15 ms·

Why did the F-14 Tomcat retire decades before its peers? (2021)

173 points by zeristor 4y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
I think the reason was Iran. Before the revolution, Iran had bought F-14s and made them the core of their air force. The US went out of its way not only to retire the F-14 but also to ensure that there would be no spare parts for it that could help Iran maintain its F14 fleet.
- spamizbad 4y ago
  Iran used F-14As to great effect during the Iraq-Iran conflict. The Tomcat flown by Iranian pilots did exceptionally well against its Soviet and French peers in the Iraqi Air Force.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Fans of the Tomcat might be interested in F-14 RIO Ward Carroll's YouTube channel. Here's an episode covering Iran's usage of the F-14 against Iraq: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HYrasBB4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HYrasBB4k
    - eternalban 4y ago
      Listening to the intro, good to point out that the Shah was an accomplished pilot himself and could appreciate the demonstration. -- "`There were several factors which influenced the selection of the F-14. Iran’s northern border with the USSR, and those to the west and southwest with Iraq, are guarded by high mountains. Our Air Defence Command was building radar outposts on many peaks for better radar coverage, but we could never improve the situation with ground-based radar alone. There were too many “blind spots” in this coverage, and the big white domes of our radar stations were also excellent targets, visible from up to 50 miles away. Intelligence information obtained at the time verified that the Soviets would indeed strike them first. `In the south, along the Persian Gulf coast, we had only US-supplied radars, which did not work properly in hot and humid conditions — that is, for ten months of the year — and otherwise also had poor performance, despite several upgrades. All the radars supplied to the IIAF as part of Military Assistance Program projects were far from being top-of-the-line. The Americans gave us what they wanted to give, not what we needed. For two years — 1973-74 — a group of Iranian radar instructor including Col Iradj Ghaffari (the first Iranian tactical radar instructor) studied coverage problems associated with “Radar Sites Reinforcement,” but could not find a solution. Eventually, it was decided that a “flying radar” would eliminate the terrain masking problems. That flying radar would also have to be able to defend itself. It is beyond doubt that during the war with Iraq, the F-14 proved that it was exactly what we needed. `Before these studies were conducted within IIAF circles — at the time we were still flying F-5A/B Freedom Fighters and F-4D Phantom IIs we started looking for a top-of-the-line fighter interceptor. The result of these studies, directed by Gen Mehdi Rouhani, was a requirement for F-14s and AEW aircraft. US briefings on F-14s and F-15s undoubtedly helped us to formulate our requirement. We created the plan to purchase eight AEW aircraft — initially four, followed by four more — and the F-14s. Eventually, four orders were issued — the first for 30 Tomcats and the second for 50. There was one for Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS, followed by one for two communication satellites, which would enable all these aircraft to communicate securely with each other.’ "Unaware that the Iranians had already identified the F-14 as the right aircraft for their unique operational requirements, the US Navy and Grumman started an intensive campaign to ‘sell the Shah’, which included sending the F-14 Program Coordinator of the Chief of Naval Operations, Capt Mitchell, to Tehran twice to brief the Shah and IIAF commanders on the Tomcat’s capabilities. This culminated in a spectacular fly-off in July 1973 at Andrews AFB, Maryland, for the Shah and a group of high-ranking Iranian officers." source: https://theaviationgeekclub.com/former-iiaf-tomcat-pilots-tell-the-true-story-of-why-iran-picked-the-f-14-over-the-f-15/ https://theaviationgeekclub.com/former-iiaf-tomcat-pilots-te... the demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mrFcsw-Ew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mrFcsw-Ew
- usefulcat 4y ago
  This seems.. unlikely? If the US govt didn’t want Iran to get spare parts, all it had to do was forbid the US companies making those parts from selling them to Iran.
b06timmer 4y ago
I did two Western Pacific tours (West-Pacs) while in the Navy. On the first one in 1979 we had the F-4 Phantoms and on the second one we were introduced to the Tomcat's. For me, this was a mind blowing experience. The F-14 is a very large aircraft. It had electroluminescent exterior lighting that looked straight out of a sci-fi novel and with its differential rear stabilizers it looked like a living machine, especially when landing. I was an electronics tech in a bomber (A6) squadron so I didn't know much about the workings of the aircraft, as mentioned in the article. I will say that I am always in awe when I see that aircraft and will always be.
- dctoedt 4y ago
  What carrier were you on (and air wing) that still had F-4s in 1979? By the time I got to the Enterprise in early 1976, the embarked air wing, CVW-14, had no F-4s anymore, just F-14s (and A-7s and A-6s, etc.). The article's picture of a Soviet Bear bomber above a carrier, being escorted by armed F-14s flying close aboard, brought back memories of how we were always greeted with a "welcome to WestPac" flyover by a Bear, and we likewise sent up armed F-14s to make sure everyone stayed peaceable. On my first WestPac deployment, one of my roommates in "Boys Town" (an eight-man bunkroom for junior officers, just below the flight deck) was a warrant officer who ran the ship's photo lab; he brought us all 8x10 glossies of a similar photo, taken by the back-seater in one of the F-14s. I still have mine somewhere.
  - greedo 4y ago
    I think some Reserve Marine squadrons were operating them up until 1992, so it seems plausible that they were in use at that time.
  - b06timmer 4y ago
    I was on the Ranger (CV-61). (https://i.imgur.com/Wma9k84.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Wma9k84.jpg) We also had the Bear's and the trawlers. I think that had a lot to do the spy John Walker Jr.. He gave the Russians the cryptographic codes for the Navy, and they could read all of our communications. That's why the Bear's knew exactly when the carriers were changing station. I was an AT and programmed the "code of the day" into each aircraft, every day. Mode-4, IFF. Edited to add: CVW-2 for airwing. West Coast.
jwithington 4y ago
Trash aircraft. 40-60 hrs of maintenance required for 1 hour of flight. Its successor, the F/A-18, required about 10x less.
- greedo 4y ago
  Can the F/A-18 do BARCAP? Engage cruise missile carrying aircraft at range? The F-14 was an excellent aircraft when using the F-110 engines. The TF-30s were terrible. Cheney just didn't trust NAVAIR to develop any aircraft (see the A-12 fiasco), and he wasn't going to approve updating all the F-14s to the D standard.
  - daemoens 4y ago
    We're not going to see soviet bombers dropping nukes before the majority of America is destroyed by the ICBMs.
    - greedo 4y ago
      The F-14 was never tasked with CONUS defense, that was part of the Chair Forces responsibility. The F-14 was designed to prevent missile carrying bombers from attacking the carrier task force.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  I don't understand how a plane like that would work in a serious conflict. A week of maintenance after an hour of flight? Anyone depending on those planes in a war wouldn't last very long.
  - techstrategist 4y ago
    I’m no expert, but 40 hours of maintenance probably isn’t one tech working 9-5 for a week.
    - VLM 4y ago
      Also aircraft are not cars. The front line does day to day wartime service, but the "tasks people take cars to auto mechanics to do" like completely tearing down and re-assembling is done by a totally separate depot level service back in the states. Its like "keeping it running day to day" vs "doing a complete restoration". Depot service hours only matter in a budgetary sense, although I heard they were immense for the F-14. All those moving wing parts need to be removed, inspected, x-rayed or magnafluxed or whatever they did, reassembled, and exhaustively tested. In comparison, on the flight line day to day, I don't recall hearing the jet required unusually more time than similar aircraft.
yyyk 4y ago
Because the F-14 was based on the epitome of 1960s tech, while the newer planes were based on 70s/80s tech. There was no slack for upgrades and even maintenance was difficult.
- V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
  This is a very underappreciated aspect. The systems (i.e., avionics and portions attached to the avionics) would have also needed significant updates ($$$) to keep the aircraft relevant into the 21st century. It's not just the engines that needed modernizing.
  - izacus 4y ago
    That update existed (F-14D) but the upgrades of 40+ year old airframes were deemed to be a pretty big waste of money when they could be spent on fully modernized designs that could be stealthy and require less maintenance and pilots.
    - chasd00 4y ago
      Idk, the B52 is still flying and that airframe was designed like in to 50s I think.
      - izacus 4y ago
        The B52 isn't rated (and regularly) used for high-G manouvers, splashed with sea salt and crashed into a ship deck. Carrier life is rough on planes.
        chasd00 4y ago
        Valid point. I wasn’t thinking about carrier aircraft.
      - mr_toad 4y ago
        The avionics and weapons systems have all been replaced, and the engines soon will be. Also, the B52 is no longer considered suitable for the role it was designed for - dropping strategic nuclear weapons. In this role has been supplanted by the B2.
sidewndr46 4y ago
The author lists the "F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, and F-16 Fighting Falcon" as peers. I'm not really sure I agree with this. The F-15 and F-16 are land based fighters. The F-14 is a carrier launched aircraft. The requirements are different & the constraints are different. To consider the F-15 as a peer isn't even a valid starting point. It's a different plane for a different mission. Also worth mentioning there are effectively two generations of F-14, the second one having an improved engine design. These did not debut until 1987.
- Denvercoder9 4y ago
  They are peers in the sense that they had their first flight and operational introduction within 4 years of each other. Contemporaries would probably have been a better choice of wording.
- masklinn 4y ago
  The F-16 actually had a carrier demonstrator, the Vought 1600, for VFAX. While the F16 beat the YF17 for LWF, it’s carrier version was defeated by the carrier version of the YF17 (which would become the F/A-18). I would agree that the F16 is not a peer to the F15 or F14, the entire point of the 16 was to be a small and cheap workhorse. Not just because of the LWF program, but because that was its designers’ ethos inside General Dynamics. The 15 is 50% heavier when empty, And the 14 more than double (though part of that is changes and reinforcements for carrier-based operations, the Vought 1600 was also quite a bit heavier than an F-16).
  - V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
    > The F-16 actually had a carrier demonstrator, the Vought 1600, for VFAX. To be clear, the Vought 1600 (a partnership with GD where Vought took on the prime role and GD became a sub, similar to the what happened with Northrop and McDonnell-Douglas with the YF-17 and F-18) never left the conceptual design phase. You won't find a Vought 1600 airframe in any museum. > Not just because of the LWF program, but because that was its designers’ ethos inside General Dynamics. And also on the part of the USAF instigators of the LWF program (the so-called "fighter mafia"). The interesting thing is that if you look at the combat & military exercise record of the F-15C, it contradicts a lot of what the fighter mafia took and preached as gospel, at least as far as the air-to-air theater goes. The F-16 did/does enjoy a great deal of success as a multirole fighter with a non-trivial emphasis on the ground attack role.
YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 4y ago
> … but without a Soviet boogeyman to keep Uncle Sam’s pocketbook upturned and shaking, it became an incredibly expensive and sometimes problematic solution to a problem nobody had anymore. This says a lot about our world. Just look outside.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Russia's performance in Ukraine has been so abysmal I believe Western war hawks are most offended.
  - V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
    Cold war Russia and today's Russia are two different beasts. Also, Russia's strategy of deliberate large-scale brutality against civilians to win military conflicts still motivates the drive to nullify their military capabilities as quickly as possible.
    - Aloha 4y ago
      This. The Soviet Union had vast excess capacity to scale its army, build more armaments, etc. All of that went away as unaffordable when the Union collapsed.
cstross 4y ago
It's worth noting that despite all the valid points about the costs of the F-14, the F-14 was the cheaper alternate platform for the AIM-54 and AN/AWG-9 radar; they were originally developed (as the AIM-47 and AN/ASG 18) for the Lockheed YF-12A, a Mach 3 bomber-interceptor variant of the A-12, single-seat predecessor to the SR-71: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12 (The YF-12A program got as far as a 96 plane order for the USAF before it was cancelled in favour of the cheaper F-106X project, which also failed.) Anyway, before condemning the F-14 for being expensive to operate, I invite you to consider the likely costs of fielding a fleet of hundreds of nearly-hypersonic interceptors based on the same hardware as the SR-71 ...
- CarVac 4y ago
  Amusingly, the AIM-47 page says that the YF-12A was itself a lower-cost replacement for the XF-108 program.
- greedo 4y ago
  The F-14 was the alternative to the aborted F-111B. This was originally intended to carry the Phoenix and AN/AWG-9. Although it would have been cool, the YF-12 would have difficulty with a catapult launch.
- Tronno 4y ago
  I was curious how much the Phoenix missile itself cost. Some sources state a development cost of $167M, and a unit cost of ~$500k (with ~5000 built), adding up to about $2.5B, some of which was recouped by sales to Iran. It's impossible to say how much money was spent on aircraft capable of firing the missile, since they were also designed to do other things, and raw production/maintenance costs are hard to track down anyway. The Tomcat alone seems to have cost tens of billions to build and operate. Ultimately, "the AIM-54 has been used in 62 air-to-air strikes, all by Iran during the eight-year Iran–Iraq War" (Wikipedia). Whether or not this outcome was "expensive" is up to the American taxpayer, I guess.
  - oxfeed65261 4y ago
    The quote from Wikipedia appears to be wrong. The US has also used the missile in combat. FTA: “In January of 1999, two F-14s each fired one Phoenix missile at two Iraqi MiG-25s, only to have both miss. Later that same year, another F-14 fired a Phoenix at a MiG-23, only to miss once again. No F-14 ever shot down an enemy aircraft with the missile it was designed to carry.” The Wikipedia quote above is from the initial introductory section. Later, Wikipedia[0] says: > U.S. combat experience > On January 5, 1999, a pair of US F-14s fired two Phoenixes at Iraqi MiG-25s southeast of Baghdad. Both AIM-54s' rocket motors failed and neither missile hit its target. > On September 9, 1999, another US F-14 launched an AIM-54 at an Iraqi MiG-23 that was heading south into the no-fly zone from Al Taqaddum air base west of Baghdad. The missile missed, eventually going into the ground after the Iraqi fighter reversed course and fled north. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix#U.S._combat_experience https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix#U.S._combat_e...
galgot 4y ago
F-14 was a very complex and expensive to maintain. A beauty, but an Hangar Queen in her last years. Maybe by "peers" the author meant it was one of the "teen" fighters serie, F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18. Like there was the "century" fighters, F-102, F-104, F-105, F-106.
- muro 4y ago
  Any reason for not including the F-101?
  - galgot 4y ago
    just one, my poor memory.
    - muro 4y ago
      And I'm guilty just as well. There was also the Super Sabre, F-100 which I forgot :)
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  Fun point I read about this topic while back is that planes essentially cost the same amount of money per pound in the air, so building anything with two times the MTOW is an inherent disadvantage.
  - rjsw 4y ago
    Apparently, a comment on the TSR-2 [1] was that it was too heavy. The problem was that the manufacturer misinterpreted this and instead of just going away and designing a smaller aircraft they spent a lot of money trying to make the existing one lighter. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2
    - tengwar2 4y ago
      It's not exactly practical to throw away a design and start on completely different aircraft! Also consider that the size was fixed by the fuel requirements and the wavelength of the sideways-looking radar. The second point was a dominant consideration in the earlier competition which led to the Avro 730 selection.
nradov 4y ago
The decision was mainly a cost reduction measure, driven by the failure of the A-12 program and a need to free up funds to fight the GWOT while continuing JSF development. The earlier F-14 problems had largely been resolved in the F-14D model and there was a clear, low-risk development path to the "Super Tomcat 21" model with greatly improved capabilities in every area. The F/A-18E/F Super Hornets which replaced the Tomcat, while cheaper and more reliable, lack the speed and range that would be needed to fight a future Pacific Theater war against China. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29653/this-is-what-grummans-proposed-f-14-super-tomcat-21-would-have-actually-looked-like https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29653/this-is-what-gru... https://youtu.be/CpXyYgL4jPI https://youtu.be/CpXyYgL4jPI I think the Navy is now regretting their decision, but it's too late to go back.
- pdoege 4y ago
  I think it is even worse. NAVAIR had the 14 with its massive capabilities and instead spent a ton of money improving the A6, A7, a bunch of canceled projects, picked the effing LOSER of the LWF program, and then effed the 2 stealth projects and got out of the 2010s with extremely limited capability. Even worse, the money that could have been spent building ships that would be useful in a conflict with CN was spent on effing GUN Cruisers (!!!) and littoral ships that didn’t even work. Imagine instead if the USN had 8 additional Burkes, upgraded/refurbed 47s, Aegis/VLS across the fleet, and a hi/lo of updated, maintainable 14s and 16s. The US taxpayer spent billions and billions and got nothing. It’s been huge scandal for 30+ years
- izacus 4y ago
  I stronly doubt your conclusion considering the Navy is replacing the F/A-18s with F-35s which are closer to design of 18s than 14s. Perhaps there might be time to face the fact that the F-14 may not have been the most useful (and upgradable) planes for actually practical roles the carrier aircraft are expected to do? The F-14 maybe has been sexy in the air, but for effective and operational warfare the things like logistics, maintainability, reuse of parts and carrier space matter much more, especially if F-14s shortcomings made it less able to actually be in the air when needed. It's like taking your daddys 1970s charger (with new infotainmed and bolted on cruise control) into a desert expedition. Sure it has that gas guzzling V8 for the POWER when you need to hunt sand people, but in reality a modern Hilux is going to make the combined force a much more potent force and won't need truckloads of spare parts and mechanics to trail it. Even if it doesn't go 0-60 in 3s.
CoastalCoder 4y ago
(Tangent, in praise of the F-14) Before the F-14s were retired (2004-ish?), I attended an air show at the Quonset Air National Guard Base [0] . As part of the show, an F-14 took off from the runway and then went vertical (I assume on afterburners). It stayed vertical until it disappeared into the clouds. It felt like I was living in some sci-fi future, watching a spaceship launch. I was in awe. It was like some Stewart Cowley [1] book [2] come to life. IMHO it's still one of the coolest-looking fighter planes ever, up there with the YF-23 [3] and Su-35 [4]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_Point_Air_National_Guard_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_Point_Air_National_Gua... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Cowley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Cowley [2] https://www.amazon.com/Spacecraft-2000-2100-D-Authority-Handbook/dp/0890092117 https://www.amazon.com/Spacecraft-2000-2100-D-Authority-Hand... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-23 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35
- ethbr0 4y ago
  The first time I saw an F-22 do this out of Dobbins (north of Atlanta) completely changed my art-of-the-possible physics understanding. Seeing something going vertical and accelerating is fascinating.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- sedatk 4y ago
  I agree about the coolest looking. It has a very muscular look from the front. I'd also add F-4 and Mig-29 to the list. F-22 isn't bad either although not as cool as YF-23.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  Ah Chris Foss cover art, God I loved his space art when I discovered a book of it as a kid.
pastaguy1 4y ago
The F15 doesn't get a ton of fanfare, but it's an extremely capable aircraft.
- chasd00 4y ago
  As a kid the F15 was the only plane I ever drew pictures of and hung in my room. I agree, it’s a fantastic aircraft.
darksaints 4y ago
I saw an F-14 during fleet week in San Francisco when I was still in high school...we were watching from the pedestrian pathway on the golden gate bridge. It broke the sound barrier, and I still remember the shock wave and the sound of the bridge cables vibrating for 5-10 seconds afterwards. It was terrifying...I seriously thought the bridge would be damaged from it. I'm still not sure what the story was behind it, whether it was an accident or an "accident", but it made me fully appreciate the reasons why supersonic flight is not allowed over land.
- dingaling 4y ago
  Just as a point of note, the vapour cone often seen around fast jets at low level in humid conditions doesn't necessarily mean they're going supersonic themselves. Certain local areas of airflow do, however, which causes the drop in air pressure and thus condensation.
  - dtgriscom 4y ago
    You don't need supersonic anywhere to cause condensation. Watch the wingtips of a commercial airliner landing in high humidity; you'll often see swirls of fog caused by the low pressure inside the vortices. But, the cone of condensation coming off the body of a plane is the supersonic shock wave.
    - V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
      > But, the cone of condensation coming off the body of a plane is the supersonic shock wave. And shock surfaces can be present over the body due to local flow speed being supersonic even when the aircraft's velocity vector is strictly subsonic. Though to be fair, still in the transonic realm if you're seeing shocks.
  - darksaints 4y ago
    Not sure if that was an explanation for me, but I've seen it before and I wasn't basing it off that. This was obvious from the sound. The plane was too far away for me to see a condensation cone. It was probably somewhere over Angel Island at the time. A sonic boom, on a small scale, isn't something impressive...bullets cause sonic booms, even the tip of a bullwhip will. I had been around high explosives before too, an oddity of my father's profession. This wasn't just a loud jet, it literally sounded like a bomb, and it resonated for what felt like 5-10 seconds.
zokier 4y ago
The article does not spell it out directly, so to clarify the title a bit here are the introduction years of the relevant aircraft: * F-14 1974 * F-15 1976 * F-16 1978 * F-18 1983/84 * F-22 2005 * F-35 2016ish The interesting thing here is that F-18 was introduced only a decade after F-14, while F-15 -> F-22 took nearly three decades and F-16 -> F-35 four.
- icegreentea2 4y ago
  That's because the original F-18 was not a replacement for the F-14 - it was intended to be a complement. The F-18E/F which did replace the F-14 entered service in like 1997 or something. The F-18E/F is not really a variant of the F-18 - calling it E/F was a procurement masterstroke.
- YZF 4y ago
  The F-15 and the F-16 were just so good. Also there are many versions of those.
- indymike 4y ago
  The F-18 was based on the Northrop YF-17 that lost to the F-16 for it's contract. The Navy likes twin-engine fighters for safety reasons.
- ngcc_hk 4y ago
  I quite sure I read about tomcat in reader digest chinese around 1968-1972. I watch top gun to see the airplane.
zoomablemind 4y ago
"...But like the bringing the F-22 Raptor back from the dead..." When did the F-22 die that it had to be brought back?
- nocoiner 4y ago
  I think he was referring to restarting the F-22 production line.
  - alberto7 4y ago
    I heard that was near impossible, because the tooling was destroyed.
    - chipsa 4y ago
      The tooling exists and was carefully packed away. The problem is the stuff that wasn't F-22 specific, and we can't make anymore, because the company that makes them doesn't anymore. Or doesn't even exist.
- gte525u 4y ago
  It's old enough the mid-life upgrade (MLU) program is happening for it.
CH1jZci6jV 4y ago
I served in the last F-14 squadron, VF-31. When President Bush landed on our carrier (Mission Accomplished!) they had the inferior F-18s in the background for the political shots. We were told that was because the US taxpayers would be pissed if they knew how ripped off they got for the F-18, which was replacing the F-14 in all of the squadrons. This might be just F-14 bravado, of course, but I do also remember that like the second week of "shock and awe" (the initial Iraq campaign bombing) they stopped all F-14 flights for the same reasons. F-14s were trouncing the sorties of the F-18s, even though we were one squadron vs four or five of their squadrons, because we were the only jets capable of actually reaching Bagdad from the carrier and we were able to convert our bombs to "smart bombs" much faster (F-14s break a lot more so our techs were more skilled).
- ramesh31 4y ago
  How sophisticated was the AA threat over Baghdad on the initial wave?
  - CH1jZci6jV 4y ago
    I think we thought they were a lot more sophisticated than they actually were. But shock and awe was designed to basically neutralize all of that anyway. The Navy was the night shift and that included a lot of tomahawk missiles too. The Air Force was the daytime campaign so there was a lot of capability to take out different threats. The biggest threat I remember was we were very sure Saddam had chemical weapons (mostly because we sold them to him previously, but I digress). So we had to carry gas masks and did chemical attack drills alot. We also were forced to take many shots including small pox and an experimental anthrax shot. Many of my friends have medical conditions they believe are related to those shots.
    - the__alchemist 4y ago
      Surprising re shifts! More recently, the Navy has been biased towards day shifts due to carrier landing windows. My understanding is a big part of the Navy training/brief/debrief focus is the recovery.
mgarfias 4y ago
Duder needs to read his Boyd.
tibbydudeza 4y ago
The flight computer ("Central Air Data Computer") was interesting design and rather advanced for its time. https://www.wired.com/story/secret-history-of-the-first-microprocessor-f-14/ https://www.wired.com/story/secret-history-of-the-first-micr...
- ddalex 4y ago
  Having read the original article , I disagree that this is a microprocessor - https://web.archive.org/web/20190523172420/http://firstmicroprocessor.com/documents/ap1-26-97.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20190523172420/http://firstmicro... I feel this is in line with other computers of that time, and uses rather clever parallel design to improve the performance of the specific functions required - but it is not general purpose by any means.
metadat 4y ago
> Could the F-14 have been modernized, upgraded, and improved to still be flying today? Of course it could. But like the bringing the F-22 Raptor back from the dead… sometimes it would cost more to keep a really good older fighter than it would cost to design and build a great new one. Is the F-35 considered "great" when compared to the F-22 Raptor? I was under the impression the Raptor was better in most ways, but also way expensive. Disclaimer: I'm no expert on military aircraft, though I have visited the San Diego Air and Space Museum countless times.
- izacus 4y ago
  They really do different things. F-22 is meant to fight other planes and has much less flexibility of attacking ground targets and supporting the army. It also can't even land on a full sized carrier, much less a smaller Marine one. F-35 is a jack of all trades, has a better sensor suite for ground attack, can be dispatched somewhere from a deck of even small carriers and is much cheaper to manufacture. It is also worse at fighting other planes (although not bad really). In any kind of real fight you'll probably see both because they're complementing each other, but the 22 is much less flexible and more specialized at its role. So the 22 is more of a successor to F-15 and F-35 is a successor to the F-18 or F-16.
- srvmshr 4y ago
  The F-22 is an air dominance fighter. It's primary objective is air superiority. F-35 on the other hand is a versatile multirole aircraft which has been adapted to 3 variants for air force, navy and the marines. The F-35 trades a slightly higher radar visibility (vis a vis F22) with a very modular software & hardware architecture & networked combat assistance. Its avionics is much more easily upgradeable & mostly written in a C++ dialect to best of my knowledge. F-22 on the other hand is absolutely the best in class on stealth & maneuverability - but the tech it is built on, will be of 90s always (sadly). Its avionics & controls were coded in Ada on i960MX architecture (CPU clock ~90MHz) which is no longer maintained. Between the two, F-22 is a marvelous bird still, and still outclasses F-35 in air dominance roles. Its capabilities can strike fear to even well-equipped combat adversaries. In an anecdote that I was told by an US airman friend, Pakistan AF had scrambled F-16s during the OBL's Abbotabad raid, but the sortie was pushed to flying the perimeters of the city when a F-22 pair switched on their radar beacons temporarily to ping their presence (& as a obvious warning). Apparently they were overflying at reasonably high altitude having taken off from Qatar or KSA on special close air support mission. Their stealthy presence & perceived capabilities from this incident speaks volumes. Edit: The hardware is Intel i960MX. I mistakenly remembered it as IBM Power architecture. Edit2: Aviation Intel also surmised that F-22s were possibly in the theater http://aviationintel.com/was-the-f-22-used-for-contingency-counter-air-support-during-the-bin-laden-raid/ http://aviationintel.com/was-the-f-22-used-for-contingency-c...
justinator 4y ago
More troubling still, with the engines mounted a vast nine feet apart to allow for greater lift and more weapons carriage space, a stall in one engine could throw the aircraft into an often unrecoverable flat spin. These issues led to the loss of a whopping 40 F-14s in all. That's a huge design flaw.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  This is how Goose died.
  - jeffdn 4y ago
    And how the test pilot who was flying the F-14 to get the shot for the movie died[0], as well. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Scholl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Scholl
    - aceazzameen 4y ago
      Oh wow, I never knew about that.
    - histriosum 4y ago
      Uhm.. sort of, I guess? The airplane that Art Scholl died in was a Pitts S-2 BiPlane, not an F-14. So.. pretty different, although yes he died in a spin while filming footage for Top Gun.
- V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
  It's not a design flaw, it's a design choice which was made without the expectation the airframe would be saddled with the awful TF-30s. A very valid design choice at that. If you want to understand more about the genesis of the configuration, look on YouTube for "Peninsula Valley Seniors" or "Western Museum of Flight" for a talk by Mike Ciminera of Grumman.
- arethuza 4y ago
  I believe that's one reason why the English Electric Lightning had its two engines arranged vertically.
smitty1e 4y ago
This is a pet rant of mine. The U.S. will always fetish gadgets at the expense of simple functionality. You'll always get a DDG-51 rather than an FFG-7; an M-16 rather than an AK-47. This despite the reality that the FFG-7 does most of what you need a navy to do, more cheaply, and an AK-47 is far less fuss and bother than an M-16. The F-14 falls right in line.
- V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
  Within a given class of system, sometimes rugged, robust, and plentiful does win the day over sophisticated but more fragile and expensive. On the other hand, an advanced military will want advanced capabilities and there is plenty of history of putting such things to good use. See for example the F-117, precision guided bombs/JDAMs, etc. A lot of good arguments can be made about how the U.S. has failed to control the costs of developing and fielding advanced capabilities. Sometimes they just plain make bad design decisions, like with the M1A1 or F-35. But I don't think there's a valid case that advanced capabilities confer insignificant benefits vs. large quantities of less-sophisticated systems. You ideally want a good balance of both and you need the understanding and empowerment on the acquisition side to control costs. Re the M-16, Jim Fallows wrote a great article decades ago: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-...
  - lowbloodsugar 4y ago
    That story on the M-16 is mental. So my AR-15 is actually more effective than its military offspring?
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Militaries tend to be fairly conservative, so this is generally true of any given gun - civilian variants tend to acquire features faster. There's also the economic aspect of it - even small savings add up to a lot when you're ordering the product by the million, so there's a tendency to skimp on such small stuff. And then, of course, there's the military bureaucracy. Here are some entertaining stories from David A. Lutz, who was the project manager for M16A2 at USMC: https://web.archive.org/web/20200708173852/https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/Origin_of_A2_barrel_profile/118-260598/#i2237255 https://web.archive.org/web/20200708173852/https://www.ar15.... "Ever wonder why Safe, Semi, and Burst are marked on the starboard side of the receiver? Well as the list of improvements increased to a point some 2 1/2 years into the program spilled over onto a second viewgraph, the last thing on the first page was the starboard side marking, the first thing on the second slide was a "mirror image" selector that pulged-in from the right side for us left-handed Marines. One Colonel who shall remain un-named insisted that I "lose everything on the second slide."" Or here's the story of the M16A2 barrel profile change: https://web.archive.org/web/20200708174036/https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/Government_profile_barrel_strength_question_/12-143716/#i1109448 https://web.archive.org/web/20200708174036/https://www.ar15....
WalterBright 4y ago
Anyone interested would enjoy reading about John Boyd, head of the Fighter Mafia: https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316796883 https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/031...
- lukas099 4y ago
  Seconded, he was truly a remarkable figure in U.S. military history, both for his personality and his accomplishments.
- V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
  It's an outstanding book about an outstanding man but still a bit of a hagiography when it comes to all the "fighter mafia's" ideas on aircraft design. However, his focus on prioritizing investments in people over weapons is a truly underappreciated part of his legacy. Another story of an undersung military airpower leader is that of Red Flag & Moody Suter: https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1100flag/ https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1100flag/ There's a better longform writeup I saw once from one of the military service academies, but I can't seem to find it now.
aceazzameen 4y ago
I always loved the F-14. Top Gun was of course a big reason (and I'm glad they brought it back for the newest film). But before Top Gun, there was Macross (or Robotech in the US). The variable state of the Tomcat influenced the variable state design of VF-1 Vaklyrie fighters in the anime. And I'm sure the AIM-54/AWG-9 Phoenix missle system (with the ability to fire on multiple targets almost at once) influenced the multiple missle launches seen throughout the TV series. Here's a clip I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZazVwBlz9fc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZazVwBlz9fc
gdubs 4y ago
Lots of great stories in the comments here, but I figured I'd drop a little reference to my time in the saddle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Burner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Burner Hard to overstate how large the F-14 loomed in the consciousness of kids growing up in the 80s/90s — not just from Top Gun but from this game as well. So many quarters spent having this machine babysit me while my mom shopped.
- Jeema101 4y ago
  The sit down cockpit version of After Burner that rotated was especially awesome. For anyone who doesn't know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVMmFD9mzCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVMmFD9mzCI
unity1001 4y ago
Tomcat et all, all the swing-wing aircraft were the solutions of an interim era in which the engines were still not yet developed enough to make up for the drag that wings with low angles induced, but the aircraft needed such low-sweep-angle wings in order to be able to take of and land in short distances. From MIG-23 to Tomcat to F-111 to less-known Su series to Tornado to whichever example you can imagine, were designed in this period. Then engines got much stronger. They overcame the drag from low sweep angle wings and readily pushed aircraft to the barrier of 2000 km/h speeds. It was also discovered that at 2000 km/h you fly like a brick and there is not much room for manuevering or doing anything. It was also discovered that the practical max was 2500 km/h, and beyond that you either use titanium like in SR-71 and keep the aircraft light so that it couldn't do anything but recon, or, just accept that your aircraft would burn and crash if it exceeded that speed. Even the successful and widely used MIG-25 had 2500 km/h as its max. Therefore aircraft speeds hit a wall, engines got powerful enough to make up for the loss from non-swing wings. Add to that how the industry learned to use the entire aircraft body as a lifting surface instead of loading everything on the wings, any reason for swing wings has gone away. Hence their early retirement.
- tengwar2 4y ago
  Max speed isn't the only consideration, of course. Almost all "supersonic" planes are effectively subsonic with a supersonic sprint capability, rather than being natively supersonic. Concorde, Tu-144, A-12/SR-71 and XB-70 are the only native supersonic aircraft I can think of. Everything else is to some extent optimised for lower speed, so using big engines to temporarily overcome drag from a non-swing-wing design is consistent with that compromise.
indymike 4y ago
Short version was the engines were terrible. They were prone to compressor stalls and blades started failing ahead of specification. The Phoenix missile and associated AWG-9 radar were top of the line in 1972, but were simply obsolete by mid 90s. If you look at the lifespan of the F-14 it was pretty remarkable, and the irony is that the F/A-18 was another design from the same era - it was a beefed up, navalized version of the YF-17 Cobra which lost out the the F-16.
Test0129 4y ago
The F-14 was a fantastic airplane. My favorite of all time (except for MAYBE the A-10, F-4, or the spitfire). Unfortunately, it was too expensive to maintain and didnt perform a role that couldn't be performed by more advanced multi-role fighters (e.g. the F-16 and F-18) at the point it was retired. Similar to the A-10, really, in that the F-35 will likely take it's place.
CHB0403085482 4y ago
Short version: Dick Cheney hated it & use the excuse/reason of costing too much to kill.
ummonk 4y ago
Seems like the airframe limitations of swing wing aircraft make the designs hard to modify and make existing aircraft require more maintainence. The F-111 was also retired relatively early and the Indian Air Force retired its Mig-23 and Mig-27 aircraft before its Mig-21s. Aside from the one exception of the Su-24, seems like only the big swing wing bombers are kept in service worldwide.

173 points by zeristor 4y ago

I think the reason was Iran. Before the revolution, Iran had bought F-14s and made them the core of their air force. The US went out of its way not only to retire the F-14 but also to ensure that there would be no spare parts for it that could help Iran maintain its F14 fleet.

spamizbad 4y ago
Iran used F-14As to great effect during the Iraq-Iran conflict. The Tomcat flown by Iranian pilots did exceptionally well against its Soviet and French peers in the Iraqi Air Force.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Fans of the Tomcat might be interested in F-14 RIO Ward Carroll's YouTube channel. Here's an episode covering Iran's usage of the F-14 against Iraq: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HYrasBB4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HYrasBB4k
  - eternalban 4y ago
    Listening to the intro, good to point out that the Shah was an accomplished pilot himself and could appreciate the demonstration. -- "`There were several factors which influenced the selection of the F-14. Iran’s northern border with the USSR, and those to the west and southwest with Iraq, are guarded by high mountains. Our Air Defence Command was building radar outposts on many peaks for better radar coverage, but we could never improve the situation with ground-based radar alone. There were too many “blind spots” in this coverage, and the big white domes of our radar stations were also excellent targets, visible from up to 50 miles away. Intelligence information obtained at the time verified that the Soviets would indeed strike them first. `In the south, along the Persian Gulf coast, we had only US-supplied radars, which did not work properly in hot and humid conditions — that is, for ten months of the year — and otherwise also had poor performance, despite several upgrades. All the radars supplied to the IIAF as part of Military Assistance Program projects were far from being top-of-the-line. The Americans gave us what they wanted to give, not what we needed. For two years — 1973-74 — a group of Iranian radar instructor including Col Iradj Ghaffari (the first Iranian tactical radar instructor) studied coverage problems associated with “Radar Sites Reinforcement,” but could not find a solution. Eventually, it was decided that a “flying radar” would eliminate the terrain masking problems. That flying radar would also have to be able to defend itself. It is beyond doubt that during the war with Iraq, the F-14 proved that it was exactly what we needed. `Before these studies were conducted within IIAF circles — at the time we were still flying F-5A/B Freedom Fighters and F-4D Phantom IIs we started looking for a top-of-the-line fighter interceptor. The result of these studies, directed by Gen Mehdi Rouhani, was a requirement for F-14s and AEW aircraft. US briefings on F-14s and F-15s undoubtedly helped us to formulate our requirement. We created the plan to purchase eight AEW aircraft — initially four, followed by four more — and the F-14s. Eventually, four orders were issued — the first for 30 Tomcats and the second for 50. There was one for Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS, followed by one for two communication satellites, which would enable all these aircraft to communicate securely with each other.’ "Unaware that the Iranians had already identified the F-14 as the right aircraft for their unique operational requirements, the US Navy and Grumman started an intensive campaign to ‘sell the Shah’, which included sending the F-14 Program Coordinator of the Chief of Naval Operations, Capt Mitchell, to Tehran twice to brief the Shah and IIAF commanders on the Tomcat’s capabilities. This culminated in a spectacular fly-off in July 1973 at Andrews AFB, Maryland, for the Shah and a group of high-ranking Iranian officers." source: https://theaviationgeekclub.com/former-iiaf-tomcat-pilots-tell-the-true-story-of-why-iran-picked-the-f-14-over-the-f-15/ https://theaviationgeekclub.com/former-iiaf-tomcat-pilots-te... the demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mrFcsw-Ew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mrFcsw-Ew
usefulcat 4y ago
This seems.. unlikely? If the US govt didn’t want Iran to get spare parts, all it had to do was forbid the US companies making those parts from selling them to Iran.

b06timmer 4y ago

I did two Western Pacific tours (West-Pacs) while in the Navy. On the first one in 1979 we had the F-4 Phantoms and on the second one we were introduced to the Tomcat's. For me, this was a mind blowing experience. The F-14 is a very large aircraft. It had electroluminescent exterior lighting that looked straight out of a sci-fi novel and with its differential rear stabilizers it looked like a living machine, especially when landing. I was an electronics tech in a bomber (A6) squadron so I didn't know much about the workings of the aircraft, as mentioned in the article. I will say that I am always in awe when I see that aircraft and will always be.

dctoedt 4y ago
What carrier were you on (and air wing) that still had F-4s in 1979? By the time I got to the Enterprise in early 1976, the embarked air wing, CVW-14, had no F-4s anymore, just F-14s (and A-7s and A-6s, etc.). The article's picture of a Soviet Bear bomber above a carrier, being escorted by armed F-14s flying close aboard, brought back memories of how we were always greeted with a "welcome to WestPac" flyover by a Bear, and we likewise sent up armed F-14s to make sure everyone stayed peaceable. On my first WestPac deployment, one of my roommates in "Boys Town" (an eight-man bunkroom for junior officers, just below the flight deck) was a warrant officer who ran the ship's photo lab; he brought us all 8x10 glossies of a similar photo, taken by the back-seater in one of the F-14s. I still have mine somewhere.
- greedo 4y ago
  I think some Reserve Marine squadrons were operating them up until 1992, so it seems plausible that they were in use at that time.
- b06timmer 4y ago
  I was on the Ranger (CV-61). (https://i.imgur.com/Wma9k84.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Wma9k84.jpg) We also had the Bear's and the trawlers. I think that had a lot to do the spy John Walker Jr.. He gave the Russians the cryptographic codes for the Navy, and they could read all of our communications. That's why the Bear's knew exactly when the carriers were changing station. I was an AT and programmed the "code of the day" into each aircraft, every day. Mode-4, IFF. Edited to add: CVW-2 for airwing. West Coast.

jwithington 4y ago

Trash aircraft. 40-60 hrs of maintenance required for 1 hour of flight. Its successor, the F/A-18, required about 10x less.

greedo 4y ago
Can the F/A-18 do BARCAP? Engage cruise missile carrying aircraft at range? The F-14 was an excellent aircraft when using the F-110 engines. The TF-30s were terrible. Cheney just didn't trust NAVAIR to develop any aircraft (see the A-12 fiasco), and he wasn't going to approve updating all the F-14s to the D standard.
- daemoens 4y ago
  We're not going to see soviet bombers dropping nukes before the majority of America is destroyed by the ICBMs.
  - greedo 4y ago
    The F-14 was never tasked with CONUS defense, that was part of the Chair Forces responsibility. The F-14 was designed to prevent missile carrying bombers from attacking the carrier task force.
MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
I don't understand how a plane like that would work in a serious conflict. A week of maintenance after an hour of flight? Anyone depending on those planes in a war wouldn't last very long.
- techstrategist 4y ago
  I’m no expert, but 40 hours of maintenance probably isn’t one tech working 9-5 for a week.
  - VLM 4y ago
    Also aircraft are not cars. The front line does day to day wartime service, but the "tasks people take cars to auto mechanics to do" like completely tearing down and re-assembling is done by a totally separate depot level service back in the states. Its like "keeping it running day to day" vs "doing a complete restoration". Depot service hours only matter in a budgetary sense, although I heard they were immense for the F-14. All those moving wing parts need to be removed, inspected, x-rayed or magnafluxed or whatever they did, reassembled, and exhaustively tested. In comparison, on the flight line day to day, I don't recall hearing the jet required unusually more time than similar aircraft.

yyyk 4y ago

Because the F-14 was based on the epitome of 1960s tech, while the newer planes were based on 70s/80s tech. There was no slack for upgrades and even maintenance was difficult.

V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
This is a very underappreciated aspect. The systems (i.e., avionics and portions attached to the avionics) would have also needed significant updates ($$$) to keep the aircraft relevant into the 21st century. It's not just the engines that needed modernizing.
- izacus 4y ago
  That update existed (F-14D) but the upgrades of 40+ year old airframes were deemed to be a pretty big waste of money when they could be spent on fully modernized designs that could be stealthy and require less maintenance and pilots.
  - chasd00 4y ago
    Idk, the B52 is still flying and that airframe was designed like in to 50s I think.
    - izacus 4y ago
      The B52 isn't rated (and regularly) used for high-G manouvers, splashed with sea salt and crashed into a ship deck. Carrier life is rough on planes.
      - chasd00 4y ago
        Valid point. I wasn’t thinking about carrier aircraft.
    - mr_toad 4y ago
      The avionics and weapons systems have all been replaced, and the engines soon will be. Also, the B52 is no longer considered suitable for the role it was designed for - dropping strategic nuclear weapons. In this role has been supplanted by the B2.

sidewndr46 4y ago

The author lists the "F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, and F-16 Fighting Falcon" as peers. I'm not really sure I agree with this. The F-15 and F-16 are land based fighters. The F-14 is a carrier launched aircraft. The requirements are different & the constraints are different. To consider the F-15 as a peer isn't even a valid starting point. It's a different plane for a different mission. Also worth mentioning there are effectively two generations of F-14, the second one having an improved engine design. These did not debut until 1987.

Denvercoder9 4y ago
They are peers in the sense that they had their first flight and operational introduction within 4 years of each other. Contemporaries would probably have been a better choice of wording.
masklinn 4y ago
The F-16 actually had a carrier demonstrator, the Vought 1600, for VFAX. While the F16 beat the YF17 for LWF, it’s carrier version was defeated by the carrier version of the YF17 (which would become the F/A-18). I would agree that the F16 is not a peer to the F15 or F14, the entire point of the 16 was to be a small and cheap workhorse. Not just because of the LWF program, but because that was its designers’ ethos inside General Dynamics. The 15 is 50% heavier when empty, And the 14 more than double (though part of that is changes and reinforcements for carrier-based operations, the Vought 1600 was also quite a bit heavier than an F-16).
- V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
  > The F-16 actually had a carrier demonstrator, the Vought 1600, for VFAX. To be clear, the Vought 1600 (a partnership with GD where Vought took on the prime role and GD became a sub, similar to the what happened with Northrop and McDonnell-Douglas with the YF-17 and F-18) never left the conceptual design phase. You won't find a Vought 1600 airframe in any museum. > Not just because of the LWF program, but because that was its designers’ ethos inside General Dynamics. And also on the part of the USAF instigators of the LWF program (the so-called "fighter mafia"). The interesting thing is that if you look at the combat & military exercise record of the F-15C, it contradicts a lot of what the fighter mafia took and preached as gospel, at least as far as the air-to-air theater goes. The F-16 did/does enjoy a great deal of success as a multirole fighter with a non-trivial emphasis on the ground attack role.

YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 4y ago

> … but without a Soviet boogeyman to keep Uncle Sam’s pocketbook upturned and shaking, it became an incredibly expensive and sometimes problematic solution to a problem nobody had anymore. This says a lot about our world. Just look outside.

psychphysic 4y ago
Russia's performance in Ukraine has been so abysmal I believe Western war hawks are most offended.
- V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
  Cold war Russia and today's Russia are two different beasts. Also, Russia's strategy of deliberate large-scale brutality against civilians to win military conflicts still motivates the drive to nullify their military capabilities as quickly as possible.
  - Aloha 4y ago
    This. The Soviet Union had vast excess capacity to scale its army, build more armaments, etc. All of that went away as unaffordable when the Union collapsed.

cstross 4y ago

It's worth noting that despite all the valid points about the costs of the F-14, the F-14 was the cheaper alternate platform for the AIM-54 and AN/AWG-9 radar; they were originally developed (as the AIM-47 and AN/ASG 18) for the Lockheed YF-12A, a Mach 3 bomber-interceptor variant of the A-12, single-seat predecessor to the SR-71: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12 (The YF-12A program got as far as a 96 plane order for the USAF before it was cancelled in favour of the cheaper F-106X project, which also failed.) Anyway, before condemning the F-14 for being expensive to operate, I invite you to consider the likely costs of fielding a fleet of hundreds of nearly-hypersonic interceptors based on the same hardware as the SR-71 ...

CarVac 4y ago
Amusingly, the AIM-47 page says that the YF-12A was itself a lower-cost replacement for the XF-108 program.
greedo 4y ago
The F-14 was the alternative to the aborted F-111B. This was originally intended to carry the Phoenix and AN/AWG-9. Although it would have been cool, the YF-12 would have difficulty with a catapult launch.
Tronno 4y ago
I was curious how much the Phoenix missile itself cost. Some sources state a development cost of $167M, and a unit cost of ~$500k (with ~5000 built), adding up to about $2.5B, some of which was recouped by sales to Iran. It's impossible to say how much money was spent on aircraft capable of firing the missile, since they were also designed to do other things, and raw production/maintenance costs are hard to track down anyway. The Tomcat alone seems to have cost tens of billions to build and operate. Ultimately, "the AIM-54 has been used in 62 air-to-air strikes, all by Iran during the eight-year Iran–Iraq War" (Wikipedia). Whether or not this outcome was "expensive" is up to the American taxpayer, I guess.
- oxfeed65261 4y ago
  The quote from Wikipedia appears to be wrong. The US has also used the missile in combat. FTA: “In January of 1999, two F-14s each fired one Phoenix missile at two Iraqi MiG-25s, only to have both miss. Later that same year, another F-14 fired a Phoenix at a MiG-23, only to miss once again. No F-14 ever shot down an enemy aircraft with the missile it was designed to carry.” The Wikipedia quote above is from the initial introductory section. Later, Wikipedia[0] says: > U.S. combat experience > On January 5, 1999, a pair of US F-14s fired two Phoenixes at Iraqi MiG-25s southeast of Baghdad. Both AIM-54s' rocket motors failed and neither missile hit its target. > On September 9, 1999, another US F-14 launched an AIM-54 at an Iraqi MiG-23 that was heading south into the no-fly zone from Al Taqaddum air base west of Baghdad. The missile missed, eventually going into the ground after the Iraqi fighter reversed course and fled north. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix#U.S._combat_experience https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix#U.S._combat_e...

galgot 4y ago

F-14 was a very complex and expensive to maintain. A beauty, but an Hangar Queen in her last years. Maybe by "peers" the author meant it was one of the "teen" fighters serie, F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18. Like there was the "century" fighters, F-102, F-104, F-105, F-106.

muro 4y ago
Any reason for not including the F-101?
- galgot 4y ago
  just one, my poor memory.
  - muro 4y ago
    And I'm guilty just as well. There was also the Super Sabre, F-100 which I forgot :)
pxmpxm 4y ago
Fun point I read about this topic while back is that planes essentially cost the same amount of money per pound in the air, so building anything with two times the MTOW is an inherent disadvantage.
- rjsw 4y ago
  Apparently, a comment on the TSR-2 [1] was that it was too heavy. The problem was that the manufacturer misinterpreted this and instead of just going away and designing a smaller aircraft they spent a lot of money trying to make the existing one lighter. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2
  - tengwar2 4y ago
    It's not exactly practical to throw away a design and start on completely different aircraft! Also consider that the size was fixed by the fuel requirements and the wavelength of the sideways-looking radar. The second point was a dominant consideration in the earlier competition which led to the Avro 730 selection.

nradov 4y ago

The decision was mainly a cost reduction measure, driven by the failure of the A-12 program and a need to free up funds to fight the GWOT while continuing JSF development. The earlier F-14 problems had largely been resolved in the F-14D model and there was a clear, low-risk development path to the "Super Tomcat 21" model with greatly improved capabilities in every area. The F/A-18E/F Super Hornets which replaced the Tomcat, while cheaper and more reliable, lack the speed and range that would be needed to fight a future Pacific Theater war against China. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29653/this-is-what-grummans-proposed-f-14-super-tomcat-21-would-have-actually-looked-like https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29653/this-is-what-gru... https://youtu.be/CpXyYgL4jPI https://youtu.be/CpXyYgL4jPI I think the Navy is now regretting their decision, but it's too late to go back.

pdoege 4y ago
I think it is even worse. NAVAIR had the 14 with its massive capabilities and instead spent a ton of money improving the A6, A7, a bunch of canceled projects, picked the effing LOSER of the LWF program, and then effed the 2 stealth projects and got out of the 2010s with extremely limited capability. Even worse, the money that could have been spent building ships that would be useful in a conflict with CN was spent on effing GUN Cruisers (!!!) and littoral ships that didn’t even work. Imagine instead if the USN had 8 additional Burkes, upgraded/refurbed 47s, Aegis/VLS across the fleet, and a hi/lo of updated, maintainable 14s and 16s. The US taxpayer spent billions and billions and got nothing. It’s been huge scandal for 30+ years
izacus 4y ago
I stronly doubt your conclusion considering the Navy is replacing the F/A-18s with F-35s which are closer to design of 18s than 14s. Perhaps there might be time to face the fact that the F-14 may not have been the most useful (and upgradable) planes for actually practical roles the carrier aircraft are expected to do? The F-14 maybe has been sexy in the air, but for effective and operational warfare the things like logistics, maintainability, reuse of parts and carrier space matter much more, especially if F-14s shortcomings made it less able to actually be in the air when needed. It's like taking your daddys 1970s charger (with new infotainmed and bolted on cruise control) into a desert expedition. Sure it has that gas guzzling V8 for the POWER when you need to hunt sand people, but in reality a modern Hilux is going to make the combined force a much more potent force and won't need truckloads of spare parts and mechanics to trail it. Even if it doesn't go 0-60 in 3s.

CoastalCoder 4y ago

(Tangent, in praise of the F-14) Before the F-14s were retired (2004-ish?), I attended an air show at the Quonset Air National Guard Base [0] . As part of the show, an F-14 took off from the runway and then went vertical (I assume on afterburners). It stayed vertical until it disappeared into the clouds. It felt like I was living in some sci-fi future, watching a spaceship launch. I was in awe. It was like some Stewart Cowley [1] book [2] come to life. IMHO it's still one of the coolest-looking fighter planes ever, up there with the YF-23 [3] and Su-35 [4]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_Point_Air_National_Guard_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_Point_Air_National_Gua... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Cowley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Cowley [2] https://www.amazon.com/Spacecraft-2000-2100-D-Authority-Handbook/dp/0890092117 https://www.amazon.com/Spacecraft-2000-2100-D-Authority-Hand... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-23 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35

ethbr0 4y ago
The first time I saw an F-22 do this out of Dobbins (north of Atlanta) completely changed my art-of-the-possible physics understanding. Seeing something going vertical and accelerating is fascinating.
- deleted 4y ago
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sedatk 4y ago
I agree about the coolest looking. It has a very muscular look from the front. I'd also add F-4 and Mig-29 to the list. F-22 isn't bad either although not as cool as YF-23.
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EdwardDiego 4y ago
Ah Chris Foss cover art, God I loved his space art when I discovered a book of it as a kid.

pastaguy1 4y ago

The F15 doesn't get a ton of fanfare, but it's an extremely capable aircraft.

chasd00 4y ago
As a kid the F15 was the only plane I ever drew pictures of and hung in my room. I agree, it’s a fantastic aircraft.

darksaints 4y ago

I saw an F-14 during fleet week in San Francisco when I was still in high school...we were watching from the pedestrian pathway on the golden gate bridge. It broke the sound barrier, and I still remember the shock wave and the sound of the bridge cables vibrating for 5-10 seconds afterwards. It was terrifying...I seriously thought the bridge would be damaged from it. I'm still not sure what the story was behind it, whether it was an accident or an "accident", but it made me fully appreciate the reasons why supersonic flight is not allowed over land.

dingaling 4y ago
Just as a point of note, the vapour cone often seen around fast jets at low level in humid conditions doesn't necessarily mean they're going supersonic themselves. Certain local areas of airflow do, however, which causes the drop in air pressure and thus condensation.
- dtgriscom 4y ago
  You don't need supersonic anywhere to cause condensation. Watch the wingtips of a commercial airliner landing in high humidity; you'll often see swirls of fog caused by the low pressure inside the vortices. But, the cone of condensation coming off the body of a plane is the supersonic shock wave.
  - V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
    > But, the cone of condensation coming off the body of a plane is the supersonic shock wave. And shock surfaces can be present over the body due to local flow speed being supersonic even when the aircraft's velocity vector is strictly subsonic. Though to be fair, still in the transonic realm if you're seeing shocks.
- darksaints 4y ago
  Not sure if that was an explanation for me, but I've seen it before and I wasn't basing it off that. This was obvious from the sound. The plane was too far away for me to see a condensation cone. It was probably somewhere over Angel Island at the time. A sonic boom, on a small scale, isn't something impressive...bullets cause sonic booms, even the tip of a bullwhip will. I had been around high explosives before too, an oddity of my father's profession. This wasn't just a loud jet, it literally sounded like a bomb, and it resonated for what felt like 5-10 seconds.

zokier 4y ago

The article does not spell it out directly, so to clarify the title a bit here are the introduction years of the relevant aircraft: * F-14 1974 * F-15 1976 * F-16 1978 * F-18 1983/84 * F-22 2005 * F-35 2016ish The interesting thing here is that F-18 was introduced only a decade after F-14, while F-15 -> F-22 took nearly three decades and F-16 -> F-35 four.

icegreentea2 4y ago
That's because the original F-18 was not a replacement for the F-14 - it was intended to be a complement. The F-18E/F which did replace the F-14 entered service in like 1997 or something. The F-18E/F is not really a variant of the F-18 - calling it E/F was a procurement masterstroke.
YZF 4y ago
The F-15 and the F-16 were just so good. Also there are many versions of those.
indymike 4y ago
The F-18 was based on the Northrop YF-17 that lost to the F-16 for it's contract. The Navy likes twin-engine fighters for safety reasons.
ngcc_hk 4y ago
I quite sure I read about tomcat in reader digest chinese around 1968-1972. I watch top gun to see the airplane.

zoomablemind 4y ago

"...But like the bringing the F-22 Raptor back from the dead..." When did the F-22 die that it had to be brought back?

nocoiner 4y ago
I think he was referring to restarting the F-22 production line.
- alberto7 4y ago
  I heard that was near impossible, because the tooling was destroyed.
  - chipsa 4y ago
    The tooling exists and was carefully packed away. The problem is the stuff that wasn't F-22 specific, and we can't make anymore, because the company that makes them doesn't anymore. Or doesn't even exist.
gte525u 4y ago
It's old enough the mid-life upgrade (MLU) program is happening for it.

CH1jZci6jV 4y ago

I served in the last F-14 squadron, VF-31. When President Bush landed on our carrier (Mission Accomplished!) they had the inferior F-18s in the background for the political shots. We were told that was because the US taxpayers would be pissed if they knew how ripped off they got for the F-18, which was replacing the F-14 in all of the squadrons. This might be just F-14 bravado, of course, but I do also remember that like the second week of "shock and awe" (the initial Iraq campaign bombing) they stopped all F-14 flights for the same reasons. F-14s were trouncing the sorties of the F-18s, even though we were one squadron vs four or five of their squadrons, because we were the only jets capable of actually reaching Bagdad from the carrier and we were able to convert our bombs to "smart bombs" much faster (F-14s break a lot more so our techs were more skilled).

ramesh31 4y ago
How sophisticated was the AA threat over Baghdad on the initial wave?
- CH1jZci6jV 4y ago
  I think we thought they were a lot more sophisticated than they actually were. But shock and awe was designed to basically neutralize all of that anyway. The Navy was the night shift and that included a lot of tomahawk missiles too. The Air Force was the daytime campaign so there was a lot of capability to take out different threats. The biggest threat I remember was we were very sure Saddam had chemical weapons (mostly because we sold them to him previously, but I digress). So we had to carry gas masks and did chemical attack drills alot. We also were forced to take many shots including small pox and an experimental anthrax shot. Many of my friends have medical conditions they believe are related to those shots.
  - the__alchemist 4y ago
    Surprising re shifts! More recently, the Navy has been biased towards day shifts due to carrier landing windows. My understanding is a big part of the Navy training/brief/debrief focus is the recovery.

mgarfias 4y ago

Duder needs to read his Boyd.

tibbydudeza 4y ago

The flight computer ("Central Air Data Computer") was interesting design and rather advanced for its time. https://www.wired.com/story/secret-history-of-the-first-microprocessor-f-14/ https://www.wired.com/story/secret-history-of-the-first-micr...

ddalex 4y ago
Having read the original article , I disagree that this is a microprocessor - https://web.archive.org/web/20190523172420/http://firstmicroprocessor.com/documents/ap1-26-97.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20190523172420/http://firstmicro... I feel this is in line with other computers of that time, and uses rather clever parallel design to improve the performance of the specific functions required - but it is not general purpose by any means.

metadat 4y ago

> Could the F-14 have been modernized, upgraded, and improved to still be flying today? Of course it could. But like the bringing the F-22 Raptor back from the dead… sometimes it would cost more to keep a really good older fighter than it would cost to design and build a great new one. Is the F-35 considered "great" when compared to the F-22 Raptor? I was under the impression the Raptor was better in most ways, but also way expensive. Disclaimer: I'm no expert on military aircraft, though I have visited the San Diego Air and Space Museum countless times.

izacus 4y ago
They really do different things. F-22 is meant to fight other planes and has much less flexibility of attacking ground targets and supporting the army. It also can't even land on a full sized carrier, much less a smaller Marine one. F-35 is a jack of all trades, has a better sensor suite for ground attack, can be dispatched somewhere from a deck of even small carriers and is much cheaper to manufacture. It is also worse at fighting other planes (although not bad really). In any kind of real fight you'll probably see both because they're complementing each other, but the 22 is much less flexible and more specialized at its role. So the 22 is more of a successor to F-15 and F-35 is a successor to the F-18 or F-16.
srvmshr 4y ago
The F-22 is an air dominance fighter. It's primary objective is air superiority. F-35 on the other hand is a versatile multirole aircraft which has been adapted to 3 variants for air force, navy and the marines. The F-35 trades a slightly higher radar visibility (vis a vis F22) with a very modular software & hardware architecture & networked combat assistance. Its avionics is much more easily upgradeable & mostly written in a C++ dialect to best of my knowledge. F-22 on the other hand is absolutely the best in class on stealth & maneuverability - but the tech it is built on, will be of 90s always (sadly). Its avionics & controls were coded in Ada on i960MX architecture (CPU clock ~90MHz) which is no longer maintained. Between the two, F-22 is a marvelous bird still, and still outclasses F-35 in air dominance roles. Its capabilities can strike fear to even well-equipped combat adversaries. In an anecdote that I was told by an US airman friend, Pakistan AF had scrambled F-16s during the OBL's Abbotabad raid, but the sortie was pushed to flying the perimeters of the city when a F-22 pair switched on their radar beacons temporarily to ping their presence (& as a obvious warning). Apparently they were overflying at reasonably high altitude having taken off from Qatar or KSA on special close air support mission. Their stealthy presence & perceived capabilities from this incident speaks volumes. Edit: The hardware is Intel i960MX. I mistakenly remembered it as IBM Power architecture. Edit2: Aviation Intel also surmised that F-22s were possibly in the theater http://aviationintel.com/was-the-f-22-used-for-contingency-counter-air-support-during-the-bin-laden-raid/ http://aviationintel.com/was-the-f-22-used-for-contingency-c...

justinator 4y ago

More troubling still, with the engines mounted a vast nine feet apart to allow for greater lift and more weapons carriage space, a stall in one engine could throw the aircraft into an often unrecoverable flat spin. These issues led to the loss of a whopping 40 F-14s in all. That's a huge design flaw.

matthewdgreen 4y ago
This is how Goose died.
- jeffdn 4y ago
  And how the test pilot who was flying the F-14 to get the shot for the movie died[0], as well. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Scholl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Scholl
  - aceazzameen 4y ago
    Oh wow, I never knew about that.
  - histriosum 4y ago
    Uhm.. sort of, I guess? The airplane that Art Scholl died in was a Pitts S-2 BiPlane, not an F-14. So.. pretty different, although yes he died in a spin while filming footage for Top Gun.
V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
It's not a design flaw, it's a design choice which was made without the expectation the airframe would be saddled with the awful TF-30s. A very valid design choice at that. If you want to understand more about the genesis of the configuration, look on YouTube for "Peninsula Valley Seniors" or "Western Museum of Flight" for a talk by Mike Ciminera of Grumman.
arethuza 4y ago
I believe that's one reason why the English Electric Lightning had its two engines arranged vertically.

smitty1e 4y ago

This is a pet rant of mine. The U.S. will always fetish gadgets at the expense of simple functionality. You'll always get a DDG-51 rather than an FFG-7; an M-16 rather than an AK-47. This despite the reality that the FFG-7 does most of what you need a navy to do, more cheaply, and an AK-47 is far less fuss and bother than an M-16. The F-14 falls right in line.

V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
Within a given class of system, sometimes rugged, robust, and plentiful does win the day over sophisticated but more fragile and expensive. On the other hand, an advanced military will want advanced capabilities and there is plenty of history of putting such things to good use. See for example the F-117, precision guided bombs/JDAMs, etc. A lot of good arguments can be made about how the U.S. has failed to control the costs of developing and fielding advanced capabilities. Sometimes they just plain make bad design decisions, like with the M1A1 or F-35. But I don't think there's a valid case that advanced capabilities confer insignificant benefits vs. large quantities of less-sophisticated systems. You ideally want a good balance of both and you need the understanding and empowerment on the acquisition side to control costs. Re the M-16, Jim Fallows wrote a great article decades ago: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-...
- lowbloodsugar 4y ago
  That story on the M-16 is mental. So my AR-15 is actually more effective than its military offspring?
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Militaries tend to be fairly conservative, so this is generally true of any given gun - civilian variants tend to acquire features faster. There's also the economic aspect of it - even small savings add up to a lot when you're ordering the product by the million, so there's a tendency to skimp on such small stuff. And then, of course, there's the military bureaucracy. Here are some entertaining stories from David A. Lutz, who was the project manager for M16A2 at USMC: https://web.archive.org/web/20200708173852/https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/Origin_of_A2_barrel_profile/118-260598/#i2237255 https://web.archive.org/web/20200708173852/https://www.ar15.... "Ever wonder why Safe, Semi, and Burst are marked on the starboard side of the receiver? Well as the list of improvements increased to a point some 2 1/2 years into the program spilled over onto a second viewgraph, the last thing on the first page was the starboard side marking, the first thing on the second slide was a "mirror image" selector that pulged-in from the right side for us left-handed Marines. One Colonel who shall remain un-named insisted that I "lose everything on the second slide."" Or here's the story of the M16A2 barrel profile change: https://web.archive.org/web/20200708174036/https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/Government_profile_barrel_strength_question_/12-143716/#i1109448 https://web.archive.org/web/20200708174036/https://www.ar15....

WalterBright 4y ago

Anyone interested would enjoy reading about John Boyd, head of the Fighter Mafia: https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316796883 https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/031...

lukas099 4y ago
Seconded, he was truly a remarkable figure in U.S. military history, both for his personality and his accomplishments.
V_Terranova_Jr 4y ago
It's an outstanding book about an outstanding man but still a bit of a hagiography when it comes to all the "fighter mafia's" ideas on aircraft design. However, his focus on prioritizing investments in people over weapons is a truly underappreciated part of his legacy. Another story of an undersung military airpower leader is that of Red Flag & Moody Suter: https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1100flag/ https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1100flag/ There's a better longform writeup I saw once from one of the military service academies, but I can't seem to find it now.

aceazzameen 4y ago

I always loved the F-14. Top Gun was of course a big reason (and I'm glad they brought it back for the newest film). But before Top Gun, there was Macross (or Robotech in the US). The variable state of the Tomcat influenced the variable state design of VF-1 Vaklyrie fighters in the anime. And I'm sure the AIM-54/AWG-9 Phoenix missle system (with the ability to fire on multiple targets almost at once) influenced the multiple missle launches seen throughout the TV series. Here's a clip I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZazVwBlz9fc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZazVwBlz9fc

gdubs 4y ago

Lots of great stories in the comments here, but I figured I'd drop a little reference to my time in the saddle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Burner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Burner Hard to overstate how large the F-14 loomed in the consciousness of kids growing up in the 80s/90s — not just from Top Gun but from this game as well. So many quarters spent having this machine babysit me while my mom shopped.

Jeema101 4y ago
The sit down cockpit version of After Burner that rotated was especially awesome. For anyone who doesn't know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVMmFD9mzCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVMmFD9mzCI

unity1001 4y ago

Tomcat et all, all the swing-wing aircraft were the solutions of an interim era in which the engines were still not yet developed enough to make up for the drag that wings with low angles induced, but the aircraft needed such low-sweep-angle wings in order to be able to take of and land in short distances. From MIG-23 to Tomcat to F-111 to less-known Su series to Tornado to whichever example you can imagine, were designed in this period. Then engines got much stronger. They overcame the drag from low sweep angle wings and readily pushed aircraft to the barrier of 2000 km/h speeds. It was also discovered that at 2000 km/h you fly like a brick and there is not much room for manuevering or doing anything. It was also discovered that the practical max was 2500 km/h, and beyond that you either use titanium like in SR-71 and keep the aircraft light so that it couldn't do anything but recon, or, just accept that your aircraft would burn and crash if it exceeded that speed. Even the successful and widely used MIG-25 had 2500 km/h as its max. Therefore aircraft speeds hit a wall, engines got powerful enough to make up for the loss from non-swing wings. Add to that how the industry learned to use the entire aircraft body as a lifting surface instead of loading everything on the wings, any reason for swing wings has gone away. Hence their early retirement.

tengwar2 4y ago
Max speed isn't the only consideration, of course. Almost all "supersonic" planes are effectively subsonic with a supersonic sprint capability, rather than being natively supersonic. Concorde, Tu-144, A-12/SR-71 and XB-70 are the only native supersonic aircraft I can think of. Everything else is to some extent optimised for lower speed, so using big engines to temporarily overcome drag from a non-swing-wing design is consistent with that compromise.

indymike 4y ago

Short version was the engines were terrible. They were prone to compressor stalls and blades started failing ahead of specification. The Phoenix missile and associated AWG-9 radar were top of the line in 1972, but were simply obsolete by mid 90s. If you look at the lifespan of the F-14 it was pretty remarkable, and the irony is that the F/A-18 was another design from the same era - it was a beefed up, navalized version of the YF-17 Cobra which lost out the the F-16.

Test0129 4y ago

The F-14 was a fantastic airplane. My favorite of all time (except for MAYBE the A-10, F-4, or the spitfire). Unfortunately, it was too expensive to maintain and didnt perform a role that couldn't be performed by more advanced multi-role fighters (e.g. the F-16 and F-18) at the point it was retired. Similar to the A-10, really, in that the F-35 will likely take it's place.

CHB0403085482 4y ago

Short version: Dick Cheney hated it & use the excuse/reason of costing too much to kill.

ummonk 4y ago

Seems like the airframe limitations of swing wing aircraft make the designs hard to modify and make existing aircraft require more maintainence. The F-111 was also retired relatively early and the Indian Air Force retired its Mig-23 and Mig-27 aircraft before its Mig-21s. Aside from the one exception of the Su-24, seems like only the big swing wing bombers are kept in service worldwide.