Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

When I was in the US military in Frankfurt, our warrant officers would have to get some hours in over the weekend and I'd go with a couple of friends to Rhein Main Fridays about 3:00PM to check weekend flight plans and see if we could get away to Greece or Italy for the weekend. Always on a 130 and in the summer, cargo ramp open to keep it cool inside. I've several fond memories of that nearly perfect "truck" of an airplane.

Ive got photos/video of the "last Herc flight out" of Afghanistan for our national contingent in the Hindu Kush, from the ground. Eek.

Great plane and bloody high/short strip there too.

Due for replacement.

Last C17 frames sold, so looks like A400M(hope not, tired of under developed Eurorubbish)or hopefully C130J Super Herc and C27J combo.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

My all time favourite Kelly Johnson Lockheed Skunkworks aircraft - first Mach 2 operational fighter (and that was using a single General Electric engine!), winner of the 1958 Collier Trophy. Some years ago, I was prowling the warbird flightline at Oshkosh at daybreak, and had to do a double take as there was Starfighter in a polished aluminum & red trim civilian paint scheme. Only in America. (but I of course had to show a pic in Canadian livery - this is over Cold Lake, Alberta)








More Starfighter-porn:

I intentionally left out the Starfighter.

I thought Woody might bring up the Luftwaffe "widow maker" moniker before they sorted out training.

Great looking plane, and capable as well working to its strengths like slashing interceptions.

And if equipped with a more fuel stingy turbofan like F100/F110, max design fuel capacity, and a good TFR, it would have been incredibly hard to beat flying in the weeds.

I was always partial to F16 as well as the Swedish J29, J35, J37, J39.

Not bad for a small country with a bit of engine help from Uncle Sam.

J37 got a couple of simulated intercepts on SR71, and the Swedes ran a pilot recruitment and training programme like F1 driver grooming.

[santafe2]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

Okay, now I know where United got their inspiration...

No, way too much leg room.

[santafe2]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

No, way too much leg room.

And a note, I've never flown the worst airline in the world. There are no first world competitors for this award.

[Mega]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

Gentlemen, if we are looking at sexy, sexy supersonic aircraft of the past like the F104, we can't leave the Convair B58 Hustler out of the beauty pageant.














from wiki:

The B-58 set no fewer than 19 world speed records, including coast-to-coast records, and one for longest supersonic flight in history. In 1963, it went from Tokyo to London (via Alaska), a distance of 8,028 miles (12,920 km) in 8 hours, 35 minutes, 20.4 seconds, averaging 938 miles per hour (1,510 kilometres per hour). As of 2016, this record still stands.^[39][40] The aircraft was serving in an operational unit, and had not been modified in any way besides being washed and waxed. One of the goals of the flight was to push the limit of its new honeycomb construction technique. The speed of the flight was limited only by the speed at which they believed the honeycomb panels would delaminate.^[41] This B-58 was called "Greased Lightning" - the codename for the record attempt

The B58 did fly low level and the crews say it was smooth and easy down in the weeds.

Mike, to answer your question: Yes the F14 Tomcat was a truly great aircraft, right up there with the best.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

Gentlemen, if we are looking at sexy, sexy supersonic aircraft of the past like the F104, we can't leave the Convair B58 Hustler out of the beauty pageant.



The B58 did fly low level and the crews say it was smooth and easy down in the weeds.

Mike, to answer your question: Yes the F14 Tomcat was a truly great aircraft, right up there with the best.

The B58 was a beautiful bird.


But awfully expensive to build, fly, and maintain. And a quarter lost in accidents.

The event of modern air defence missile systems made high altitude, high speed penetration untenable.

And fuel thirsty engines of the day resulted in a radius of action welove below strategic requirements.

----

Mission planning for the arctic speed run from Tokyo to London would have been interesting.

I'd be guessing multiple redundant tankers at each fuel point, pre GPS navigation and marry up procedure challenges, alternate emergency airfield requirements, search and rescue assets both in orbit and on standby.

There'd be a whole lot of moving parts for one fast flyer.

[GRG55]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

The B58 was a beautiful bird.


But awfully expensive to build, fly, and maintain. And a quarter lost in accidents.

The event of modern air defence missile systems made high altitude, high speed penetration untenable.

And fuel thirsty engines of the day resulted in a radius of action welove below strategic requirements.

----

Mission planning for the arctic speed run from Tokyo to London would have been interesting.

I'd be guessing multiple redundant tankers at each fuel point, pre GPS navigation and marry up procedure challenges, alternate emergency airfield requirements, search and rescue assets both in orbit and on standby.

There'd be a whole lot of moving parts for one fast flyer.

Just imagine what that airframe could do with modern engines.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

Just imagine what that airframe could do with modern engines.

Like the performance enhancement from TF30/F14A to F110/F14B/D, but even more so I reckon!

[wayiwalk]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

Former Grummanite here, although worked there in the 80s into early 90s after all off the development completed for the projects of its heyday, there's a lot more to it than what was discussed here. I had family who worked on both the LM and F-14 (and the G-1 as well).

Definitely comparing apples to oranges when talking about landing on a carrier vs a land based air-strip....think of it as comparing a marathoner vs a sprinter.

The original aircraft was designed for the higher thrust/weight General Electric engines; the lovely politics (Congress) of the day yielded the Navy using the Pratt & Whitney engines which diminished the performance in the early version of the aircraft.

The key feature of the aircraft of it's variable sweep wings. I understand (without the ability of giving the exact terminology) that the single most critical challenge in creating this aircraft was the welding of the part were the full weight of the wings pivoted, to the rest of the air frame. As much as designing the materials/shape/size was figuring out how to make the weld strong and durable for the rigors of the duty of that function.

It gets to the nub of engineering and invention - great solutions appear simple after the fact or to the layman. The functionality of the variable sweep wings has not been duplicated.

I noted a comment about the foul side of getting things done via payoffs and dirty play. I dunno about Grumman, however, it they were so foul, why doesn't the company exist today? I'd say the players that remain played the game much more effectively.

Whatever.

We now have drones to blow things up. Same problems, different ways to do it. When I left aerospace in the early 90s to go into the environmental field, the idea of a peace dividend at least seemed somewhat viable. Sure doesn't look that way now.

[GRG55]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

Just a note that the US Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, is nearing completion of its fourth exhibit building. It is expected to be open to the public this coming June. One of the exhibits in that building will be the remaining North American XB-70 Valkyrie - only two were built. Like Lockheed, North American Aviation was also responsible for some of the most iconic US military aircraft, including the P-51 Mustang, B-25 Mitchell and the F-86 Sabre.

The Valkyrie was designed as a high altitude bomber capable of Mach 3, very advanced for the time, but made obsolete by Russia's development of high altitude surface-to-air missiles. The 2 airframes were relegated to high altitude, high speed, long duration flight research. In June, 1966 the number 2 hull was lost, along with its co-pilot and a veteran NASA test pilot in the F-104 that collided with the Valkyrie during a formation photo-shoot. The photo platform airplane captured the collision and aftermath, and I remember seeing the picture sequence in LIFE magazine at the time. North American was merged with Rockwell International the following year.

Not as pretty as the Hustler, but a unique bit of aviation history in its own right, and nice to hear it will finally be housed and displayed publicly at Dayton.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

I've seen that XB-70 at the Wright Patt museum.
Photo's don't convey an accurate sense of scale. That plane is huge, when you stand near it you feel small.

The Air Force Museum is really something to see for an aircraft buff, they seem to have one of everything.
SR71 (actually a YF-12, the armed version); that XB-70; every great warbird of WWII; Wright flyers; Eisenhower's air Force 1...lots of oddballs and one-offs, like the twin mustang and an XF-85 Goblin (of course parked under a B-36). Plane after plane after plane, literally hundreds of them.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

Just a note that the US Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, is nearing completion of its fourth exhibit building. It is expected to be open to the public this coming June. One of the exhibits in that building will be the remaining North American XB-70 Valkyrie - only two were built. Like Lockheed, North American Aviation was also responsible for some of the most iconic US military aircraft, including the P-51 Mustang, B-25 Mitchell and the F-86 Sabre.

The Valkyrie was designed as a high altitude bomber capable of Mach 3, very advanced for the time, but made obsolete by Russia's development of high altitude surface-to-air missiles. The 2 airframes were relegated to high altitude, high speed, long duration flight research. In June, 1966 the number 2 hull was lost, along with its co-pilot and a veteran NASA test pilot in the F-104 that collided with the Valkyrie during a formation photo-shoot. The photo platform airplane captured the collision and aftermath, and I remember seeing the picture sequence in LIFE magazine at the time. North American was merged with Rockwell International the following year.

Not as pretty as the Hustler, but a unique bit of aviation history in its own right, and nice to hear it will finally be housed and displayed publicly at Dayton.

That Valkyrie photo(and the following mid-air collision) is the apogee of human atmospheric flight and space potential achieving reality.

Yup, Apollo was underway and man stood on the moon for the crowning achievement 3 years later, but that was the last of the momentum.

Skylab using the last of the Saturn 5 boosters was genuinely useful for extended space flight physiology, but was a glorified zero gravity hampster cage to the public.

X15 was winding down.

X20 Dyna Soar was binned.

Project Orion nuclear propelled interplanetary travel inspiration was binned.

The Space Shuttle turned into the world's most fragile and dangerous dump truck.

We were left with artificial and dark futures like UFO, Space 1999, and the the cynical lie of Capricorn One.

The Valkyrie's offspring were supposed to fly me into orbit by Pan-Am with a cool marry up socking procedure with a rotating space station.

I'm getting grey. I can't wait around forever. At this stage I'd be happy with the rocket boots that were also promised.

The ultimate over promise and under delivery.

It makes the Dot Com Boom of the 90's seem tame by comparison since all of the early .com promises have come true just 10-15 years late.

You can't even buy a lift in a commie MIG-25 Foxbat anymore since they're end of life.

What's the world coming to?

[touhy]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

Our society has been in terminal decline since 1961. We just did not notice.

[GRG55]

Re: Was the F14 a "Great" plane?

That Valkyrie photo(and the following mid-air collision) is the apogee of human atmospheric flight and space potential achieving reality.

Yup, Apollo was underway and man stood on the moon for the crowning achievement 3 years later, but that was the last of the momentum.

Skylab using the last of the Saturn 5 boosters was genuinely useful for extended space flight physiology, but was a glorified zero gravity hampster cage to the public.

X15 was winding down.

X20 Dyna Soar was binned.

Project Orion nuclear propelled interplanetary travel inspiration was binned.

The Space Shuttle turned into the world's most fragile and dangerous dump truck.

We were left with artificial and dark futures like UFO, Space 1999, and the the cynical lie of Capricorn One.

The Valkyrie's offspring were supposed to fly me into orbit by Pan-Am with a cool marry up socking procedure with a rotating space station.

I'm getting grey. I can't wait around forever. At this stage I'd be happy with the rocket boots that were also promised.

The ultimate over promise and under delivery.

It makes the Dot Com Boom of the 90's seem tame by comparison since all of the early .com promises have come true just 10-15 years late.

You can't even buy a lift in a commie MIG-25 Foxbat anymore since they're end of life.

What's the world coming to?

And the retirement of Concorde...the first time in human history a commercial aircraft type was taken out of service without being replaced by something faster.

Yep, we are ALL getting grey. And slowing down.