Forum: Air Power

get that book MjH it's very enlightening. Wink

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TC, I was talking to a Tomcat and Super Bug driver at Miramar who told me that the Tomcats never carried the AMRAAM, just the Sidewinder and Sparrow. He said that a group of Tomcats (now without their Phoenixes) were down in Florida for an exercise. They went up against a group of Vipers and Eagles (with AMRAAMs) and got their clocks cleaned Sad

. I'm a big Tomcat fan, but without the AMRAAM and or Phoenix, the Tomcat just isn't a big time air to air player anymore. What's worse, the same pilot told me that the Tomcats are just getting too old and even more maintenance intensive than before. If it's not leaking something, you're probably out of it Shocked

! I got a good (probably last) look up close at a B model at Nellis a couple of weeks ago, and you should have seen the hydraulic fluid (and I think some fuel) streaming down the side of the fuselage under the horizontal stab and the pools on the ground. I love the Tomcat, always will, but I sincerely think that without a major upgrade (which won't happen), the Tomcat's day is done. I just hope those wonderful jets find good homes at museums and base gates Very Happy

!

Yeah, the Tomcat is done in 2008, according to the schedule. Didn't know that they never added the AMRAAM to the Tomcat's arsenal. Now, they will be left with Sparrows as their longest range missile. Don't look for the Tomcat to get another kill before it goes, unless it is dropping a smart bomb on something.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

The Tomcat will be reitred much earlier than planned. At current rates, it won't survive FY06. But a reprieve has been given, Jeff.....VF-101 plans to do one more year of shows! They're just waiting for final approval.

Its ironic that F-14 went from being the longest ranged shot in the US inventory to the shortest ranged fighter. Even F-16's carry AMRAAMs.

Will a unit start doing Super Bug demos anytime soon?

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

Habu, can it really be true Shocked

?! You mean I really might get to see a Tomcat over Miramar again Very Happy

?! Don't get me wrong, I'll take Nellis, but I hope I get to see it over Fighter Town USA just one more time Cool

!!! Thanks for the GREAT news!!! Now where's my Top Gun soundtrack CD... Laughing

I didn't think a F-14 could land on a carrier with 6 AIM-54's because of the weight...

Is this incorrect?

Yes, it can. I haven't seen a Tomcat do it in a long time, but the last time I saw it happen was in some stock footage. They had been on a CAP, and were landing with 6 AIM-54s. They were low on fuel though, so that would equal things up a bit.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

TC wrote:

The 4 air to air kills the Tomcat achieved were all recorded with AIM-7s and AIM-9s.

True but I've also heard it argued that the AIM-54 along with the AWG-9 are the reason why the Tomcat doesn't have many kills. Both added up to an unwillingness on the part of enemies to test the Buffalo. I recall hearing reports that when aircraft that were BVR found they were painted, they turned away. Take that for what it's worth (price paid! Wink

).

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I came across an interesting discussion on f-15strikeeagle.com. There, one of the authors of the F-14s in Iran book that was previously mentioned, Tom Cooper, stated:

1. Iran has developed the ability to support its F-14 fleet independently;

2. Iran has not only reverse-engineered the Phoenix missle, but developed an improved fire & forget version;

3. Conseqently, would likely prevail in BVR engagements against anything in the US inventory, including F-15C/AMRAAM (due to the far superior range of the missle) in the event the US would attempt to attack Iranian nuclear facilities;

4. He believes that US pilots are not aware of this, and so are underestimating the Iranians, due in part to;

5. Failure of USAF/USN intelligence to disseminate this info to combat units.

This proved to be a lively topic on that forum, and the moderator ended up locking the thread. This is the link to the forum -

http://www.f-15estrikeeagle.com/navigat ... _intro.htm

The thread name is "USAF playing cat and mouse game over Iran".

Cooper's co-author is an Iranian national, and he claims they have had acess to a number of US, Iranian & Iraqi documents, and well as personal contacts in the air arms of these three countries.

For those of you who care to hop over to take a peek, what do you think? Cooper seems to be knowledgeable, but I find the notion of 25+ year old F-14s dominating the skies to be far-fetched.

I'd be grateful for all of your comments - thanks!

dred

I dunno...some of those points sound a little dubious to little ol' me:

Winning a BVR engagement against Eagle/AMRAAM? That's kind of a stretch. Two 1970's era airframes but with vastly different weapon systems and radars. Winner: the better trained pilot. Any takers on who that's gonna be?

Has the fire-n-forget Phoenix been tested? If Cooper claims they exist then surely he must know if it's been tested. How else could he know if it's effective enough to beat what we have? What was it tested against? How to they intend to replace the test missiles fired? Black Market? Ebay? Wink

Having the intel but not giving it to the op units? C'mon....that sounds oddly like something a conspiracy theorist might propose. What possible purpose would intel have for NOT spreading the info?

Even if all that is true, it won't mean beans if the Iranian Tomcat drivers aren't up to snuff training wise vis-a-vis their Western counterparts.

This is just me on my soapbox, and maybe I'm bein'a tad Polly Ann-ish, but I still stand behind a comment I made in another thread: The Iranians have maybe, what, 50 Tomcats left (my guess), with maybe a third of those mission-ready at any given time. My guess is they're gonna husband the ones they have that actually can fight so much that they won't allow their drivers to max perform the jets if it means risking losing one or more to training accidents. We all know what a perishable skill air combat is (even if it is just BVR stuff), so not being allowed to train like you'd fight is bound to play a role in the odds of you surviving a shooting engagement versus anything the West has.

Did Cooper say how often the Iranians train BVR/ACM/Defensive Counter Air? How many hours per month each pilot gets to hone his BFM skill? And who here thinks we won't try to neutralize the counter-air threat either by SpecOps or unmanned methods before sending the manned stuff in?

And finally.....if the lead starts flyin', how many Iranian pilots are loyal enough to the Mullahs to take an AMRAAM in the face or a Sidewinder up the tailpipe for 'em? Not many I suspect. I'd venture a bet that we'd see quite a few of those flyable Iranian Toms show up at Balad or Bagram before the shootin' was over.

But again, that's just me. Wink

dred wrote:

I find the notion of 25+ year old F-14s dominating the skies to be far-fetched.

I agree. No matter what Iran has supposedly done, they cannot continue to jerry-rig their Tomcats and keep them flying indefinitely. They will eventually reach a point of diminishing returns with the F-14, if they haven't already. The maintenance on an American Tomcat is a b*tch as it is, and we can get all the parts we need!

Besides, if we really saw the Iranian Tomcats as that big a threat, we always have other options to get them before they get us. Since the Ayatollah might be monitoring this thread, I won't get into the specifics on how we could deal with Iran's F-14s. Let's just say we have several options opposed to merely going up against them in a dogfight.

If our Grumman boys had been smart, they would've sabotaged more Tomcats than they did. I would've gathered up all the frag grenades that I could've, and chucked them into cockpits, intakes, exhaust nozzles...you name it. There are several "targets of opportunity" on a fighter that one well placed grenade...well, you get the picture.

I doubt they have figured out the problems with the TF-30s, and they were a big enough problem on American Tomcats, which, as I said before, we had all the available parts for. The Iranians do not. I've actually seen photos that were taken by some "Mr. X" which showed SEVERAL Iranian Tomcats sitting under sun shields with no engines in them. This leads me to believe that they really aren't as threatening as some would like to believe. The engines have always been the Tomcat's Achilles Heel.

Our maintenance is better. Our planes are in better condition, and newer. Our weapons are better, and our pilots are better. No contest.

Beers, MiGs, and Iranian Tomcats were made to be pounded!

Thanks, gents. I wouldn't have even bothered following that thread, except Cooper didn't seem like the usual American-baiting troll. I'd never heard of him before, but assuming the books and ACIG affiliation aren't complete frauds, it would appear he's in position to know some stuff. OTOH, maybe he's too deep into the trees to see the forest.

dred

But now USAF hasn't got any AAM with range more than 75 kms...

Forum: Air Power

Navy Retires AIM-54 Phoenix Missile