GRUMMAN AEROSPACE · CARRIER AIR WING 1969 — 2006

F-14 TOMCAT

The last of the gunfighters. A variable-geometry interceptor built to defend a carrier group — and to look like nothing else that ever left a deck.

FIRST FLIGHT
21 · 12 · 1970
AIRFRAMES
712
CREW
02
SCROLL TO FLY
02 DOCTRINE WHY IT EXISTED

A fighter is a compromise.
The Tomcat refused to choose.

Swing wings gave it the turning circle of a lightweight and the dash speed of a missile. Two crews, two engines and six Phoenix rounds made it a twelve-tonne airframe that could track and kill six targets at once, from a hundred miles out.

It was overkill by design. That was the point. For thirty-six years the F-14 was the thing a carrier group put between itself and the horizon — fast enough to arrive first, heavy enough to stay.

  • 01FLEET AIR DEFENSE
  • 02VARIABLE GEOMETRY
  • 03TWO-PLACE CREW
  • 04BEYOND-VISUAL RANGE
03 AIRFRAME F-14A / B / D

Built around
two engines.

A lifting-body fuselage wide enough to hide the engines, the fuel and the radar. Titanium wing box. Two vertical stabs canted outboard. Every line is doing at least two jobs.

LENGTH 0.0M 62 FT 9 IN
SPAN · 20° / 68° 0.00M 64 FT 1.5 IN / 38 FT 2.5 IN
MAX SPEED 0.00MACH 1,544 MPH · 2,485 KM/H
SERVICE CEILING 0M 50,000 FT
THRUST · AB 0LBF × 2 F110-GE-400
EMPTY WEIGHT 0KG 43,735 LB
MAX TAKEOFF 0KG 74,350 LB
AIRFRAMES BUILT 0UNIT 1969 — 1992

Figures vary by variant and loadout. F-14D values shown where applicable.

04 VARIABLE GEOMETRY INTERACTIVE

The wing that
changed its mind.

Keep scrolling and the wing sweeps with you: twenty degrees on the deck, sixty-eight for the dash. The glove stays fixed; the outer panel pivots on a titanium box, scheduled by Mach and altitude — or, here, by your scroll wheel.

SWEEP 20.0°
SPAN 19.55M
ASPECT RATIO 7.01—
DRAG COEFF · REL 1.00—
20°44°68°

SCROLL TO SWEEP THE WING — DRAG TO OVERRIDE

FIG. 04 — PLAN VIEW SWEEP 20.0° / SUBSCONIC
20° 68° OUTER PANEL · PIVOTING TITANIUM WING BOX GLOVE · FIXED SIDEWINDER STATION AN/AWG-9 SIX TARGET TRACK MAX SPAN 19.55 M F-14A TOMCAT · GENERAL ARRANGEMENT · TRACED FROM AIRFRAME
05 SERVICE HISTORY 36 YEARS · 1970—2006

Thirty-six years
on the pointy end.

  1. 1967

    The Navy walks

    The F-111B was a bomber that could not dogfight. The Navy cancels it and writes VFX-1: a dedicated fleet-defence fighter built around the AWG-9 radar and the Phoenix missile.

    PROGRAM
  2. 1969

    Grumman wins

    The Model 303 — a twin-engine, two-seat fighter with a titanium wing box — is selected. Twelve development airframes are ordered.

    CONTRACT
  3. 1970

    First flight

    21 December. F-14A BuNo 157980 lifts off from Grumman's Calverton field with Bob Smyth and William Miller aboard. The swing wing works.

    MILESTONE
  4. 1972

    Fleet introduction

    VF-1 Wolfpack and VF-2 Bounty Hunters stand up at NAS Miramar. For a moment, the Tomcat is the most capable interceptor on earth.

    SQUADRON
  5. 1981

    First blood

    19 August, Gulf of Sidra. Two VF-41 Tomcats down two Libyan Su-22s with Sidewinders — the type's first air-to-air kills.

    COMBAT
  6. 1986

    More thrust

    The F-14A+ swaps the troublesome TF30 for the F110-GE-400, adding thirty percent more thrust and finally giving the airframe the engines it deserved. Redesignated F-14B in 1991.

    POWERPLANT
  7. 1991

    Desert Storm

    Tomcats fly escort, reconnaissance and strike control over Iraq. The air war is effectively over before the Phoenix is ever needed.

    COMBAT
  8. 1992

    Super Tomcat

    The F-14D reaches the fleet with the APG-71 radar, digital avionics and a glass cockpit. It is the definitive Tomcat — and the last.

    VARIANT
  9. 2006

    Sundown

    22 September. A VF-31 Tomcat lands at NAS Oceana, closing the type's career with the U.S. Navy. The last cats are struck from the record.

    RETIREMENT

Iran received 79 F-14A airframes before 1979; a small number remain the last flying Tomcats in the world.

06 SQUADRONS THE PAINT

Men in
borrowed colours.

The Tomcat wore the markings of the carrier air wing like a uniform. Six of the most recognisable paint schemes in naval aviation.

VF-011972 — 1993

Wolfpack

First operational Tomcat squadron. Took the jet to sea first, and wrote the book on how to fight it.

NAS MIRAMARF-14A
VF-841977 — 1995

Jolly Rogers

The skull and crossbones. Arguably the most photographed fighter squadron of the Cold War.

NAS OCEANAF-14A / B
VF-411972 — 2001

Black Aces

Scored the Tomcat's first kills — two Su-22s over the Gulf of Sidra in 1981 — and never let anyone forget it.

NAS OCEANAF-14A / B
VF-311981 — 2006

Tomcatters

Flew the final Tomcat flight into Oceana in September 2006. Felix rules, as the patch says.

NAS OCEANAF-14D
VF-1431975 — 2004

Pukin' Dogs

Long-range escort specialists, and one of the longest-serving Tomcat communities in the Atlantic fleet.

NAS OCEANAF-14A / B
VF-021972 — 2003

Bounty Hunters

Second to stand up, first to deploy. Took the Tomcat on its maiden cruise aboard USS Enterprise.

NAS OCEANAF-14A / D
07 ORDNANCE SIX AT ONCE

Six answers
to one question.

The AWG-9 could hold six targets at once. The Phoenix was built to service all six before they ever came into view. Everything else on the jet — the wings, the engines, the second seat — existed to make that possible.

TYPICAL FLEET DEFENCE LOAD
4 × AIM-542 × AIM-72 × AIM-9675 × 20 MM
AIM-54C PHOENIX100+ NMI
ACTIVE RADAR · FIRE AND FORGET×6
AIM-7M SPARROW30 NMI
SEMI-ACTIVE RADAR×2
AIM-9M SIDEWINDER10 NMI
INFRARED · WITHIN VISUAL RANGE×2
M61A1 VULCAN20 MM
6,000 RPM · 675 ROUNDS×1
LANTIRN / TARPSPOD
PRECISION STRIKE · TACTICAL RECONNAISSANCEF-14D
08 SUNDOWN 22 · 09 · 2006

TWO ENGINES. TWO CREWS. SIX PHOENIX.

Nothing replaced it, because nothing needed to do what it did. The Tomcat went out the way it came in — loud, heavy, and unmistakable on the horizon.

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