6 ms·

Tales of the F-14

29 points by aycangulez 16y ago

MikeCapone 16y ago
"At this point we were about a half-mile short of the runway, about 25 feet above the trees. Bill quickly initiated the ejection sequence using his face curtain. A sensitive accelerometer on the nose strut recorded and telemetered back to the ground the little blips showing the firing of the canopy and then the ejection guns on the two seats in turn. That all took 0.9 seconds as advertised; 0.4 seconds later the nosewheel hit a tree!"
- z303 16y ago
  Some footage of the last few seconds of the flight is on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY3tsYoLopQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY3tsYoLopQ
phreanix 16y ago
Fave (relevant) quote: "The best way to do something ‘lean’ is to gather a tight group of people, give them very little money, and very little time."
- gaius 16y ago
  It works if you're defending the free world (as in, that's the motivation of the members of the team). It doesn't work at all if you're implementing enterprise software. Who gets gung ho about TPS reports? Rather than heroes, people feel exploited, since they know they're busting their arses just to make their VP look good...
  - phreanix 16y ago
    It works if you're defending the free world (as in, that's the motivation of the members of the team). Idealist me would like to think that such is the motivation of the majority of the HN 'team' =)
therockhead 16y ago
Why is it that the Navy never replaced the F-14 with a fighter with similar characteristics - speed, range, weapon range etc ?
- btilly 16y ago
  I assume because we're preparing for different threats. The F-14 was designed for creating air superiority in direct confrontations with the Soviet Union. Now our likely opponents will concede that territory to us and respond with suicide bombs.
  - kiujhyghjkl 16y ago
    The F14 was, like almost all weapon systems, built ot fight the previous war. It's exactly what a WWII carrier pilot flying would have wanted and as soon as they got promoted high enough - it's what they bought.
  - gaius 16y ago
    I don't think the Chinese or the Norks would adopt that strategy. Nor would India or Pakistan if an intervention was required there. In fact nor would Russia if they decided to step up their activities in Chchnya or Georgia. Who's to say what the geopolitical situation will be in 10, 20, 50 years? Aircraft flying now will see it...
- philwelch 16y ago
  The entire US Navy F-14 fleet's entire combat record shows 5 kills, four Libyan ("freedom of the seas" operations in the Gulf of Sidra) and 1 Iraqi helicopter (Desert Storm). Other operations include menacing an Egyptian airliner and diverting it to land at a NATO base in Sicily to arrest a few terrorists. The F-14 occasionally dropped bombs on the Balkans and Iraq as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-14_Tomcat_operational_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-14_Tomcat_operational_history) Clearly, in retrospect you can do just as much--some things even more effectively--with more versatile F/A-18 Hornet or F-35 Lightning II aircraft. And then you have fewer different airframes to service, which is always a logistics boon. The F-14 was designed to protect US carriers from air attack. They would have been really fucking useful in WWII but since then that job hasn't been necessary. Less flippantly, they may have helped the British in the Falklands, since the Phoenix missile was designed to shoot down cruise missiles like the Exocets which the Argentines used to some success (as well as the planes they were launched from). Of course, the British at the time did not have carriers capable of launching or landing the F-14, only smaller carriers designed to maintain a fleet of Harriers. Aegis cruisers came out a couple years after the F-14, and do most of the same job with surface to air missiles, and even they are overkill. It's exceedingly rare we will get into a shooting war with a country capable of matching even the F/A-18's performance in the hands of American naval aviators, much less on the high seas. (Off the high seas, it might be useful to have an overpowered air superiority fighter, but that's the F-22's job. Of course, judging from the Iraq war it helps to have as much as your air fleet as possible launching from carriers, just in case you manage to piss off all the countries where the Air Force could base their planes in the region.)
pavel_lishin 16y ago
Print article: http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Tales+of+the+F-14+|+Military+Aviation+|+Air+%26+Space+Magazine&expire=&urlID=27443951&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.airspacemag.com%2Fmilitary-aviation%2Ftomcat-tales.html&partnerID=285322&cid=16045142 http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&... Readability: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
aycangulez 16y ago
The anecdotes I liked most: "In designing the cockpit, we worked with the project pilot who went through system by system with each of the engineers in order to whittle down the number of discrete controls in order to justify every one that the engineer thought was necessary. In the flight control system the number of caution and warning indicators was reduced. Some of the engineers wanted a first level warning of every first level system, but we simplified the number of cautions and warnings. The objective, among other things was that it was a Navy airplane and the Navy didn’t want a pinball machine in the cockpit. They didn’t want a pilot being distracted while he’s being shot off the catapult." - Vincent Devino "The Tomcat’s air-to-air weapons mix was just unmatched. The Phoenix gives you up to 110-mile range. It launches and...[after a programmed number of feet] the missile turns on its own radar where told to look. It was a launch-and-leave situation. You can launch six and track more than 30 targets. One step down was the Sparrow, at 20-25 miles. Then you step down to infrared sidewinder. Now you’re talking feet-you’ve got that 25-mm gun, with about 600 rounds of ammo, so you have a full minute of firing time. It was sort of a fighter pilot’s dream on an intercept [mission]. That capability has not been matched, and won’t be. We don’t have it anymore." - Charlie Brown
- MikeCapone 16y ago
  I wasn't expecting that second quote to be by... Charlie Brown. Must not always be easy to be named like that.
arethuza 16y ago
Isn't Iran (of all places) still flying the F-14?
- aycangulez 16y ago
  Yes, they are still using it. In fact, Iran remains the only country that the US exported F-14s to.
  - gaius 16y ago
    Indeed, when the USS Vincennes shot down an airliner full of Iranian civilians, they believed themselves to be under attack from an Iranian F14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
barake 16y ago
It always blew my mind how long the F-14 was in service - they were present at the American evacuation from Saigon in 1975.
- mrduncan 16y ago
  As a fighter, definitely. When you compare it to other larger military aircraft, it doesn't seem very long at all. The B52 has been in active service since 1955. The A-10 was introduced in 1977 and isn't expected to be replaced until nearly 2030.
  - AttilaTheHun 16y ago
    And the Douglas DC-4 was introduced in the 1930s and there are still a few flying around!
    - ctkrohn 16y ago
      I think you mean the DC-3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-3
      - Maktab 16y ago
        The DC-4 was also introduced in the 1930s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-4
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      In active service in the armed forces, or private/commercial?
      - bmm6o 16y ago
        All private, I think. This one flies right over our office several times a week: http://archives.californiaaviation.org/ganews/msg09194.html http://archives.californiaaviation.org/ganews/msg09194.html .
aycangulez 16y ago
As a fun side note, F-14s inspired the creators of Robotech (Macross). The mechas in this classic anime look very much like F-14s when they are in their normal "fighter" mode. Here is how they look like when transformed half-way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VF-1S-Strike-Valkyrie-02.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VF-1S-Strike-Valkyrie-02.j...
awongh 16y ago
During one of the all-night engine runs a few days before First Flight, I was running the engines ... I looked over the side and saw a large puddle of hydraulic fluid... I asked what happened, and he said it must have been a loose B nut... We were all sleepy, so we went home and thought no more about it. !! wtf?! you're test piloting a mulit-million dollar jet plane, it starts leaking fluid when you're testing the engine on the ground, it leaks fluid, and since you're sleepy you just forget about it and go home?! That's pretty crazy. I guess these guys are more gung-ho than I thought. Would you even do that even if you were testing a race car?

29 points by aycangulez 16y ago

"At this point we were about a half-mile short of the runway, about 25 feet above the trees. Bill quickly initiated the ejection sequence using his face curtain. A sensitive accelerometer on the nose strut recorded and telemetered back to the ground the little blips showing the firing of the canopy and then the ejection guns on the two seats in turn. That all took 0.9 seconds as advertised; 0.4 seconds later the nosewheel hit a tree!"

z303 16y ago
Some footage of the last few seconds of the flight is on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY3tsYoLopQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY3tsYoLopQ

phreanix 16y ago

Fave (relevant) quote: "The best way to do something ‘lean’ is to gather a tight group of people, give them very little money, and very little time."

gaius 16y ago
It works if you're defending the free world (as in, that's the motivation of the members of the team). It doesn't work at all if you're implementing enterprise software. Who gets gung ho about TPS reports? Rather than heroes, people feel exploited, since they know they're busting their arses just to make their VP look good...
- phreanix 16y ago
  It works if you're defending the free world (as in, that's the motivation of the members of the team). Idealist me would like to think that such is the motivation of the majority of the HN 'team' =)

therockhead 16y ago

Why is it that the Navy never replaced the F-14 with a fighter with similar characteristics - speed, range, weapon range etc ?

btilly 16y ago
I assume because we're preparing for different threats. The F-14 was designed for creating air superiority in direct confrontations with the Soviet Union. Now our likely opponents will concede that territory to us and respond with suicide bombs.
- kiujhyghjkl 16y ago
  The F14 was, like almost all weapon systems, built ot fight the previous war. It's exactly what a WWII carrier pilot flying would have wanted and as soon as they got promoted high enough - it's what they bought.
- gaius 16y ago
  I don't think the Chinese or the Norks would adopt that strategy. Nor would India or Pakistan if an intervention was required there. In fact nor would Russia if they decided to step up their activities in Chchnya or Georgia. Who's to say what the geopolitical situation will be in 10, 20, 50 years? Aircraft flying now will see it...
philwelch 16y ago
The entire US Navy F-14 fleet's entire combat record shows 5 kills, four Libyan ("freedom of the seas" operations in the Gulf of Sidra) and 1 Iraqi helicopter (Desert Storm). Other operations include menacing an Egyptian airliner and diverting it to land at a NATO base in Sicily to arrest a few terrorists. The F-14 occasionally dropped bombs on the Balkans and Iraq as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-14_Tomcat_operational_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-14_Tomcat_operational_history) Clearly, in retrospect you can do just as much--some things even more effectively--with more versatile F/A-18 Hornet or F-35 Lightning II aircraft. And then you have fewer different airframes to service, which is always a logistics boon. The F-14 was designed to protect US carriers from air attack. They would have been really fucking useful in WWII but since then that job hasn't been necessary. Less flippantly, they may have helped the British in the Falklands, since the Phoenix missile was designed to shoot down cruise missiles like the Exocets which the Argentines used to some success (as well as the planes they were launched from). Of course, the British at the time did not have carriers capable of launching or landing the F-14, only smaller carriers designed to maintain a fleet of Harriers. Aegis cruisers came out a couple years after the F-14, and do most of the same job with surface to air missiles, and even they are overkill. It's exceedingly rare we will get into a shooting war with a country capable of matching even the F/A-18's performance in the hands of American naval aviators, much less on the high seas. (Off the high seas, it might be useful to have an overpowered air superiority fighter, but that's the F-22's job. Of course, judging from the Iraq war it helps to have as much as your air fleet as possible launching from carriers, just in case you manage to piss off all the countries where the Air Force could base their planes in the region.)

pavel_lishin 16y ago

Print article: http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Tales+of+the+F-14+|+Military+Aviation+|+Air+%26+Space+Magazine&expire=&urlID=27443951&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.airspacemag.com%2Fmilitary-aviation%2Ftomcat-tales.html&partnerID=285322&cid=16045142 http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&... Readability: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

aycangulez 16y ago

The anecdotes I liked most: "In designing the cockpit, we worked with the project pilot who went through system by system with each of the engineers in order to whittle down the number of discrete controls in order to justify every one that the engineer thought was necessary. In the flight control system the number of caution and warning indicators was reduced. Some of the engineers wanted a first level warning of every first level system, but we simplified the number of cautions and warnings. The objective, among other things was that it was a Navy airplane and the Navy didn’t want a pinball machine in the cockpit. They didn’t want a pilot being distracted while he’s being shot off the catapult." - Vincent Devino "The Tomcat’s air-to-air weapons mix was just unmatched. The Phoenix gives you up to 110-mile range. It launches and...[after a programmed number of feet] the missile turns on its own radar where told to look. It was a launch-and-leave situation. You can launch six and track more than 30 targets. One step down was the Sparrow, at 20-25 miles. Then you step down to infrared sidewinder. Now you’re talking feet-you’ve got that 25-mm gun, with about 600 rounds of ammo, so you have a full minute of firing time. It was sort of a fighter pilot’s dream on an intercept [mission]. That capability has not been matched, and won’t be. We don’t have it anymore." - Charlie Brown

MikeCapone 16y ago
I wasn't expecting that second quote to be by... Charlie Brown. Must not always be easy to be named like that.

arethuza 16y ago

Isn't Iran (of all places) still flying the F-14?

aycangulez 16y ago
Yes, they are still using it. In fact, Iran remains the only country that the US exported F-14s to.
- gaius 16y ago
  Indeed, when the USS Vincennes shot down an airliner full of Iranian civilians, they believed themselves to be under attack from an Iranian F14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

barake 16y ago

It always blew my mind how long the F-14 was in service - they were present at the American evacuation from Saigon in 1975.

mrduncan 16y ago
As a fighter, definitely. When you compare it to other larger military aircraft, it doesn't seem very long at all. The B52 has been in active service since 1955. The A-10 was introduced in 1977 and isn't expected to be replaced until nearly 2030.
- AttilaTheHun 16y ago
  And the Douglas DC-4 was introduced in the 1930s and there are still a few flying around!
  - ctkrohn 16y ago
    I think you mean the DC-3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-3
    - Maktab 16y ago
      The DC-4 was also introduced in the 1930s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-4
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    In active service in the armed forces, or private/commercial?
    - bmm6o 16y ago
      All private, I think. This one flies right over our office several times a week: http://archives.californiaaviation.org/ganews/msg09194.html http://archives.californiaaviation.org/ganews/msg09194.html .

aycangulez 16y ago

As a fun side note, F-14s inspired the creators of Robotech (Macross). The mechas in this classic anime look very much like F-14s when they are in their normal "fighter" mode. Here is how they look like when transformed half-way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VF-1S-Strike-Valkyrie-02.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VF-1S-Strike-Valkyrie-02.j...

awongh 16y ago

During one of the all-night engine runs a few days before First Flight, I was running the engines ... I looked over the side and saw a large puddle of hydraulic fluid... I asked what happened, and he said it must have been a loose B nut... We were all sleepy, so we went home and thought no more about it. !! wtf?! you're test piloting a mulit-million dollar jet plane, it starts leaking fluid when you're testing the engine on the ground, it leaks fluid, and since you're sleepy you just forget about it and go home?! That's pretty crazy. I guess these guys are more gung-ho than I thought. Would you even do that even if you were testing a race car?