[TrashMan]

Curse you Dick Chaney!

He f*** up hte Super Tomcat project and ordered the F-14 molds destroyed....

[CaptJosh]

How is it not technically feasible, anyway? It's not like there aren't tons of 3D models of the F-14 around, right?

[Mefustae]

Oh God! Let it die already!!

[Colonol Dekker]

I second that motion, 

[TrashMan]

How is it not technically feasible, anyway? It's not like there aren't tons of 3D models of the F-14 around, right?

MOLDS, not models.

Since no spare parts can be preduced without constructing new molds (very expensive) the US army is ditching the F-14. Don't be fooled by its age. It's still one of the best fighter jets ever constructed.

[AlphaOne]

And one of the largest jet planes ever to take off of the deck of a carrier. Also it's quite good I nevre really understood why they wanted to retire the f-14D's . Oh well i guess politicians know a lot about fighter performance these days.

Also by the time the F-14 was in service during the 80's there were quite a lot of other planes that could still out perform it. Actualy there were only 2 that I can think of One is the Mig29 and the other would be tha Su. Oh and there was another one a Mig i believe that had the abilaty to go up to mach3. have no idea pojunt what but above mach3 .

hei is the JSF squedjueld to enter european countries service?

[Flipside]

I think the main problem wasn't the plane, though it's age in air combat was starting to show. The Phoenix missile is an incredibly expensive piece of kit designed to take out large Russian bombers at extreme range (their max range on paper was over 200km). The fact is that the Theatre has changed to make the threat that the F14 is designed to counter almost neglible. An F16 with AIM9L and AMRAAM is going to be a far more effective vehicle in the current way wars are fought than an F14, despite the fact the F14 is also my favourite plane of the last few decades

[Colonol Dekker]

Is that the old Tomcat wioth sloping wings and canards?

[Flipside]

That's the bugger, the Top Gun plane Always funny, since they weren't actually designed as primarily dogfighters

[Colonol Dekker]

The co-pilot ejector seats dont react well to geese either

[Flipside]

LOL Yeah, I worked for a while as an avionics Engineer at Farnborough, for months we took the piss out of one of the American instructors saying 'Remember, cockpit first, co-pilot second'

Edit : Though, in all honesty, that situation shown in the film could never really happen without an incredible set of circumstances taking place, cockpits, because of their shape, have enormous drag factor when ejected and get pulled behind the plane in about 1/16 second.

[Colonol Dekker]

Yeah i know it was all sfx done for drama and effect, I wish someone would do it to will young though.......

[AlphaOne]

who is will young??

[TrashMan]

The D version was more of all-purpose fighter. It could mount various other missiles and was faster.

IMHO, I think the F-14 is one of the best looking fighters ever made.

[Flipside]

Alpha, Will Young is a singer who won the UK 'Pop Idol', in his defence I'll say he has a distinctive voice, something a lot of singers these days lack. Alas, that distictive voice is (a) annoying and (b) Doesn't change in the slightest in the last several years which is what probably led to (a)

And Yep, I agree with you Trashman, the F14 is one of the best looking fighters around, I grew up with it, as it were (even got to work on one once, dream come true )

Thing is though, if you want Dogfighting, the F16 is still better and if you want pure anti-everything power, the Strike Eagle will always be my personal favourite



Damn! The F15 is sexy

[AlphaOne]

umm oki whatever you say about the dude with the annoyng voice. Also I like both f14 f15. But then agin I also like the Mig29,Su27 and well justy about every plane from the Su27 family. And there is another Mig available now  thats one sexi looking plane don have he link though sitll have one of the pics I believe . I saw the fighters a while ago!

[Wobble73]

Alpha, Will Young is a singer who won the UK 'Pop Idol', in his defence I'll say he has a distinctive voice, something a lot of singers these days lack. Alas, that distictive voice is (a) annoying and (b) Doesn't change in the slightest in the last several years which is what probably led to (a)

And Yep, I agree with you Trashman, the F14 is one of the best looking fighters around, I grew up with it, as it were (even got to work on one once, dream come true )

Thing is though, if you want Dogfighting, the F16 is still better and if you want pure anti-everything power, the Strike Eagle will always be my personal favourite



Damn! The F15 is sexy

Also Alpha, the reason flipside alludes to Will Young is that he did a pop video once that was based on the Top Gun movie. As some people may have mentioned that this film was homo-erotic and the fact that Will Young happens to be gay has nothing to do with it!

[Colonol Dekker]

I gotta say,the reason i wanna see him brain himself on a cockpit, hes a twat...

[AlphaOne]

ummm....oki now i'm at a loss for words. Not in a good way tough!

thats whi i persoanli prefer the bunny as a pilot for tha carrof fighter the GTF Carrot!

[Janos]

How is it not technically feasible, anyway? It's not like there aren't tons of 3D models of the F-14 around, right?

MOLDS, not models.

Since no spare parts can be preduced without constructing new molds (very expensive) the US army is ditching the F-14. Don't be fooled by its age. It's still one of the best fighter jets ever constructed.

But it was also one of the most mission-specific planes in US arsenal and the threat it responded to (large swarms of Soviet bombers) was no longer realistic. It was an interceptor.
Usually armies start to scrap old material when they no longer fill a role and buy more versatile stuff until another threat rises. Also keeping old airframes flying just gets quite expensive and difficult after some time, just ask countries which operate old Soviet tech.

Tomcats were nowhere near as agile as Super Hornets are. Attempts to convert them to strike role met... uhm, resistance and skeptiscm, and the results were not stellar (AFAIK).