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Federal officials are investigating after a single-engine plane crash Saturday at the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport that killed former U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat pilot Dale “Snort” Snodgrass.

Federal officials are investigating after a single-engine plane crash Saturday at the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport that killed the pilot. Dale Snodgrass was the lone occupant of the SIAI-Marchetti fixed-wing aircraft when it crashed around noon during takeoff, according to a news release from airport Manager Michael Isaacs. Snodgrass’s age and hometown were not listed. The aircraft came down in a field and caught fire just off the airport’s taxiway Charlie, according to Lewiston Fire Department Chief Travis Myklebust.

Throughout the 1970s, the Iranian military was armed with U.S.-made equipment from M16 rifles to M60 Patton tanks, while the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF), which was established in 1920, became the only military force other than the United States Navy to be equipped with the F-14 Tomcat and the AIM-54A Phoenix air-to-air missiles. Interestingly enough, the IIAF had also placed an order for more than 150 F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter aircraft in 1976. However, those deliveries were not made and instead were subsequently sold to the Israeli Air Force.

Not a fair fight. Key point: It would be much smarter for Iran to use asymmetric means to take on the United States instead of challenging America in the air. With the United States withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal with Iran, a war with Tehran seems to be a distinct possibility. In the event of a military conflict between Washington and Tehran, there is also the ever growing possibility that the White House might seek regime change in Iran. A full-scale military campaign against Iran would require the United States to destroy the Iranian air...

August 1981 opened with a massive show of American force in the Mediterranean Sea, just north of Libya. Two of America’s super-carriers, the USS Forrestal and the class’ namesake, USS Nimitz, had entered into what Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had illegally declared his nation’s territorial waters. America’s carriers were there to oppose that declaration, and for days, fighters from both countries danced in an airborne extension of diplomatic tensions until two U.S. fighters entered into a deadly dogfight. "The left side of the lead Libyan aircraft lit up with a big flame as the missile motor ignited," recounted Lieutenant Larry...

This is a very informative lecture on the F-14.

More than 40 years after Iran acquired the F-14 Tomcat from the United States, there are still plenty of misconceptions about the deal. Most published accounts offer a simple explanation — that Iran needed F-14s to counter over-flights by Soviet-operated MiG-25R Foxbat reconnaissance aircraft. The truth is a bit more complicated. The Soviet overflights were actually a response to Iran’s own increasing belligerence, which dovetailed with the country’s determined acquisition of better and better U.S.-made warplanes. Bear in mind that after the CIA staged a coup against the Iranian government in 1953, Tehran was a close U.S. ally. In the...

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.

I the late 1980s, F-14 Tomcat pilot and Topgun instructor Paul Nickell found himself strapping into the cockpit of a brand new Navy jet that would never land on an aircraft carrier. Instead, it was built specifically to challenge the skills of the best fighter crews the Navy had to offer. It was a stripped down, up-engined, exotically painted variant of the already nimble F-16. General Dynamics built only 26 of them, and the fleet served less than a decade before being controversially retired, but the impression the jet made was legendary. For part one of a multi-part, in-depth series...

Something really interesting details have been exposed by the material released by Russia’s MoD lately. Indeed, as you can see in the video below, IRIAF (Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force) F-14 Tomcat interceptors escorted Russian Air Force Tu-95 Bear bombers flying in Iranian airspace during their 9h 30mins missions (from Engels airbase and back, along the Iraq-Iran-Caspian Sea 6,500 km-long corridor) against terrorist targets in Syria. With the U.S. Navy retiring the legendary F-14 in September 2006, nowadays the IRIAF is the only operator of the Tomcat, a type of aircraft that Tehran has kept airworthy throughout the years...

Remember this? http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/hear-this-intense-declassified-recording-of-f-14s-shoot-1739696849

McDonnell Aircraft Corporation’s F-4 Phantom was quickly becoming the do-all fighter by the mid 1960s, able to lug thousands of pounds of bombs on one mission and then strictly air-to-air missiles the next. The potential for evolving the already successful Phantom became especially attractive as high-end combat aircraft programs of the ‘60s began to sputter, namely the Navy’s F-111B. Enter the F-4(FV)S variable-geometry wing Phantom concept. The F-4(FV)S concept took the F-4 fuselage and omitted its low, bent-wing configuration. In its place was a redesigned highly-mounted swing-wing mated to large wing-root extensions. Within these extensions were the pivot points for...

While the requirement for a carrier-based long-range strike capability is a frequent subject of discussion around Washington, the U.S. Navy’s need for improved air superiority capabilities is often neglected. The service has not had a dedicated air-to-air combat aircraft since it retired the Grumman F-14 Tomcat in 2006. But even the Tomcat was adapted into a strike aircraft during its last years in service after the Soviet threat evaporated. Now, as new threats to the carrier emerge and adversaries start to field new fighters that can challenge the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, attention...

On April 9, 1972, Iraq and the Soviet Union signed an historic agreement. The USSR committed to arming the Arab republic with the latest weaponry. In return for sending Baghdad guns, tanks and jet fighters, Moscow got just one thing — influence … in a region that held most of the world’s accessible oil. In neighboring Iran, news of Iraq’s alliance with the Soviets exploded like a bomb. Ethnically Persian and predominately Shia, Iran was — and still is — a bitter rival of Iraq’s Sunni Arab establishment, which during the 1970s dominated the country’s politics. In Tehran, King Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi — the “shah” — moved quickly to...

We’re blasting along through the bumpy mid-day air at a brisk 480 knots, 500 feet above the desert. The ride is rough, and the purposeful rumble of our engines reminds me that it takes a lot of power to push this machine through the dense air at 800 feet per second. Fortunately, we have a lot of power. To my left at about a half mile is another Tomcat, and a mile ahead are two more. We fly in an offset box formation, each of us carrying two Mk 84 2,000-pound bombs. I’m the radar intercept officer (RIO) in an...

When the F-15 was created, it was created to be a pure air-to-air fighter, with the philosophy of “not a pound for air-to-ground” guiding designers. So how did Israel end up turning their F-15s into deadly long-range multi-role strike aircraft well before the F-15E Strike Eagle became a reality? Here’s how. In Need Of A Game Changing Fighter Israel’s love affair with the F-15 began out of the need to procure a fighter that could trump the increasingly complex fighters that surrounding Arab states were amassing from Russian and French sources. Both the F-14 Tomcat and the F-15 Eagle were...

Did You Know that American advanced F-14 Tom Cat Fighter Jets, helped to keep Ayatollah Khomeini in Power during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s? When Iran was under the pro-American Shah of Iran, America sold 79 F-14 Tom Cats to Iran in 1974-1978. The world's most experienced combat pilots in the F-14 are Iranians. According to Wikipedia: "...In 1980, an Iranian F-14 shot down an Iraqi Mil Mi-25 helicopter for its first air-to-air kill during the Iran–Iraq War. According to research by Tom Cooper, within the first six months of the war Iranian F-14s scored over 50 air-to-air victories,...

Several years since it was eventually retired from the U.S. Navy, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat remains one of the most loved planes by aviation enthusiasts. Any article about this iconic fighter plane, still operating with the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, its story, capabilities, records and surrounding anecdotes, always become a much debated and commented post on The Aviationist. For this reason, we will continue writing about this legendary plane and its replacement: the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. After the Tomcat retirement, the Rhino (as the F/A-18E/F is nicknamed by its aircrews) has not only quickly become the backbone of...

We sat at the end of the runway, our F-14's GE-110 motors humming, awaiting our clearance to begin what would be the last F-14 Demonstration ever. The Air Boss's voice crackled over the radio: "Tomcat Demo, you're cleared to five miles and 15k feet. The air show box is yours" At that very moment, I distinctly remember what my Commanding Officer told us before the show: "Fellas, make it a memorable one… just not too memorable!" LCDR Joe "Smokin" Ruzicka was the Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) to fly the last F-14 Demonstration before the Tomcat's final demise in 2006. Commander...

One Iranian Tomcat lobbed a 7,000-pound munition Nearly 30 years, ago, the Iranian air force modified its U.S.-built F-14 Tomcat fighters to carry air-to-ground ordnance—including, in one spectacular case, a massive, 3.5-ton bomb. Iran’s bitter enemy Iraq actually inspired the idea of outfitting the twin-engine, swing-wing F-14s as bombers. Iran and Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988. Iraq’s most notorious interceptor and recon jets were also its most prolific bombers. Baghdad’s Soviet-supplied MiG-25 Foxbats could carry free-fall bombs and still reach Mach 2.5 at 60,000 feet. Using the advantage of speed and altitude, a MiG-25RB could release...