Right, TopGun is on the telly, educate me about F14 Tomcats

[speedtwelve]

There's an excellent book called "The Cutting Edge" by CJ 'Heater' Heatley, long-time Tomcat pilot and photographer, with some of his fantastic photos, often in the above style, and from-the-horse's-mouth war stories. He consulted on the 'Top Gun' movie, and a few of the money shots in the film were based on some of his published photography (I don't mean the semi-naked locker room stuff...).

If you can find them, a chap called George Hall shot and wrote some equally excellent fast-jet books in the 80s, often from the back seat. 'Top Gun', 'Strike', 'USAFE' and 'Red Flag' are all great, amongst others.





(I know this isn't a Tomcat, but it's a great pic!)

[Dr Jekyll]

Does anyone know why the Shar of Iran went for F14s instead of F15s? After all he was after a land based fighter and Israel Japan and Saudi preferred the F15.

[MarkK]

That's a rather different account to the one given in Pablo Mason's book "Pablo's War". He states that the aircraft started manoevering hard but not in accordance with his control inputs I.e as he relaxed the controls after a hard turn, the aircraft turned harder. He implies that if the command ejection by the nav saved their lives.

speedtwelve said:

YAD061 said:

good job they didn't have the command eject system as fitted to the Tonka otherwise the pilot would have followed and the plane would be have been lost

The F14 did have command eject, but in this case, as with the Tonka, it was selected to 'front' as there was a passenger in the back. There was at least one incident with the Tornado when the nav banged-out unnecessarily, taking a rather bewildered and probably pant-soiled pilot with him. It happened to Pablo Mason IIRC when he was bounced over Germany at low-level whilst his nav was head-down in the back. The nav thought they were piling-in and decided that jumping out was prudent, taking them both.

[Ayahuasca]

In order to be an F-14 pilot, first you had to attend some horrible course up near Seattle where they sprayed you with cold water while muttering something about queers and steers and and the only girls worked at the local lumber mill.

[hidetheelephants]

Dr Jekyll said:

Does anyone know why the Shar of Iran went for F14s instead of F15s? After all he was after a land based fighter and Israel Japan and Saudi preferred the F15.

I would guess it was mostly the Grumman sales team being better(bribing more?) than the MaccyD crowd; Iran under the Shah was Disneyland for defence contractors, he was a sucker for shiny kit. Bell managed to flog them an entire helicopter factory!

[nick heppinstall]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I was their as well .... Unfortunatley my Camera and Photographic skills left a little to be desired.

[Tango13]

HereBeMonsters said:

XB70 said:

The AIM-54 Phoenix was orignally designed for the A-12 (think of an SR-71 with missiles)

One of the few facts I remember from my favourite childhood book, just entitled "Aircraft". It could fire that missle with a lock on from 160km away.

• awaits Eric MC to tell me said book was wrong.

(pedant mode on) The A-12 was the single seat reconnaissance version used exclusively by the CIA it was the YF-12 that carried the missles (pedant mode off)

The AWG-9 radar could detect a fighter sized target at 115nm but a 747 size aircraft at around 200nm. The maximum stated range of the AIM-54A phoenix is 63nm.


The F-14 made history on the 19th of August 1981 when a pair from VF-41 "The Black Aces" splashed a pair of Su-22 Fitter-Js over the Gulf of Sidra. The first ever swept wing jet on jet combat.

[ErnestM]

HereBeMonsters said:

XB70 said:

The AIM-54 Phoenix was orignally designed for the A-12 (think of an SR-71 with missiles)

One of the few facts I remember from my favourite childhood book, just entitled "Aircraft". It could fire that missle with a lock on from 160km away.

• awaits Eric MC to tell me said book was wrong.

AIM-54 was develped for the Navy F-111 variant, the F-111B



The F-111B was cancelled but the Phoenix remained. Grumman was teamed with General Dynamics on the F-111B project and it helped them when developing the F-14.

Edited by ErnestM on Monday 22 February 18:36

[Ayahuasca]

ErnestM said:

HereBeMonsters said:

XB70 said:

The AIM-54 Phoenix was orignally designed for the A-12 (think of an SR-71 with missiles)

One of the few facts I remember from my favourite childhood book, just entitled "Aircraft". It could fire that missle with a lock on from 160km away.

• awaits Eric MC to tell me said book was wrong.

AIM-54 was develped for the Navy F-111 variant, the F-111B



The F-111B was cancelled but the Phoenix remained. Grumman was teamed with General Dynamics on the F-111B project and it helped them when developing the F-14.

Edited by ErnestM on Monday 22 February 18:36

Cool pic. The narrow wheelbase (is that the right term) on the F-111 would have made deck landings interesting.

[Eric Mc]

"Narrow track" would be the expression used.

[hidetheelephants]

Eric Mc said:

"Narrow track" would be the expression used.

I would use the expression 'fat guy on a kid's tricycle'

[ErnestM]

Ayahuasca said:

Cool pic. The narrow wheelbase (is that the right term) on the F-111 would have made deck landings interesting.

One of the many reasons GD needed Grumman on the project. Carrier landings are a little more, uhm, "exciting" than normal USAF F-111 landings.

[dudleybloke]

cant remember the sqdn but love the look of the 'felix the cat' ones.

[Shar2]

dudleybloke said:

cant remember the sqdn but love the look of the 'felix the cat' ones.

VF 31 Tomcatters?

[ErnestM]

dudleybloke said:

cant remember the sqdn but love the look of the 'felix the cat' ones.

VF(A)-31. Still use them on the F/A-18s. Mine was the VF(A)-103 - Jolly Rogers

[aeropilot]

ErnestM said:

Carrier landings are a little more, uhm, "exciting" than normal USAF F-111 landings.

Australian ones could be interesting

Edited by aeropilot on Monday 22 February 20:56

Edited by aeropilot on Monday 22 February 20:57

[Dr Jekyll]

Might have looked really good in Fleet Air Arm colours. Photoshop anybody?

[hidetheelephants]

I remember seeing a picture(I think it was attributed to an RAAF airframe but not sure) of an F111 appearing between steep jungle-clad slopes, pulling a sharp bank(not unlike the F14 earlier in the thread) at zero feet over a lake. Not sure if it was 'shopped, but it looked damn good; unfortunately I can't remember where the image is and google drew a blank.

ETA this seems a lot like it, but cropped to remove the interesting bits. Ho hum.

Edited by hidetheelephants on Monday 22 February 21:59

[andy400]

ErnestM said:

dudleybloke said:

cant remember the sqdn but love the look of the 'felix the cat' ones.

VF(A)-31. Still use them on the F/A-18s. Mine was the VF(A)-103 - Jolly Rogers

I always thought VF-101 'Grim Reapers' had the coolest tailfin decoration.

[DieselGriff]

eharding said:

http://www.plus7minus5.co.uk/video/misc/FighterFli...

Just like to say thank you, and can I also @ the bit around 11:14 in say :wibble:





























Thanks