Was the F14 really that great, or did it just have the best PR?

Velocity173 said:
F-15s did that in the late 70s early 80s as well. Guess it wasn’t all that effective because they stopped doing it at some point.
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We still had them when I started flying the Eagle in the early 2000’s. It was called the “Eagle Eye”; worked pretty well.

We had to stop using them when we got the JHMCS system - the metal in the mount and scope throws off the magnetic field and the jet is “mapped” without it. That’s what we were told at least…
 
EvilEagle said:
We still had them when I started flying the Eagle in the early 2000’s. It was called the “Eagle Eye”; worked pretty well.

We had to stop using them when we got the JHMCS system - the metal in the mount and scope throws off the magnetic field and the jet is “mapped” without it. That’s what we were told at least…
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Was this an actual approved mount? I thought it was guys just mounting rifle sights from their local sporting goods store.
 
WDD said:
When they retired the F14 they didn't mothball them for spare parts. They crushed / destroyed all of the airframes. The thinking was that we didn't want any spare parts remaining, as they could possibly get to Iran.
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There are plenty of airframes at various museums and airparks.
 
baboss said:
There are plenty of airframes at various museums and airparks.
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Yes, but I belive they took all the important/usable parts before they let an airframe get put on a pedestal, etc. Heck, they may have even replaced the titanium wing box with something for static display.
 
EvilEagle said:
We still had them when I started flying the Eagle in the early 2000’s. It was called the “Eagle Eye”; worked pretty well.

We had to stop using them when we got the JHMCS system - the metal in the mount and scope throws off the magnetic field and the jet is “mapped” without it. That’s what we were told at least…
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Worked MX on the last C/D’s mae for the USAF in early 90s…never saw them.
 
One of the stories I heard about the F-14 early design days was NAVAIR demanded that the intakes and engines be widely separated to prevent a compressor stall on one (a not uncommon TF30 phenomenon) wouldn’t affect the other engine. Unfortunately when one is steaming along accelerating to Mach and one side stalls, the Turkey had a tendency to want to swap ends.

Never verified that except when I was playing RIO, the skipper of the RAG who was up front allowed as how we wouldn’t be going supersonic because “Bad things might happen”. I allowed as how having spent 6 or so years with the engine in the F-111 development program, I completely agree.
 
baboss said:
There are plenty of airframes at various museums and airparks.
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And all of those airframes were flown into those museums and de-milled to specs by Navy crews/maintainers.
Source: family friend who was involved.

Hopefully all those TF-30's went to the smelter.
 
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Velocity173 said:
Nah hadn’t heard about that. Never worked Super Hornets though. Legacy never gave us a problem. Wonder if it’s the power output? That AWG-9 was a big radar.
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I dont know much about PAR radars, but I imagine that you are correct. The APG-79 we have nowadays is quite powerful, the APG-65 and -73 we had in the Hornet, not so much :)
 
35 AoA said:
I dont know much about PAR radars, but I imagine that you are correct. The APG-79 we have nowadays is quite powerful, the APG-65 and -73 we had in the Hornet, not so much :)
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I worked with the Hughes guys in El Segundo to develop the TR modules in the 79.
 
Tspin said:
Worked MX on the last C/D’s mae for the USAF in early 90s…never saw them.
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We kept them in the vault and signed them out with our classified. Didn't actually attach them until we were "fenced in" and starting our training out in the airspace so our MX wouldn't have ever seen them either. Maybe that was the case then too?

The only thing that lived in the jets was a very small bracket on the left side (IIRC) of the HUD.
 
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WDD said:
Phantom will always be cool…….
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This. I remember as a kid the F-4D's from the ILANG, flying over and hearing that Phantom howl. How freaking cool was that jet? Got to visit the flight-line as a cub scout and remember getting an upset stomach from all that jet exhaust. I toughened up and now ingest jet fuel fumes daily with little/few issues.
 
I used to live right under the final for KBOI (Gowen Field) when the guard was flying F4G Wild Weasels; loved to hear the howl when they extended flaps (I guess it was flaps); my neighbors, not so much. Sorry to hijack your F14 thread; it was an amazing plane too; active all through my Navy years.

PS: I recommend the book "Fighter Pilot" about Brig Gen Robin Olds and his F4 days; good read. Another good one is "Phantom Over Vietnam" by Maj John Trotti, USMC.
 
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Brad W said:
I'm old enough to have seen them quite a few times fly in airshows. It was an iconic bird for sure!

I was lucky enough to attend a presentation by Dale Snodgrass at my local airport's pilots' association a few years back. Mostly the same stories you can hear in his many speeches available on youtube, but it was an honor to have heard them first-hand! Worth a search for his talks if you haven't seen or heard them. Some interesting stories I thought.

And on another note...I follow Ward Carrol's youtube channel. He's a retired f-14 RIO. Don't think he's done much on the tomcat lately, but he's got some good tomcat info up on his channel as I recall.

One of my regrets is not following through on my conversations with recruiters as I was graduating college in late 1989. I was seriously thinking about trying to get into Navy flight school, and that would have been right about in the middle of it's time with the USN I believe....so who knows.... Although admittedly my primary interest at the time was USCG helicopters, still I was noodling the idea of trying to go navy instead, and I was talking with a Navy recruiter who sported wings of gold.
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Ward Carroll is a little misleading. Fact is he's not a pilot and never has been but uses terms like "I was lucky enough to fly the Tomcat from 1994 ...", and telling prospective channel patrons "who want to know what it's like to fly a jet fighter", or checking the numbers on a displayed F-14 "to see if it's one I flew". Several sites including the U.S. Naval Institute, Military.com and even his local Baltimore Sun newspaper have said he's a former Navy F-14 pilot. He also gives detailed advice on how the Tomcat should be flown almost making it sound like it's from personal experience, although there are no flight controls in the back seat of an F-14.
 
Dwayne said:
Ward Carroll is a little misleading. Fact is he's not a pilot and never has been but uses terms like "I was lucky enough to fly the Tomcat from 1994 ...", and telling prospective channel patrons "who want to know what it's like to fly a jet fighter", or checking the numbers on a displayed F-14 "to see if it's one I flew". Several sites including the U.S. Naval Institute, Military.com and even his local Baltimore Sun newspaper have said he's a former Navy F-14 pilot. He also gives detailed advice on how the Tomcat should be flown almost making it sound like it's from personal experience, although there are no flight controls in the back seat of an F-14.
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He's also a f**ing douchebag. That guy can go get bent. All of these youtube "fighter pilots" are a disgrace to this profession. Most of them were, in reality, broken toys who didn't impress anyone when they wore the flight suit for pay. I can't say that for Ward specifically, but he is the same personality type as the contemporary guys I know of/know, and they were all dick weeds who sucked in the jet and became youtube wannabe heroes.

Ward has a booth at tail hook every year, where he tries to grift, in exchange for listening to the gossip and then regurgitating it on his stupid youtube channel, so he can sound like he has known anything about naval aviation in the last 20 years. Guy needs to move into a retirement home and log off the internet. WTF
 
Dwayne said:
Ward Carroll is a little misleading. Fact is he's not a pilot and never has been but uses terms like "I was lucky enough to fly the Tomcat from 1994 ...", and telling prospective channel patrons "who want to know what it's like to fly a jet fighter", or checking the numbers on a displayed F-14 "to see if it's one I flew". Several sites including the U.S. Naval Institute, Military.com and even his local Baltimore Sun newspaper have said he's a former Navy F-14 pilot. He also gives detailed advice on how the Tomcat should be flown almost making it sound like it's from personal experience, although there are no flight controls in the back seat of an F-14.
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OK, I was a Naval Flight Officer like Ward, in fact, Ward was an instructor at VT-86 in 88 when I was a student and I worked with him when I was stashed in Scheds after winging. We never flew together as he trained studs in the RIO track and I was the TN track. If you think an NFO flying as an integral part of the crew is not flying then you really don't understand multi-crew airplanes. I suppose you could say "Fly-in" but the airplane is not going flying without us and it's sure not going to perform the respective mission without us.

The media has pretty much no idea that there are people other than pilots so whether Ward told them pilot or they just assumed anyone with gold wings is a pilot I can't say but it's more common than not for the media to make that mistake.

In the EA-6B I flew we were expected to have all the same knowledge as the left seat. We all took the same annual NATOPS evaluations (although as NFO's in the Prowler we also had to do a back seat weapons system NATOPS check the pilot didn't) and we all had instrument ratings and did instrument checks so we could qualify for dual piloted mins. NFO's are also expected to get the same Mission Commander, Functional Checkflight and later, Strike Lead quals as a pilot. Other than the actual flying you better have all the same knowledge as the Aviator.

If you think I didn't "fly" for my 2200 hours and multiple deployments that's fine but it's merely semantics and not reality.

Ward and I were both of the era that without perfect vision you were not going to go pilot and being an NFO was a great career. I agree, Ward is a bit tiresome in his "I know" but no worse than many of the other retired service guys with channels and occasionally he has interesting guests.
 
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I don’t see Ward as being misleading. He makes it clear that he was an NFO and not a pilot. Same as “BIO” on his channel. Ward also makes it clear that some NFOs that went the pilot route weren’t the best pilots. But, there are a lot that went pilot after NFO (“Hawk” Monroe) that were outstanding pilots.

Don’t know about the character of these people. I just like the interviews. The British dude who does “Aircrew Interviews” has an excellent channel. Same as “Jello” and his channel.
 
I was at Edwards AFB in the late 90's as a tower controller. We had an F-14 come in one day as an emergency, due to being unable to un-sweep the wings. I forget exactly, but I think he said it required a landing speed of something like 220 knots! If you're not familiar with Edwards, the main paved runway (now 5R/23L, but there was only one at the time and it was numbered 4/22) is about 15000 ft long and rolls out onto the lakebed if you land NE. No arresting cable at the time (which they do have now, this incident was actually one of the impetuses to get them installed).

The wind is normally from the SW, so runway 22 (in my time) was the usual runway in use. We discussed with the pilot whether a normal landing with 15000 feet of runway would work, or if he'd prefer a tailwind landing with 15000 feet + another 10000 feet or more of lakebed available for rollout. He ended up choosing the tailwind landing with the possible lakebed rollout.

So he comes in for landing, just screaming down final, and touches down in the normal touchdown zone, and rolls, and rolls, and rolls, and finally did get it stopped on about the last brick of the pavement. I don't recall if there was a hydraulic issue that caused the wing sweep problem or if that would even have affected the brakes at all, but he really rolled a long way. I'm sure we had the fire trucks standing by but I don't remember any kind of a brake fire or any other problems like that.

Edwards was a unique place. Given the nature of the test flying being done there, we had so many emergencies that as a controller you kind of got numbed to it. It became almost routine operations unless the plane was actually on fire or having flight control problems or something like that.
 
Dwayne said:
Ward Carroll is a little misleading. Fact is he's not a pilot and never has been but uses terms like "I was lucky enough to fly the Tomcat from 1994 ...", and telling prospective channel patrons "who want to know what it's like to fly a jet fighter", or checking the numbers on a displayed F-14 "to see if it's one I flew". Several sites including the U.S. Naval Institute, Military.com and even his local Baltimore Sun newspaper have said he's a former Navy F-14 pilot. He also gives detailed advice on how the Tomcat should be flown almost making it sound like it's from personal experience, although there are no flight controls in the back seat of an F-14.
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um, I've never understood him to misrepresent anything. If someone else did at a newspaper, well isn't that on that reporter...not on Ward?
Pugs said:
OK, I was a Naval Flight Officer like Ward, in fact, Ward was an instructor at VT-86 in 88 when I was a student and I worked with him when I was stashed in Scheds after winging. We never flew together as he trained studs in the RIO track and I was the TN track. If you think an NFO flying as an integral part of the crew is not flying then you really don't understand multi-crew airplanes. I suppose you could say "Fly-in" but the airplane is not going flying without us and it's sure not going to perform the respective mission without us.

The media has pretty much no idea that there are people other than pilots so whether Ward told them pilot or they just assumed anyone with gold wings is a pilot I can't say but it's more common than not for the media to make that mistake.

In the EA-6B I flew we were expected to have all the same knowledge as the left seat. We all took the same annual NATOPS evaluations (although as NFO's in the Prowler we also had to do a back seat weapons system NATOPS check the pilot didn't) and we all had instrument ratings and did instrument checks so we could qualify for dual piloted mins. NFO's are also expected to get the same Mission Commander, Functional Checkflight and later, Strike Lead quals as a pilot. Other than the actual flying you better have all the same knowledge as the Aviator.

If you think I didn't "fly" for my 2200 hours and multiple deployments that's fine but it's merely semantics and not reality.

Ward and I were both of the era that without perfect vision you were not going to go pilot and being an NFO was a great career. I agree, Ward is a bit tiresome in his "I know" but no worse than many of the other retired service guys with channels and occasionally he has interesting guests.
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Nice reply @Pugs !

and to add to the understanding of the crewed cockpit.... my understanding is that in the training group (RAG) the experienced RIOs would fly with the inexperienced pilots. My view of it is sort of like a CFI does during a checkout for us little bugsmasher pilots. I don't view @Pugs job to be a trivial thing to be dismissed at all. In fact, from what I can tell, in many ways it was the more difficult job.
 
I recommend the book "Endurance" by Scott Kelly (twin brother of Sen Mark Kelly) There is a chapter about his time in the Tomcat and he doesn't sugarcoat it. He describes it as a very demanding aircraft to fly, especially prior to the development of the DFCS which he participated in the development of. I was in the Navy when we got the first Tomcats which was a decade before the movie. I also worked as a civilian on the Phoenix quality and maintenance program in the mid 80's. My "hands on" experience from a pilot's perspective is limited to Digital Combat Simulator, it's the only model I purchased for the game and along with it the F-14 stick with all of the appropriate controls such as the DLC thumbwheel. Yea, it's a game and you don't actually die but getting that beast back on the boat gives me sweaty palms every time.
 
Brad W said:
um, I've never understood him to misrepresent anything. If someone else did at a newspaper, well isn't that on that reporter...not on Ward?

Nice reply @Pugs !

and to add to the understanding of the crewed cockpit.... my understanding is that in the training group (RAG) the experienced RIOs would fly with the inexperienced pilots. My view of it is sort of like a CFI does during a cheI my very limited ckout for us little bugsmasher pilots. I don't view @Pugs job to be a trivial thing to be dismissed at all. In fact, from what I can tell, in many ways it was the more difficult job.
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In my very limited experience with VF-124 (West Coast RAG), that is exactly how it was done. CAPT Spook Yakely (Later Rear ADM), gave me a good lesson on a trip out to the Enterprise when we were a three ship going for CQ for the other two F-14 Pilots. We entered a cloud bank on the way to the boat and when we broke out, I called "no wingmen". Spook replied, "Well if they can't find the Boat without the RIO telling them where it is, they probably won't CQ."

Edit for Retired Rank.
 
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X3 Skier said:
In my very limited experience with VF-124 (West Coast RAG), that is exactly how it was done. CAPT Spook Yakely (Later Vice ADM), gave me a good lesson on a trip out to the Enterprise when we were a three ship going for CQ for the other two F-14 Pilots. We entered a cloud bank on the way to the boat and when we broke out, I called "no wingmen". Spook replied, "Well if they can't find the Boat without the RIO telling them where it is, they probably won't CQ."
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Hear he just passed away this month?
 
Velocity173 said:
Hear he just passed away this month?
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Did not hear that. I thought he had reached 3 Star Flag Rank but apparently not according to his Bio. He had a very long association with the F-14 starting as Acceptance Test Pilot at Grumman
 
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