Tomcat’s First Kill Iran, not the United States, was first to fly the F-14 in air combat

Medium - War is Boring ^ | two days ago | TOM COOPER

[onona]

It’s generally accepted that it was two U.S. Navy F-14 crews who scored the first aerial victories in the powerful, twin-engine fighter — when on Aug. 19, 1981, a pair of Tomcats from squadron VF-41 shot down two Libyan Sukhoi Su-22s that had opened fire at them over the Gulf of Sidra.

That’s the conception. As is often the case in the history of aerial warfare, the truth is significantly different. An Iranian F-14 crew actually scored the Tomcat’s first kill.

[onona]

History is interesting.

[onona]

Iran expressed interest in acquiring the Grumman F-14 Tomcat for the first time in the summer of 1972.

Slightly over a year later, the U.S. Congress actually canceled the entire F-14 project — only for Tehran to loan Grumman the money to produce the 80 F-14s it wanted.

A startled Congress decided to continue financing the project for the U.S. Navy. Yes, we have Iran to thank for Top Gun.

[mainestategop]

BOOKMARK: To be more precise we have the Shah to thank.

[nickedknack]

Not a confirmed kill. VF-41 still holds the distinction.

[xkaydet65]

IIRC the first combat flight, though no air combat happened, was to fly air support and top cover for the evacuation of the Saigon Embassy.

[TalonDJ]

Research indicates Iran had around 50 kills with the F-14 before VF-41 did their thing.... I am sure some of those were ‘confirmed’.

[InsidiousMongo]

Thread Bump.

I also heard that Iran was successful at using the AIM-54 Phoenix. However, they did run out of them sometime in 1987.

No kills were ever confirmed with a Phoenix. There is a lot of criticism of the missile. IMHO the Phoenix was meant to kill TU-95s and TU-16s, not a fighter.