Thirty minutes to choose your fighter jet: how the Shah of Iran chose the F-14 Tomcat over the F-15

The Aviationist ^ | February 11, 2013 | Dario Leone

[GeronL]

You would think upgrading would be cheaper, but its not always I guess.

Could we have rebuilt the B-1 with composite skin and radar-absorbing material? Could we have done that with other old aircraft? I guess it would require so much testing it’d be cost prohibitive?

[cb]

Just visited the AMARG in Tucson. On the tour they said that all non museum Tomcats were scheduled to be destroyed to stop parts from being delivered to Iran.

[Resolute Conservative]

Naval aviators made the difference.

[2CAVTrooper]

Yes.

U.S. F-15 Eagle Kill Records:

5 Iraqi Mig-29 Fulcrums
7 Iraqi Mirage F-1’s
8 Iraqi Mig-23’s
2 Iraqi Mig-21’s
1 Iraqi ll-76
2 Iraqi SU-25 Frogfoots
3 Iarqi SU-7/17
1 Iraqi MI-24 Hind
2 Iraqi SU-22 Fitters
2 Iraqi MIG-25 Foxbats
4 Serbian Mig-29 Fulcrums
1 Afghan MI-24 Hind (F-15E)
2 U.S. UH-60 Blackhawks (fratricide)

Israeli F-15 kill records:

80-92 Mig-21 Fishbeds
several MIG-25 Foxbats

Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 kill records:

2 Iranian F-4E Phantoms
2 Iraqi F-1 Mirages
1 Iraqi Mig-25

Japanese F-15 kill record:

1 Japanese F-15J (accidental shooting by another Japanese F-15J)

U.S. F-14 Tomcat kill records:

2 Libyan SU-22 Fitters
2 Libyan Mig-23 Floggers
1 Iraqi MI-8 Hip

Iranian F-14 Tomcat kill record:

?????

Iranian F-14 losses:

1 killed by an Iraqi MIG-21

[2CAVTrooper]

The pilot Zivi Nedivi said that if he had actually seen the damage he would have more than likely ejected.

The aircraft was fully repaired, and saw further combat service.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

While the F-15 taxied onto runway, Don and Dennis started engines of the Tomcat ahead of the schedule and burned down fuel in the warm up area during the Eagle demonstration, to reduce the difference in thrust to weight ratio between the two fighters.

When I saw the title of this article I was gonna contribute that story, which Don Evans told me in my office at Grumman years after the event.

The last time I saw an F-14 in flight, it was flown by a Navy crew back to Long Island and landed at the Westhampton Beach (Gabreski) field. The Tomcat was on its way back to Calverton and AFAIK is still on static display beside the fence of the old Grumman facility there. As such the plane was old and tired, and was limited to non-maneuvering flight, so the crew simply landed it with no demonstration. The contrast between that and the kind of show Don Evans (or any of the test pilots) would sometimes put on was depressing. Sic transit gloria. I can only imagine what kind of flying shape the last of the Iranian F-14s must be in.

Don said on one occasion that his physical turned up an anomaly which threatened his flying status; it was a question of whether that anomaly was going at some time to unexpectedly cause severe pain - which would be unsafe if he was flying a plane at the time - or whether that had already happened and not been identified. Exploratory surgery would have messed up his career just as bad as not knowing the status of the anomaly - but his problem was solved by a new medical procedure known as an “MRI.” Which showed that he had already gone through the painful episode. It had happened, he decided, while he was moving heavy cartons around in preparation for temporarily moving to Iran to train pilots for the Shah.

Don loved to fly. Asked what he thought of the F-111B (variant made by Grumman), he said it was a fine aircraft - as long as you didn’t get in it thinking it was a fighter plane. It had even more internal fuel capacity than the F-14, which itself had about half again as much internal fuel capacity as an F-15. The F-14 and the F-15 were both “fighter” aircraft, and both highly capable in that role. It’s just that the F-14 had so much more legs. Even in the “A” configuration with TF-30 engines, Don thought that with the wings in the minimum sweep position it could have set a time-to-climb record. Of course in the “D” variant (only developed in about 1985), it had fully competitive engines as well as variable wing sweep.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The thing with the F-14.....1 Aircraft, one bullet.

I’m not sure that there has ever been built that wouldn’t go down if hit in exactly the right spot. An A-10, maybe. But the record is that neither the F-15 nor the F-14 has ever been in a situation where air-air combat casualties have been incurred - unless Iran lost some against Saddam, but I don’t think we know about that.

I think the worst technical problem with the Tomcat was maintenance, there were more things to go wrong. I also think that when the F-14 finally got modern engines it was too late for the program, because of politics.

The money required to build the F-18 and its “variants” (the F-18E has some commonality with earlier models, but generally it is a different plane made to look the same in and labeled the same in order to allow people who didn’t want to know better to act as if it were the same plane) would have bought the Navy a awful lot of F-14Ds with all that would mean in terms of range and endurance. Even the F-18E/F doesn’t have comparable range to an F-14D - and that means that the carriers have less capability, and that means the Navy is less capable.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Don Evans, Grumman Test Pilot (1927-1994)

I had known while I was still at Grumman that Don had brain cancer, so I assumed that he was dead by now - but I’m surprised to learn that he passed away before I left, without my hearing of it.

RIP :-(

[hattend]

Having the pleasure of seeing a F-14D @ Reno give an incredible flight demo w/ the GE engines, it did things no F-14 ever did before.

I was there as well. Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It impressed me almost as much as the F-22 demos do now.

[hattend]

Having the pleasure of seeing a F-14D @ Reno give an incredible flight demo w/ the GE engines, it did things no F-14 ever did before.

I was there as well. Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It impressed me almost as much as the F-22 demos do now.

[Tommyjo]

That image doesn't show the Israeli F-15. That is just part of the History Channel dramatisation of the events. They simply altered footage of USAF F-15Es to tell the story. That image is part of the dramatised footage. See 02:40 at following video.

You Tube Link - Israeli F-15 Lands With One Wing

04:13 shows actual stills of the Israeli F-15 after it landed.

[kitchen]

<We should have sold them to the Israeli's for a $1 and let them do a continuous improvement program, they'd still be flying and kicking @$$ IMHO...

A few years ago at a town hall meeting with Wayne Allard, I suggested we Lend-Lease a handful of our mothballed B-1s to Israel. He stood silent, with his mouth open for a moment and then went on to call on another waving hand.