F-14 Tomcat: History, Performance & Discussion

Even if the radar prevented you from selecting friendlies, nothing is preventing the missile from confusing a teammate for an enemy what it goes active if the teammate is close to the targetted enemy. Treat FOX3s like FOX2s in that regard. Don’t fire when there is a friendly near your target, also don’t forget to account for friendlies that will be near the enemy when the missile will go active, as you phoenix will take some time to reach a distance at which it can track its target on its own (no friendly near target during launch \neq no friendly near target in active phase).

Grumman’s work on the F-14 series was absolutely shocking. It’s incredible how they managed to take a ten year gap from the F-111’s development to the F-14’s first flight, and all the technological and material innovations in that time, to make a plane that was worse in every way.

Elaborate?

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I don’t know what to tell you if you think the F-111B was better than the F-14A.

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me when i’m in a flying brick competition and my opponent is an aardvark

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The US Navy on their way to adopt a worse aircraft because ???

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Well, basing it on US military getting the better thing is not good. Considering they adopted worse thing many times just because politics or someone wanting money.

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Definitely underrating the fakour

How would the F-111B be better?
It required so many design changes since it was horrendously underpowered for its weight and poor visibility for carrier operations.

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Are you baiting? How is the F-14 worse in any way besides raw top speed and range?
In the fleet defense/interceptor role, the F-14 is much better.

The F-14 had the same amount of Phoenix missiles, had a better radar as of the F-14D, was much lighter, (the F-14D’s MTOW was the F-111B’s gross weight) more maneuverable, (better TWR, wing loading, smaller, less drag, more lift, etc.) and had much better strike capability as of the F-14D as well.

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Usually worse thing isn’t noticeably worse. In this case the F-14 is so much better you literally could not justify choosing the 111B.

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Maybe if the F-111B had the flight performance of the F, but even then the thing would only be good in straight lines as a missile bus, the F-14A would outperform it in every other aspect of being a fighter.

But the B does not have the flight performance of the F so its just worse in every way to the F-14A, and especially the B with it’s F110s.

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Where did i say it is? I just said that assuming something is better because it was chosen, is wrong - examle : aim-4 on F-4D, gunless phantom because of muh (unreliable) missiles. No CMs on early F-15As. That terrible digital camo us army used or zumwalt for navy, one of the greatest money sinks of decade. And i bet theres tons and tons more. F-14 was better, perfect? Certainly not but given threat posed by soviets to carrier groups? Good choice. Even replacing it with hornets and super hornets was again, bad decision and us navy is in serious disadvantage now (because of god damn politics).
Just stating - chosen one aint always better than the other.

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Don’t say this. Both of these are myths coming from the same source. Missile only Phantoms, after the Navy realized that their pilots had to be trained on how to use missiles, scored far better against the Vietnamese than Air Force Phantoms using the internal gun. Same with the AIM-4, it was a good (enough) missile, the Air Force pilots were untrained in proper utilization of the missile, and restricted by RoE preventing them from taking advantage of the missiles range (something that also affects current longer range missiles).
The Zumwalt is, well should have been, good. Congress sabotaging the program when they realized that the ships’ guns cost money and weren’t free doesn’t make it bad.

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On the AIM-4, air force phantom pilots specifically hated it due to the god-awful implementation of the missile. It literally had NONE of the computers or fire control systems necessary for the missile’s function on the F-4. The RIO and pilot were expected to learn some 20+ steps just to turn the missile on and start the seeker head cooling, all while dogfighting an enemy. Launching the missile then was even more steps.

The F-106 and other AIM-4 armed US interceptors had a decent experience with the Falcon, because their aircraft had the necessary systems implemented to actually use them effectively.

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Yeah… Skill issue on USAF side as Israelis used M61 on their F-4Es to great success and it made large portion of their air to air kills. Dwarfing both USN and USAF. What you say is simply BS. The aim-4 crap on 4D was already explained above.

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Yeah not really, both of you are missing crucial context and just guessing.

I assume this is just talking about irl?

What he is saying is nonsense that applied only to the earliest blocks of the F-14 prior to the proper fitment of the GE engines over the TF-30. These issues were resolved before the aircraft was even fielded the AIM-7F.

@HauptmannPingu Feel free to share the cover of the document you’re referencing or remove it without proof it’s permissible for posting.

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