vertical takeoff and lift.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/jsf.htm
 
The JSF will replace the "standard" model Hornet (C/D models). The Super Hornet (E/F) is the Tomcat replacement- more flexibility (except for that Phoenix missile; too bad we couldn't hang that on there), similar range, maybe not quite the speed of the Tomcat. Newer and easier to fly (from what I understand) too.

The C/D model Hornets never had the range the Navy wanted (something about a fuel tank that's too small- didn't get fixed from the prototype to production models, or something like that). The JSF should be able to replace that plane reasonably well.
 
The FA/18 Superhornet is a "compromise aircraft". It's not as fast as the F14, not as maneuverable as the older model FA/18, and the range is not spectacular either.

However, it does strike fighter, bomber, and recon missions fairly well.

The Navy's purpose, was for it to replace the EA6B Prowler, F-14, and the older F/18, doing the jobs of all 3 adequately, kind of a "jack of all trades" aircraft..

The main goal in mind was "cost savings" for the military..

It wouldnt' stand a chance against some of the more advanced Russian Fighters, such as the SU31 in a dogfight...but it does a little of everything fairly well.

American mediocrity at it's best..
 
The F-14 is a very cool plane, I'm sad to see it go. The Super Hornet can't be beat, though.
 
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