I know. Whats with this crap? The Raptor chews up F-15s and spits them out regularly. I think its several hundred to 0 in simulated dogfights.
And the F-15 is a jet that has a perfect score in combat!
Hornets replacing Tomcats
USA Today 09/22/2006
The F-14 Tomcat -- featured in the movie Top Gun and active in key aerial missions since the Vietnam War -- taxis into the history books today. The land- and carrier-based fighter jet is being replaced by the F/A-18 Super Hornet.
F-14 Tomcat v. F/A-18 Super Hornet1,320 mph Top speed 1,188 mph
Northrop Grumman Builder McDonnell Douglas
1,841 miles Range 1,467 miles
2 Crew 1-2
December 1970 First flight November 1995
13,000 pounds Total armament 17,750 pounds
Air-to-air missiles, conventional bombs, 20mm cannon Types of arms Air-to-air missiles, nuclear or conventional bombs, 20mm cannonSources: Navy, Military Analysis Network and GlobalAircraft.org
Navy retires F-14, the coolest of cold warriors
USA Today 09/22/2006
Author: Tom Vanden BrookVIRGINIA BEACH -- Today the Navy holsters the F-14 Tomcat, the top gun in its Cold War arsenal and one of the most recognizable warplanes in history.
Maintenance costs for the F-14 have soared, and its replacement, the F/A-18 Super Hornet, is more versatile and cheaper to maintain.
The Super Hornet is unlikely to surpass the F-14's following. Furiously fast, deafeningly loud and lethal to enemy aircraft, the Tomcat had attained legendary status by the 1980s. The 1986 film Top Gun, in which Tom Cruise portrayed an F-14 pilot in training, cemented the supersonic warplane's reputation in the popular culture.
"There's something about the way an F-14 looks, something about the way it carries itself," says Adm. Michael Mullen, chief of naval operations, the Navy's top officer. "It screams toughness. Look down on a carrier flight deck and see one of them sitting there, and you just know, there's a fighter plane. I really believe the Tomcat will be remembered in much the same way as other legendary aircraft, like the Corsair, the Mustang and the Spitfire."
The Tomcat was designed in the late 1960s with one enemy in mind: the Soviet Union. The jet was typically launched from an aircraft carrier, and its twin engines could propel it at twice the speed of sound. Its armaments deterred Soviet bombers designed to fire missiles at U.S. Navy ships.
"It was intended to do one thing really well," says John Pike, a military analyst at GlobalSecurity, a think tank based in Alexandria, Va. "The Soviets evidently respected it. Their answer was to build bigger and faster bombers."
After the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, the F-14 was something of a stray cat. It had no real enemy in a world with one superpower. Eventually, the Navy armed it with precision bombs and targeting systems and added attack missions to its résumé.
Tomcats, with their two-member crews of a pilot and a backseat radar officer, flew missions in Desert Storm, in the Balkans and, until February, in Iraq.
"The Tomcat has been a dogfighter, an interceptor, a reconnaissance platform, even a bomber -- whatever the Navy needed it to do," Mullen says.
Pike calls it "a crowning achievement of 20th-century aviation."
After today's ceremony, the Navy will mothball some F-14s in the Arizona desert and ship others to aviation museums.
A monument at Oceana Naval Air Station will be dedicated to the 69 Tomcat crewmembers killed while flying the jet, says retired rear admiral Fred Lewis, chairman of the Tomcat Sunset Committee, a non-profit group established to organize farewell ceremonies for the F-14.
"That's the risk we all accepted when we flew the plane," Lewis says.
The only other country flying F-14s after today will be Iran, Pike says. Starved for spare parts, the Iranians struggle to keep the jets in flight.
Smuggled parts will be even harder to come by after the Navy retires the Tomcat.
"Nobody will be sorrier to see them go than the ayatollahs," Pike says.
Cmdr. Curt Seth will miss them, too. He runs his hand across his F-14's aluminum skin, ducks down to examine its landing gear, pats a wing and stands back for a full view of his Tomcat fighter before one of its final flights this week.
"It's the only plane that looks fast sitting still," says Seth, 41, whose call sign "Opie" fits his freckled face and sandy hair.
The aging Tomcat requires 40 or more hours of maintenance for a single hour of flight, says Seth, executive officer for the "Tomcatters" of Fighter Squadron 31. The Super Hornet requires less than half that maintenance time.
It may be old and expensive, but the Tomcat hasn't lost a step.
"The F/A-18 is like a Porsche; it handles really well," Seth says. "The F-14 is like a Corvette, a muscle car. It just has tremendous power. It's just a fun plane to fly."
And it's fast. Minutes after it roars down the runway and takes off from Oceana Naval Air Station, the Tomcat is over the open ocean and in airspace restricted for military aircraft.
Quickly, smoothly and quietly -- at least inside the cockpit -- the Tomcat breaks the sound barrier.
"It's not like it was in Chuck Yeager's day anymore," says Seth, referring to the venerable test pilot who was the first in the world to fly at supersonic speed in 1947.
"Ten or 11 miles per minute," Seth says. "That's pretty quick."
For all its speed, the F-14 is remarkably nimble. It's capable of razor-sharp, stomach-churning banks, climbs, rolls and dives. Seth happily demonstrates.
All the while -- whether upside down or plastered to his seat by forces several times that of gravity -- Seth chats matter of factly.
"That's 4½ Gs," he says of the gravitational pull that makes your arms feel like they're encased in wet cement.
Back on the ground, Seth turns wistful.
"It's a great airplane," he says. "The Tomcat is going out on top." THE F-14 IN ACTION
Vietnam War: The fighter came to the conflict late in the U.S. involvement aboard the carrier USS Enterprise. The planes flew air patrols over South Vietnam but downed no enemy aircraft.
Iran-Iraq War: The only foreign customer for F-14s was Iran during the rule of the shah. Iran had obtained 79 fighters by the time of its war with Iraq. Few are thought to be usable today since the United States cut off spare parts and engineers after the shah was overthrown in 1979.
Soviet escorts: Frequently, Soviet aircraft would fly close to U.S. warships. In many cases, F-14s would fly up to meet bombers or other craft and "escort" them away from the fleet.
Libya: When dictator Moammar Gadhafi tried to extend Libya's territory 12 nautical miles into the Mediterranean Sea, an almost daily probe from U.S. military began. On Aug. 18, 1981, two Libyan Su-22s challenged a pair of F-14s. Both the Libyan planes were shot down.
Desert Storm: Nearly a dozen squadrons of F-14s flew missions during the 1991 liberation of Kuwait. They continued to patrol the "no-fly zones" once Iraqi troops were driven from Kuwait.
The Balkans: As part of a United Nations peacekeeping force, F-14s flying from the USS Theodore Roosevelt covered bombing runs and dropped laser-guided bombs of their own on tactical targets in Kosovo in 1999.
Post-9/11: In the wake of the terrorist attacks in the USA, F-14s took part in bombing runs against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Iraq war: Five squadrons of F-14s from the USS Abraham Lincoln took part in the early action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Good choice to use the Raptors in A2A combat against Iranian MiGs!