F-14 Tomcat: History, Performance & Discussion

Ah yes VF-211 Checkmates.

That tomcat never flew again after carrier landing because it was A model which was aged.

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Even more importantly I wish we got redundant control lines and seperation of said control lines into individual modules. Right now you just die if you get hit anywhere near any of your control lines, it’s a very unfair and unrealistic mechanic.

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It’s actually so annoying. It should be an absolute rarity to get a control surface control snipe. Every time I’m hit in the tennis court with the F-14 I lose control. That’s not even realistic, as IRL that’s the most durable part of the plane. Not saying it should soak up damage like a SU-25. But it should be able to take some hits at least.

Is this sort of thing even bug reportable? Or is it the classic “developer discretion”.

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Every plane suffers from it, though some more than others (Looking at you, P-61)

Overall, it’s something that should take relatively minimal effort to put a band-aid fix on (I expect nothing more from Gaijin)
Just take the control line models, separate every line, make the damage code represent that, done.
Getting shot in the right aileron no longer nukes your left one.
To begin with, aren’t the wires back-up in modern fighters? They should model hydraulic and electric controllers, and only have the lines there as another module that’s a back-up.

The F-14 may be huge, but in real life that would actually make it redundant, instead of a “oh you’re on fire on one specific side, you die now”

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@Gunjob @InterFleet

APG-59 & AWG-9 Ability to bypass IFF limitation in PDV modes:

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/gJFHlO8eOvFD

AIM-7E, SkyFlash, Aspide diameter:

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/Tjk92c1mqn4h

did the F-14 radar get nerfed again? Once again it’s updating even worse than before.

Basically. The change that allows radars to pick up missiles make the AWG-9 so much worse with ghost targets and finding targets in the first place. You can actually lock missiles from like 85km away over an entire Flanker airframe. It’s by far the most miserable experience at 13.0.

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The F-14D (and B) can supercruise.
Screenshot 2025-05-10 at 11.41.57 PM

Someone should test these acceleration times. This is great info.
Screenshot 2025-05-10 at 11.42.33 PM

That time-to-climb is crazy. That’s matching the F-15E and EFT. And that’s with a payload!

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Not according to the US, our definition is for real supercruise and not this useless stuff like the Eurofighter does where mil thrust is used.

Well, mostly ppl just use it to mark “can exceed mach1 without AB”

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Yet that defeats the point of putting the term “Cruise” in supercruise.
If you can’t pull the throttle back to save fuel and it’s only slightly better than afterburner, you really don’t have much of an advantage over aircraft with proper supercruise.

Arguably, with aircraft like the Eurocanards which are small and lack the fuel reserves of something like an F-15 or Su-27, a proper supercruise capability would be far more beneficial. It is surprising they have not made that a higher priority, especially given that it is easier to achieve with a delta aircraft due to lower preponderance of wave drag after mach. Whereas the F-22 must go 1.5 mach to overcome wave drag and then pull the throttle back, the Eurofighter may only need to do 1.4 or so.

Of course, if ordnance penalizes the top speed as much as it does for something like the Gripen it makes sense why that would only be a focus on something with recessed weapons or an internal bay.

In regards to the F-14, being capable of doing 1.1 mach without afterburner is pretty useless as the aircraft has sufficiently long range ordnance and acceleration to make use of the quick-dash style launches, especially against the intended targets and use-cases.

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What is the real definition?? From what I found, it’s this: “the ability of a combat-loaded aircraft to maintain supersonic flight (Mach 1 or higher) without using afterburners”.

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Afterburner uses over 2x the fuel as dry power, per unit of thrust produced. So cruising at 100% throttle is still going to be a significant (50%) fuel saving compared to using afterburner.

that depends on plane/engines
for example the xb70 theoretical most efficient cruse speed involved using afterburners (mach 3)

That implies double the range but it’s less than half the speed in the case of F-14B, it’s not particularly useful given the lack of a payload.

The Eurofighter is only marginally better and once again, isn’t cruising.

There is no official definition, it’s a marketing ploy.

The F-22 meets the real world use case of the term, where it can actually set the cruise throttle setting while traveling supersonic and massively increase the effective combat range and speeds (up to 1.8 mach on mil thrust) or 1.5 on cruise setting.

so why is it then that your defenition is the correct one?

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It’s what USAF defines it as, not Eurofighter GmbH or Lockheed

Did you read?

Supercruise, supersonic cruising, this is by the very name not what the Eurofighter does. It is supersonic at mil thrust. Dry supersonic. Not cruising.

There is more to this than just saving a little bit of gas as opposed to afterburning, it means you can cruise above the wave drag boundary without afterburner, which allows you to reduce throttle in the envelope of airspeed where drag is reduced. The drag wall incurred by going supersonic is not overcome until surpassing the majority of aftershocks created through what is known as wave drag.

Of course none of this needs explaining here, the F-14 can’t supercruise and was never said to be capable of it by the American terminology unlike the F-22.

at like 13k ft i think i got it to supercruise

Seems a bit biased and regional.