The F14 vs what we are doing now

---------
In article , "TV"
wrote:

The F14 had great legs (fuel/range),

Is this true? I've heard it was a gas guzzler and had to top off soon after
launch.


test cost $154,000 per second!!). The Tomcat couldn't carry 6 missiles and
still normally land back on a carrier. With even 4 Pheonixes reducing fuel
levels at landing to critical when doing carrier ops. So typically they
only carried two. And even then, pilots lamented the drag/weight

An interesting question is if they would have ignored these restrictions
during a real war. If they were really concerned about mass cruise missile
attacks on the carriers, would they have launched F-14s with a full load of
AIM-54's?

I imagine that this question could be answered by whether or not they ever
trained for it in the 1970s and 1980s. My suspicion is that they never
trained for carrying more than six AIM-54s.

Does anybody know?



D

"DDAY" wrote:

:---------
:In article , "TV"
:wrote:
:
: The F14 had great legs (fuel/range),
:
:Is this true? I've heard it was a gas guzzler and had to top off soon after
:launch.

Nope. The F-14 in normal operations probably WOULD do that, just so
that it had full tanks at the beginning of the mission, but that's
pretty normal for everyone. Hit the rally point and tank.

: test cost $154,000 per second!!). The Tomcat couldn't carry 6 missiles and
: still normally land back on a carrier. With even 4 Pheonixes reducing fuel
: levels at landing to critical when doing carrier ops. So typically they
: only carried two. And even then, pilots lamented the drag/weight
:
:An interesting question is if they would have ignored these restrictions
:during a real war. If they were really concerned about mass cruise missile
:attacks on the carriers, would they have launched F-14s with a full load of
:AIM-54's?

More likely would be to launch with 4 Phoenix in the tunnel and
Sparrows for when you got closer. However, if you expect to shoot
them off it really doesn't matter how many you launch with, since they
won't be there anymore when you trap.

:I imagine that this question could be answered by whether or not they ever
:trained for it in the 1970s and 1980s. My suspicion is that they never
:trained for carrying more than six AIM-54s.

Well, I'd hope so, since the airplane couldn't carry more than 6
AIM-54s, which WAS a full load.

I doubt they'd train for 6 going off a boat, since they'd have to
jettison two of them to get back onto the boat (and NAVAIR probably
would get a bit hacked at folks throwing million dollar missiles in
the drink for TRAINING).

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

----------
In article , Fred J. McCall
wrote:

:I imagine that this question could be answered by whether or not they ever
:trained for it in the 1970s and 1980s. My suspicion is that they never
:trained for carrying more than six AIM-54s.

Well, I'd hope so, since the airplane couldn't carry more than 6
AIM-54s, which WAS a full load.

My glitch. I meant four, not six.


I doubt they'd train for 6 going off a boat, since they'd have to
jettison two of them to get back onto the boat (and NAVAIR probably
would get a bit hacked at folks throwing million dollar missiles in
the drink for TRAINING).

Yeah, but there's ways to train without taking the full load of missiles,
right? They run an op that assumes that there are six. Did anybody train
for that?



D

"DDAY" wrote:

:In article , Fred J. McCall
wrote:
:
: I doubt they'd train for 6 going off a boat, since they'd have to
: jettison two of them to get back onto the boat (and NAVAIR probably
: would get a bit hacked at folks throwing million dollar missiles in
: the drink for TRAINING).
:
:Yeah, but there's ways to train without taking the full load of missiles,
:right? They run an op that assumes that there are six. Did anybody train
:for that?

How would that be different than any other training?

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw

One could also make the argument that a follow-on to AIM-54 isn't
required--threat is gone and the fact that the system was never used
in combat during its life cycle would indicate that other weapons
would have a higher priority for budget $$.

Except it was of course much used in combat during the Iran-Iraq war,
with some 60-70 victories claimed for the AIM-54 missile.

jok

Jukka O. Kauppinen wrote:
One could also make the argument that a follow-on to AIM-54 isn't
required--threat is gone and the fact that the system was never used
in combat during its life cycle would indicate that other weapons
would have a higher priority for budget $$.

Except it was of course much used in combat during the Iran-Iraq war,
with some 60-70 victories claimed for the AIM-54 missile.

jok

Good point... Iranian use is not as talked about in the west as USN
use, but it is an interesting look at the F-14A.

In my non-experienced, non-pilot, non-military personal opinion, the
NAVY, Congress, the Pentagon, or whoever, should've opted for one or
more of Grumman's proposals for an advanced Tomcat.

Tomcat 21 aka Super Tomcat 21 aka ST-21

or

Attack Tomcat 21 aka Attack Super Tomcat 21 aka AST-21

or the most advanced of all, the ASF-14, (Advanced Strike Fighter ?)
a completely new Tomcat aircraft, an alternative to a Naval ATF /
F-22N

.....the lowest-end proposal, 'Quckstrike', an F-14 equivalent of the
F-15E Strike Eagle, may not have been enough..... I'd want the ASF-14



http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0132.shtml
http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-history-f14x.htm
http://www.topedge.com/alley/text/other/tomcat21.htm
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f14_13.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/8629/14var.htm




also, should have developed the AAAM ~ Advanced Air to Air Missile, a
longer range replacement for the AIM-54 Pheonix family

in a REAL war with China and/or Russia, are those F/A-18E 'Super'
Hornets really going to cut it ?

None of those really solves the problem of cost and difficulty of
maintenance, though. The only thing a Super Bug really gives up is a
long-range missile, but Phoenix was aging and an extended-range AIM-120
variant could probably be cobbled together in short order if it was
really called for. On the other hand, it should be easier to keep more
Super Bugs in the air over an extended period of time with less
manpower exerted per airframe to make that happen, and if the internal
fuel tankage isn't what the Tomcat could muster, the Super Bug can at
least carry more external fuel stores without sacrificing missile
capability (five tanks, two Sidewinders, and six AMRAAMs with two on
the fuselage and four on dual-rails under the outer wing pylons).
Tomcats couldn't even shoot AIM-120.

You have just listed one helluva DRAGGY and heavy profile in which you
negate the PROS of having more fuel you'll kill the range in a hurry.
Asking to a loiter with that loadout is going to make things worse.
You're tactical maneuverability is gone with all that stuff on the
wings.

Anyhow, I don't think you mount two AIM120s on the other pylon where
the wing fold is located.

In article .com,
"Typhoon502" wrote:

None of those really solves the problem of cost and difficulty of
maintenance, though. The only thing a Super Bug really gives up is a
long-range missile, but Phoenix was aging and an extended-range AIM-120
variant could probably be cobbled together in short order if it was
really called for. On the other hand, it should be easier to keep more
Super Bugs in the air over an extended period of time with less
manpower exerted per airframe to make that happen, and if the internal
fuel tankage isn't what the Tomcat could muster, the Super Bug can at
least carry more external fuel stores without sacrificing missile
capability (five tanks, two Sidewinders, and six AMRAAMs with two on
the fuselage and four on dual-rails under the outer wing pylons).

Tomcats couldn't even shoot AIM-120.

That's a misleading statement.

There is no inherent reason that F-14's could not carry and shoot AIM-120.
It's just that the Navy decided it wasn't worth it.
The F-14 has a long range missile. Why spend money integrating a new
missile on an airframe that's going to go out of service soon?

The changes that would be needed were largely software and flight test.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur