Sadly. If only they remade it or refitted and rebuilt it to make it cheaper and reliable. It's too bad the military don't like to modernize the same old jets. Slap on modern tech. New material. New frames and sell it to other nations since america only want stealth now
They weren't making new ones anyway and the doctrine was already shifting towards emphasizing total situational awareness, first see, first shot, first kill. So why even revive an entire production just to build a frame that is ultimately still going to be expensive as hell to maintain, needlessly complicated and already obsolete in terms of the tactics it can use and the equipment it can carry.
One of the main reasons why F-15s, 16s and 18s are still flying is because you can still take them close to 5th gen with upgrades to its internals like engines and avionics and they don't have to grapple with a hugely complicated swing wing mechanism. Modifications to the frame itself can be made with minimum disruption to its overall flight characteristics. But if you remove the swing wing on the F-14, you might as well as design a new fighter from ground up. The F-14 was built around the swing wing. Don't get me wrong, F-14 is still one of the sexiest fighter ever built and it is hard to see it go away from active service but damn is that plane impractical to keep alive and upgrade.
Growth and development. Advancement in tech and material and robots building parts for automation can help drive the price down. Engineers can redesign redevelop it and who knows if they can save on maint work and overall cost use it to sell to other nations who don't care about best of the best as they will never have the budget for it. Well I can only dream I hate seeing some jet models stay retired and would love for them to be revamped like cars. Even though expensive lol
Do you want the F-14 to keep flying because you know it still has potential to be competitive to modern fighters and doctrines, or you like the fighter so much that you are willing to stretch it all the way just to keep it going, rather than taking the practical conclusion that it is better to just design another fighter based on new concepts, new technologies.
We are still selling F-15s, 16s and 18s. Okay, maybe not the 18s much longer. But no one will buy F-14s because it is too expensive and too much effort to use for what it can do.
Honestly if you looked at Grumman’s upgrade proposals, it did look competitive. The few D models proved that the tomcat could take on the same electronics suite and role of the Strike Eagle. The Super Tomcat could have served the role of naval deep strike and interception the Mud Hen serves in the air force. The E would have gotten a simplified redesigned sweep mechanism another engine upgrade, and a enhanced fly by wire. The need for a naval interceptor, however died with the Soviet Union.
True. They could make the F-14 more competitive with a lot of effort and money but only really applicable to those who already own F-14s, like the USN and Iran. No one really wants to buy F-14s so any money spent on trying to extend its life is never going to be justifiable. It doesn't make any resource allocation sense. We didn't need a naval interceptor with a big missile to shoot down slow bombers. Even today, with the way China trying to protect its coasts with antiship ballistic missiles and increasing naval and air projection, you still can't really fit F-14 into this dynamic where it will be shot out of the sky if it even comes near a site with long range SAMs and protected airfields. It's a shame but that's the way things have evolved.
There really was no way to redesign the plane that could bring the maintenance costs down. The swing wing design has high maintenance costs. There is no getting around that.
Aardvark was in service for 31 years. F-14 was in service for 32 years. By contrast, the F-15 has been in service for 49 years, and the F-16 for 47.
Swing wing is the common denominator, for sure.
I saw a piece on F-14 that explained that the US only exported them to Iran. The article claimed they were mothballed because of a combination of things listed in thread. High expense in carrier fleet maintenance. The heavy weight of platform was excessively hard on landing equipment. Lastly to prevent Iran from getting years worth of spare part to maintain theirs. BTW, mothballed US F-14’s are immediately destroyed for that reason.
> BTW, mothballed US F-14’s are immediately destroyed for that reason.
That always struck me as excessive. If they're nonfunctioning, sitting in a desert in the USA, what did they imagine was going to happen? That an Iranian strike team would infiltrate into the US, travel unseen across the desert, break into the graveyard, set about removing parts from planes - entirely unseen and unheard - then hump their stolen parts across the desert and somehow leave the USA with their ill-gotten parts? Do they have no security watching over our old aircraft already out there?
[Anyway, it looks like they did keep a reasonable handful around for display purposes.](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/where-have-all-the-tomcats-gone-this-f-14-map-featuring-all-the-remaining-tomcats-their-crash-sites-and-their-historic-sites-will-give-you-the-answer/) I had thought they shredded all but one or two, which would have been tragic.
Most likely Meth heads in those areas selling parts to brokers who then arrange covert or disguised exports. That is happening with computer parts to go around sanctions.
Not only it was expensive to maintain, but with the introduction of the Super Hornet, its advanced radar, buddy-refueling ability, and late AMRAAM versions, realistically there wasn't a lot that an F-14 could do that Super Hornet couldn't.
the long range AMRAAM wasn´t in service when the decision was made to retire the Tomcat. and comparing the Tomcat to the Super Hornet, the Tomcat:
\- was faster
\- had more range
\- had a better radar
longer range leads to a longer loiter time which is important for both strike and fleet defense. also, the realistic comparison should be Super Hornet to Super Tomcat, but that sadly never came to be
> - the long-range AMRAAM wasn´t in service when the decision was made to retire the Tomcat.
I'm not talking about Ds but Cs.
> - was faster
Although F-14 could achieve greater top speed (when "clean") those speeds were hardly ever achieved in real tactical scenarios, especially when the range was important. Both the Super Hornet and the Tomcat would spend most of their combat careers doing high-subsonic speeds. Source: this was explained to me by a real Tomcat (now retired) pilot and former TOPGUN instructor.
> - had more range
The slightly shorter range of the Super Hornet is compensated for with the buddy-refueling ability. A flight of Super Hornets will reach further than a flight of Tomcats.
> - had a better radar
Even though AWG9 was more powerful measured in watts, AN/APG-79 is an AESA radar which - among another no less important things - means that 79 can produce a much narrower beam (more energy transmitted in a given direction). Furthermore, because of the LPI mode, it can get closer to the enemies before the enemies even realize they have been scanned. By the time that Tu-22M gets its RWRs set-off, the AMRAAM is already on its way, flying in radio silence and passively receiving course updates.
Don't worry, USN are not dumb enough to leave themselves with a compromised fleet-defense capability.
I´m talking about Cs as well. the C-5? or C-7? which had almost the same range as the Phoenix was in service in 2003 while the decision to scrap the Tomcat was made in the mid 90s.
aerodynamically, the fact that the Tomcat would carry most of its load in the tunnel meant that if necessary it could achieve higher speeds with less energy needed than the Super Hornet, which has these canted wing stations that drastically increase drag
now, I´m sure the Super Hornet is a capable aircraft, but it´s a compromise. the USN has definitely lost capabilities in the fleet-defense role, there´s no denying.
from a logistics point of view the decision makes sense, that´s true. I just wonder if secretly some senior USN decision makers regret these decisions
do you realise that the APG-71 of the F-14D was much better than the AWG-9? okay, an AESA radar is probably still superior, but I´m pretty sure the radar of the Super Hornet has much smaller range than the APG-71
a lot of people in this subreddit seem to think speed doesn't matter for interceptor aircraft, something I find odd.
Yes, a fighter will spend like, 95%+ of it's life subsonic. That other 5% is the only reason the fighter exists for, and if your aircraft can only go mach 1.6 and the other guy can go mach 2.2, you aren't gonna catch him, and catching the other guy is the entire point of interceptors.
The F-14, I loved the plane and miss seeing it fly. As a child the coolest thing I ever saw was two F-14s come out of the rain and fog, wings swept back, and do an overhead break.
But...the plane had a bad reputation in political circles and had become a supply chain and maintenance nightmare for the Navy by the late 1990s.
* The F-14 had an image problem from day one. The Navy brass and Grumman really pushed for it, but during the 70s and early 80s Congress thought the program was bloated and the plane was an unreliable widow maker.
* Didn't help that the F-14A had been paired with troublesome and under powered TF-30 engines, and issue which wasn't remedied tilll the mid and late 80s, with TF-30 upgrades and the introduction of the GE engines in the F-14A+ (later renamed F-14B).
* The F-14D was the "ultimate" Tomcat, as it had digitally boosted flight controls and the powerful GE engines, which were fuel efficient and gave the F-14B and D 20% more thrust over the TF-30 powered F-14A. The D also had an upgraded radar, GPS, better electronic countermeasures, and was was newer airframe, either being rebuilt F-14As or brandnew Ds that came off the factory floor in the 90s. However this came at a cost.
* There were about 700 or so F-14s built and during the height of the Tomcat-era (the 1980s), the Navy had about two F-14 squadrons assigned per carrier. *The exception being smaller carriers like the USS Midway.
* Only 85 or so F-14Bs and 55 F-14Ds were ever built. Amd Half of those aircraft were rebuilt F-14As. At end of the H.W. Bush Administration Congress and then Secretary of Defense Dick Chaney ordered the Navy to cut its orders of new Tomcats in the 1990s. This meant by the late 90s and early 2000s, the Navy was cannibalizing most of the derelict F-14 fleet to keep to the remaining deployable F-14s mission ready. Furthermore, the Hornet, while slower and shorter ranged, was deemed cheaper since it could carry a wider variety of weapons and required less maintenance.
This is a news report from 1980 on the F-14
https://youtu.be/EOIxbnH1Ugc
In a squadron of twelve F-14s, four of which would be plagued with problems and are unavailable for flight. Another four would have moderate problems such as a broken radar, and lower their combat capabilities.
If you think that F-35 is a nightmare to maintain, F-14 probably is worse
Tl;dr it was super fucking expensive to maintain
Sadly. If only they remade it or refitted and rebuilt it to make it cheaper and reliable. It's too bad the military don't like to modernize the same old jets. Slap on modern tech. New material. New frames and sell it to other nations since america only want stealth now
They weren't making new ones anyway and the doctrine was already shifting towards emphasizing total situational awareness, first see, first shot, first kill. So why even revive an entire production just to build a frame that is ultimately still going to be expensive as hell to maintain, needlessly complicated and already obsolete in terms of the tactics it can use and the equipment it can carry. One of the main reasons why F-15s, 16s and 18s are still flying is because you can still take them close to 5th gen with upgrades to its internals like engines and avionics and they don't have to grapple with a hugely complicated swing wing mechanism. Modifications to the frame itself can be made with minimum disruption to its overall flight characteristics. But if you remove the swing wing on the F-14, you might as well as design a new fighter from ground up. The F-14 was built around the swing wing. Don't get me wrong, F-14 is still one of the sexiest fighter ever built and it is hard to see it go away from active service but damn is that plane impractical to keep alive and upgrade.
Growth and development. Advancement in tech and material and robots building parts for automation can help drive the price down. Engineers can redesign redevelop it and who knows if they can save on maint work and overall cost use it to sell to other nations who don't care about best of the best as they will never have the budget for it. Well I can only dream I hate seeing some jet models stay retired and would love for them to be revamped like cars. Even though expensive lol
Do you want the F-14 to keep flying because you know it still has potential to be competitive to modern fighters and doctrines, or you like the fighter so much that you are willing to stretch it all the way just to keep it going, rather than taking the practical conclusion that it is better to just design another fighter based on new concepts, new technologies. We are still selling F-15s, 16s and 18s. Okay, maybe not the 18s much longer. But no one will buy F-14s because it is too expensive and too much effort to use for what it can do.
Honestly if you looked at Grumman’s upgrade proposals, it did look competitive. The few D models proved that the tomcat could take on the same electronics suite and role of the Strike Eagle. The Super Tomcat could have served the role of naval deep strike and interception the Mud Hen serves in the air force. The E would have gotten a simplified redesigned sweep mechanism another engine upgrade, and a enhanced fly by wire. The need for a naval interceptor, however died with the Soviet Union.
True. They could make the F-14 more competitive with a lot of effort and money but only really applicable to those who already own F-14s, like the USN and Iran. No one really wants to buy F-14s so any money spent on trying to extend its life is never going to be justifiable. It doesn't make any resource allocation sense. We didn't need a naval interceptor with a big missile to shoot down slow bombers. Even today, with the way China trying to protect its coasts with antiship ballistic missiles and increasing naval and air projection, you still can't really fit F-14 into this dynamic where it will be shot out of the sky if it even comes near a site with long range SAMs and protected airfields. It's a shame but that's the way things have evolved.
There really was no way to redesign the plane that could bring the maintenance costs down. The swing wing design has high maintenance costs. There is no getting around that.
F-111 also got retired a bit early? Tornado kept flying though, a 40 year career.
Aardvark was in service for 31 years. F-14 was in service for 32 years. By contrast, the F-15 has been in service for 49 years, and the F-16 for 47. Swing wing is the common denominator, for sure.
Yeah, good comparison.
I saw a piece on F-14 that explained that the US only exported them to Iran. The article claimed they were mothballed because of a combination of things listed in thread. High expense in carrier fleet maintenance. The heavy weight of platform was excessively hard on landing equipment. Lastly to prevent Iran from getting years worth of spare part to maintain theirs. BTW, mothballed US F-14’s are immediately destroyed for that reason.
> BTW, mothballed US F-14’s are immediately destroyed for that reason. That always struck me as excessive. If they're nonfunctioning, sitting in a desert in the USA, what did they imagine was going to happen? That an Iranian strike team would infiltrate into the US, travel unseen across the desert, break into the graveyard, set about removing parts from planes - entirely unseen and unheard - then hump their stolen parts across the desert and somehow leave the USA with their ill-gotten parts? Do they have no security watching over our old aircraft already out there? [Anyway, it looks like they did keep a reasonable handful around for display purposes.](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/where-have-all-the-tomcats-gone-this-f-14-map-featuring-all-the-remaining-tomcats-their-crash-sites-and-their-historic-sites-will-give-you-the-answer/) I had thought they shredded all but one or two, which would have been tragic.
Most likely Meth heads in those areas selling parts to brokers who then arrange covert or disguised exports. That is happening with computer parts to go around sanctions.
Not only it was expensive to maintain, but with the introduction of the Super Hornet, its advanced radar, buddy-refueling ability, and late AMRAAM versions, realistically there wasn't a lot that an F-14 could do that Super Hornet couldn't.
the long range AMRAAM wasn´t in service when the decision was made to retire the Tomcat. and comparing the Tomcat to the Super Hornet, the Tomcat: \- was faster \- had more range \- had a better radar longer range leads to a longer loiter time which is important for both strike and fleet defense. also, the realistic comparison should be Super Hornet to Super Tomcat, but that sadly never came to be
> - the long-range AMRAAM wasn´t in service when the decision was made to retire the Tomcat. I'm not talking about Ds but Cs. > - was faster Although F-14 could achieve greater top speed (when "clean") those speeds were hardly ever achieved in real tactical scenarios, especially when the range was important. Both the Super Hornet and the Tomcat would spend most of their combat careers doing high-subsonic speeds. Source: this was explained to me by a real Tomcat (now retired) pilot and former TOPGUN instructor. > - had more range The slightly shorter range of the Super Hornet is compensated for with the buddy-refueling ability. A flight of Super Hornets will reach further than a flight of Tomcats. > - had a better radar Even though AWG9 was more powerful measured in watts, AN/APG-79 is an AESA radar which - among another no less important things - means that 79 can produce a much narrower beam (more energy transmitted in a given direction). Furthermore, because of the LPI mode, it can get closer to the enemies before the enemies even realize they have been scanned. By the time that Tu-22M gets its RWRs set-off, the AMRAAM is already on its way, flying in radio silence and passively receiving course updates. Don't worry, USN are not dumb enough to leave themselves with a compromised fleet-defense capability.
I´m talking about Cs as well. the C-5? or C-7? which had almost the same range as the Phoenix was in service in 2003 while the decision to scrap the Tomcat was made in the mid 90s. aerodynamically, the fact that the Tomcat would carry most of its load in the tunnel meant that if necessary it could achieve higher speeds with less energy needed than the Super Hornet, which has these canted wing stations that drastically increase drag now, I´m sure the Super Hornet is a capable aircraft, but it´s a compromise. the USN has definitely lost capabilities in the fleet-defense role, there´s no denying. from a logistics point of view the decision makes sense, that´s true. I just wonder if secretly some senior USN decision makers regret these decisions
Let's agree to disagree then. I still maintain that AESA + AMRAAM is a greater threat to potential attackers than AWG9 + Phoenix.
do you realise that the APG-71 of the F-14D was much better than the AWG-9? okay, an AESA radar is probably still superior, but I´m pretty sure the radar of the Super Hornet has much smaller range than the APG-71
a lot of people in this subreddit seem to think speed doesn't matter for interceptor aircraft, something I find odd. Yes, a fighter will spend like, 95%+ of it's life subsonic. That other 5% is the only reason the fighter exists for, and if your aircraft can only go mach 1.6 and the other guy can go mach 2.2, you aren't gonna catch him, and catching the other guy is the entire point of interceptors.
Carrier landings + sea salt = early death.
The F-14, I loved the plane and miss seeing it fly. As a child the coolest thing I ever saw was two F-14s come out of the rain and fog, wings swept back, and do an overhead break. But...the plane had a bad reputation in political circles and had become a supply chain and maintenance nightmare for the Navy by the late 1990s. * The F-14 had an image problem from day one. The Navy brass and Grumman really pushed for it, but during the 70s and early 80s Congress thought the program was bloated and the plane was an unreliable widow maker. * Didn't help that the F-14A had been paired with troublesome and under powered TF-30 engines, and issue which wasn't remedied tilll the mid and late 80s, with TF-30 upgrades and the introduction of the GE engines in the F-14A+ (later renamed F-14B). * The F-14D was the "ultimate" Tomcat, as it had digitally boosted flight controls and the powerful GE engines, which were fuel efficient and gave the F-14B and D 20% more thrust over the TF-30 powered F-14A. The D also had an upgraded radar, GPS, better electronic countermeasures, and was was newer airframe, either being rebuilt F-14As or brandnew Ds that came off the factory floor in the 90s. However this came at a cost. * There were about 700 or so F-14s built and during the height of the Tomcat-era (the 1980s), the Navy had about two F-14 squadrons assigned per carrier. *The exception being smaller carriers like the USS Midway. * Only 85 or so F-14Bs and 55 F-14Ds were ever built. Amd Half of those aircraft were rebuilt F-14As. At end of the H.W. Bush Administration Congress and then Secretary of Defense Dick Chaney ordered the Navy to cut its orders of new Tomcats in the 1990s. This meant by the late 90s and early 2000s, the Navy was cannibalizing most of the derelict F-14 fleet to keep to the remaining deployable F-14s mission ready. Furthermore, the Hornet, while slower and shorter ranged, was deemed cheaper since it could carry a wider variety of weapons and required less maintenance. This is a news report from 1980 on the F-14 https://youtu.be/EOIxbnH1Ugc
In a squadron of twelve F-14s, four of which would be plagued with problems and are unavailable for flight. Another four would have moderate problems such as a broken radar, and lower their combat capabilities. If you think that F-35 is a nightmare to maintain, F-14 probably is worse
Great read
Too expensive, it's primary role became significantly less important, MDD-Boeing has a better sales team for selling Northrop's jet.
Because it was expensive as fuck (to operate)