Grumman F14 Tomcat blockshade

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Grumman F14 Tomcat information Engine: TF30, or General Electric F110s Radar: The F14 radar was the AN/AWG-9, this was the strongest radar ever placed on a jet fighter up until the F22. This was so the F14 could use its Aim-54 phoenix missiles. Main Armament: M61A1 Vulcan Cannon Missiles: AIM-7 Sparrows, AIM-9 Sidewinders, and AIM-54 Phoenixes (the Tomcat was originally designed to carry the AIM-54's which were too heavy for any other plane) Thrust to Weight ratio = 0.56 Max Speed = Mach 2.34 (2889.5 km per hour) First Flight: December 21 1970 Last Flight: September 22 2006 KD ratio: 135:8 Development: Twin engine, 2 seater, Cold war era jet fighter that was created after the F111B program was cancelled because it was clumsy at slow speeds which made it bad for carrier missions. US Navy needed a naval fighter that can fly air superiority and intercepting against Soviet jets. Engineers at Grumman designed the F14, it was a relatively large plane, and it's size could cause lower speed and less maneuverability. So to counter this, Grumman engineers added a variable geometry sweep wing system. The adjustable wing sweep would reduce drag, increase low speed maneuverability, and help counter wing overload from excessive G-Force. When the wings were fully swept back, the tomcat could go supersonic and had great high speed performance. When they weren't swept back, it was slower, more maneuverable, and could land on a carrier. The F14 was designed to fight Soviet 'Mig' Jets but it could go up against any other opponent without a problem. It was one of the most dominant fighters over the skies in 1979. First Combat: It saw its first combat in 1981 during the Cold War, Libya claimed the Gulf of Sidra as Libyan airspace, so America sent one of it's aircraft carriers to challenge their claim. Onboard this carrier were 4 fighter pilots by the names of Henry Kleeman (callsign "Hank"), Dave Venlet, Larry Muczynski (callsign "Music") and Jim Anderson. On board there were also 2 F14's by the names of "Fast Eagle 102" and "Fast Eagle 107". The operation was at first fun for these pilots because they intercepted Libyan pilots and mocked them because they knew that the Libyans were outmatched, one of them even took a picture of the pilot to add more insult. They turned away dozens of Libyan jets. But the day after that, "Fast Eagle 102" and "Fast Eagle 107" intercepted 2 Su-22 Fitters and were fired upon by the Libyan pilots. That day the F14's shot down 2 enemy planes. The Libyan pilots both managed to eject and were picked up an hour after the incident. That was the only combat of the operation and nobody was hurt. The conflict is called the Gulf of Sidra incident. This event was than studied by the writers of the original "Top Gun" movie and it became inspiration for some of the movies action scenes. "Fast Eagle 102" was restored by veterans and now sits in the "Midland Army Museum of the Commemorative Air Force's High Sky Wing." in Midland, Texas Retirement: The F14 airframe and it's TF30 engines were a horrible mismatch and on top of that, it was expensive to fly, really complicated to get in the air, and had aging technology. Also because of it's engines being placed so far apart from each other, when one of them stalled out the plane would go into a flat spin, which caused a high accident rate. So on September 22 2006 the F14 was retired from the US Navy. The only country that still uses F14's is Iran Remaining F14's: years ago the US sold about 80 of their F14's to Iran, but then Iran became a US enemy so to prevent any rare F14 parts from getting into Iranian hands, all of them were scrapped. The Tomcat was later replaced in the US Navy by the F/A 18 Hornet.