F-14 Tomcat

Overview[]

The F-14 Tomcat is a real world jet fighter and was the premiere naval fighter plane for the United States Navy for over a quarter of a century. It has since been retired from active service and has been replaced with the F/A-18F Super Hornet.

The Tomcat is regarded as one of the most iconic and distinctive aircraft in the world. Over the course of its lengthy career, the Tomcat has flown numerous missions across the globe and confronted hostile aircrafts such as the MiGs, Tupolevs, and Sukhois.

It also played a key role in the 1986 blockbuster film Top Gun and has appeared in various other films during this period as well.

Technical Specifications[]

• OVERALL LENGTH: 19.13 meters (62.9 feet)

• OVERALL HEIGHT: 4.9 meters (16 feet)

• MAXIMUM EXTENDED WINGSPAN: 19.45 meters (64.15 feet)
• SWEPT WINGSPAN: 11.64 meters (38.2 feet)

• OVERALL MASS: 21.8 tons (unloaded), 30.5 tons (fully loaded)

• CREW COMPLEMENT: 1 Pilot, 1 Radar Intercept Officer

• MAXIMUM AIRSPEED: 2,485 kilometers/hr or 1,544 mph (Mach 2.34)

• MAXIMUM RANGE: 1,600 nautical miles (1,800 miles)

• MAXIMUM SERVICE CEILING: 16,000 meters (53,000 feet)

Design Features[]

The F-14 Tomcat was considered an evolutionary upgrade for the third-generation jet fighters and was the earliest fourth generation aircraft designed and built for the United States Navy.

It was designed specifically as a naval fleet defensive aircraft―it's primary mission was to protect the surface assets of the U.S. Navy from long range cruise missile strikes. The Tomcat accomplished this by killing any threatening bomber aircraft before it could potentially harm a navy ship thanks to its incredibly powerful and sophisticated AN/AWG-9 radar system; an all-weather multi-mode X band pulse-Doppler radar along with functioning as the launching platform for the Navy's newest and most capable long range anti-aircraft missile at the time; the AIM-54 Phoenix. These two systems allowed the Tomcat to successfully locate and destroy any hostile threat.

Serving as the launching platform for the AIM-54 however necessitated the Tomcat's oversized airframe and the incredibly powerful turbofan engines of the F-14 as the Phoenix were a massive missile body that was 13 feet in length and weighed a staggering 1,040 pounds. This resulted in the Tomcat being the largest and heaviest jet fighter in the world when it first debuted and for a good portion of its active career as well.

However, the Tomcat proved very capable in many other roles as well and functioned as one of the first multi-role jet fighters including air superiority, interceptor, and reconnaissance. Subsequent refits over the ensuing decades included avionics upgrades that allowed to function as precision bombers and strike fighters in the late 1990s.

The Tomcat featured a large bubble canopy for its two-seat cockpit that affords increased visibility for its flight crew during dogfighting or air-to-air combat and it's variable geometry wings greatly improved its maneuverability in flight which increased its effectiveness in air combat compared to its predecessor, the F-4 Phantom II.

The variable geometry wings are the most distinctive and recognizable characteristic of the Tomcat. It features pivoting swivel points on each wing that allows the pilot to shift the wing positions for various angles from anywhere between 20 to 68 degrees. This allows the pilot of the Tomcat to alter its flight characteristics. These swing wings allowed the craft to slow abruptly for landings on the short runway of a naval carrier (which also earned its unflattering nickname of "The Turkey" as during landing ops, it abruptly shifts upwards with its various ailerons flaring―reminded the landing crew of a turkey waddling and flapping its wings wildly) or extend for full wingspan for maximum lift for take-offs; or shift for more aerodynamic configuration for supersonic pursuit speeds. When parked on the carrier, the wings could even be swept "closed" and overlapping the fuselage in order to save space in the tight internal compartments of the carriers itself. These wings along with a good portion of the airframe are constructed out of light and rigid titanium and allows the Tomcat to endure up to 7.5 g maneuvers if necessary although the Tomcats usually restricted themselves to 6.5 g to extend their service lifespan.

The massive fuselage of the aircraft contained two widely spaced augmented turbofan afterburner engines which allowed the Tomcat to achieve air speeds of up to Mach 2.34. The Tomcat was originally outfitted with a pair of Pratt & Whitney TF30-P-412A turbofan engines that produced over 20,000 lbs of static thrust each. However the TF30s had significant problems with stalling when the aircraft underwent rapid throttling at high altitudes and causing the aircraft to enter flat spins. In the late 1980s, the later models to be refitted with the General Electric F110-GE-400 which provided up to 28,000 lbs of static force and greater thrust-to-weight ratio controls, improved fuel efficiency and range although the air speeds remained unchanged.

With its overpowered engines and variable wings; the Tomcat can achieve faster flight speeds, climb faster, and perform extreme acrobatic aerial maneuvers allowing the craft for dogfighting against hostile aircrafts.

Armaments[]

The F-14 Tomcat functioned primarily as a launching platform for missiles and it featured hardpoints and launching rails mounted on the underside of the main fuselage. This was due to the fact that the shifting nature of the wings would have made mounting missiles impractical.

The original design of the F-14 featured it as a long-range interceptor and thus, all of the hardpoints were designed to be capable of carrying the AIM-54 Phoenix; a long-range air-to-air missile. The AIM-54 Phoenix was compatible with only the Tomcat and could achieve flight speeds of up to Mach 5. It was a semi-active radar-homing guidance missile which allowed the pilot of the Tomcat to lock onto a target and fire at a target from over 100 miles away. Each Phoenix missile was nearly 13 feet in length and weighed 1,040 pounds when fully fueled and loaded with the warhead.

The Tomcat could mount up to 6 AIM-54 and rapid-fire them all at multiple targets as demonstrated during test firings. But in real life, it never actually did as it would prevent the F-14 from carrying any other types of munitions and it more commonly carried a more "balanced" load of both short and medium-ranged missiles for better air superiority combat roles.

The Tomcat could support various types of munitions including the AIM-7 Sparrow and the AIM-9 Sidewinder.

The AIM-7 Sparrow is a medium-ranged Mach 4 air-to-air radar-guided missile that is 12 feet in length and weighed over 200 pounds with an effective range of approximately 14 to 27 miles while the AIM-9 Sidewinder is a shorter ranged Mach 2.5+ air-to-air radar and infrared guided missile that is 10 feet in length but with a range of 0.6 to 22 miles.

The Tomcat was also capable of mounting JDAM precision laser-guided bombs and the Rockeye II cluster munitions for bombing strikes; thus allowing the F-14 to be customizable for various types of mission requirements.

It usually only carried two AIM-54 Phoenix missiles along with two AIM-7 Sparrows and two AIM-9 Sidewinders as part of its standard combat loadout.

For close range dogfighting, the F-14 also mounted a 20 mm M61A1 Vulcan 6-barreled rotary cannon with 675 rounds.

History[]

Since the late 1950s, the United States Navy sought a replacement for the F-4 Phantoms II already in deployment and cited their requirements for a high-endurance interceptor fighter craft to counter the threat of Soviet aircraft with their long-range missiles to their vulnerable carrier groups. They needed a faster and more capable jet fighter with a more powerful and effective radar system along with longer ranged missiles as the Soviet MiGs proved conclusively that the Phantoms could not hope to equal their maneuverability by the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

General Dynamics, a United States aerospace defense contractor attempted to resolve these issues by designing a capable jet fighter known as the F-111 design and pushed forward with two parallel projects; the F-111 A and the F-111 B which would reuse the same basic structural airframe and engines. The F-111 A was intended for use by the U.S. Air Force with the F-111 B was a dedicated naval variant. The F-111 A was accepted by the U.S. Air Force in 1964 and entered service a few years later. However the F-111 B suffered from complications in the design phase due to the U.S. Navy's dogged requirements as it needed to be carrier landing capable and much faster while the F-111 A was primarily a low altitude bomber.

These delays prompted General Dynamics to bring in the Grumman Corporation to help resolve various weight and performance issues with the project which finally began preliminary test flights in 1965. Admiral Thomas F. "Tomcat" Connolly, a former naval aviator and now the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare personally tested the craft and found it lacking, testifying before Congress to its lack of suitability as a naval fighter remarking that it had problems with achieving supersonic speeds and its continuing difficulties in carrier landings. As a result, the F-111 B was sidelined and Connolly was given directorship of the program to designing a replacement in 1968 as the newly designated F-14 Development Program.

Grumman Corporation had already several alternate designs for their work with General Dynamics and submitted their testbed 303-design as a potential jet fighter and pushed through prototyping into a test model in 1970. The prototypes underwent extensive test missile firing simulations which led to upgrades in the missile designs and elements of the aircraft's onboard electronics. Admiral Connolly's continuing participation in the program coincided with Grumman's informal tradition of nicknaming their fighter designs with feline names such as the F4F Wildcat, the F6F Hellcat and the F7F Tigercat since the 1940s and resulted in the F-14 being dubbed the "Tomcat" in his honor.

The Tomcat entered official service with the U.S. Navy on September of 1974.

The Tomcat however was an incredibly expensive aircraft to maintain and also extremely troublesome in various areas including its massively overpowered engines and variable sweep-wings. It is roughly estimated that the Tomcat required anywhere between 30 to 60 hours of maintenance work for every single hour it spent in the air. Nevertheless, when it was deployed; the Tomcat was feared for its capabilities thanks to its speed and agility in the air accompanied by its preposterously huge lethal ordnance that it was capable of carrying compared to other fighter crafts.