F-14 Tomcat fleet retired

The F-14 Tomcat fleet was retired today

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It sparkled people's imagination with its aggressive looks, it impressed them with its size and shocked them with the tremendous noise of its huge engines. Later on, the image of Tom Cruise in the cockpit, fighting "the evil ones" was to remain forever imprinted in common memory.

Today, 22nd of september 2006, the Tomcat had finally come to a rest. Built in the 1960's as an interceptor, the aircraft was later used as a recon aircraft and a bomber as well. It took part in both Gulf Wars, Bosnia, Afghanistan, as well as several isolated incidents between the US and other countries.

Maintenance costs, combined with the new F/A18E/F SuperHornet, brought the F-14 down. The aircraft's availability rate became pretty low in the last year as well, and its large size had become even more of a distadvantage on the carrier deck after the F-18 came in service.

More than 3,000 people, former pilots, mechanics, builders and suppliers, have attended the retirement ceremony at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia.

Pilot lt. cmdr. David Faehnle and radar intercept officer lt. cmdr. Robert Gentry gave a final salute from inside their cockpit before aircraft 102 taxied down the runway and out of sight for the final flight of the F-14, during the retirement ceremony. However, the plane that actually took off as thousands applauded and whistled, was tail 107, flown by lt. cmdr. Chris Richard and intercept officer lt. Mike Petronis. Tail 102 had technical problems during the take-off procedure so the back-up aircraft 107 made the last flight. "This is a common occurence with the F-14", stated Mike Maus, a US Navy spokesman, underlining one of the disadvantages of the F-14 today.

The only other country in the world to purchase the F-14 was Iran, during the rule of the shah. Immediately after the 1979 Islamic Revolution however, all the US support regarding engineers, advisors, instructors and most importantly - spare parts, was retired, throwing the new Islamic Republic of Iran into a desperate and covert search for F-14 spare parts ever since.

F-14 Tomcat F-14 Tomcat

The availability of the F-14 in Iran today is believed to be close to zero aircraft. It is also widely believed by analysts that once the US had retired its fleet, it has now become impossible for Iran to maintain the few F-14's which were still flying until recently, since they have already cannibalized most of the aircraft and procuring spare parts illegally from the US has now become impossible.

F-14 Tomcat A monument dedicated to the 69 crew members killed while flying the F-14 will be erected at Oceana NAS, Virginia.

However, what will keep the F-14 forever in our minds will be it's looks, sounds, and - we must face it, Tom Cruise.

Farewell, old bird!

Links:
F-14 Tomcat
F-18 Hornet and F/A18E/F SuperHornet

22nd of september 2006

©2006 Sorin A Crasmarelu

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