F-14 Tomcat - the TOP GUN

hello aviation fans sky here and today we believe the cosy civilian aviation and touched the military world the world of fast and incredibly angry warbirds that delight France at the air shows and upset enemies in war we will not be going too far into the past and begin with the fourth generation our today's hero being the father of this generation is a very tough and very famous plane let's give him a proper welcome the f-14 Tomcat is a jet fighter developed in the early 1970s by Grumman for the US Navy created using a number of new technical solutions based on the concepts and experiences of previous Wars the f-14 in principle is considered the first representative of the fourth-generation fighters as well as the first representative of the so called team series f-14 f15 16 and 18 yeah the school kids at one time the f-14 used to be on everyone's mind although due to the specific nature its distribution was quite modest that is if more than 700 units can be called modest it is still in service though not at home but ironically in the air force of one of the main opponents of its homeland okay let's fly into the past the story of this handsome devil started with the problems that were kindly prepared for the American Navy by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s the development of missile and aviation technologies turned into a challenge for the sailors Soviet bombers had the potential to carry out Swift attacks and the anti-ship missiles removed the need for them to fly close the naval air defense systems could not fully solve this issue and naval aviation though remaining the main defense could hardly guarantee security the range and duration of patrols were modest and the armament was no longer impressive the fleet needed new fighters capable of meeting the requirements of the time with more powerful weapons radars increased range and reliability this meet became obvious by 1961 when Robert McNamara became Minister of Defense in the John Kennedy administration his problem was that planes were becoming more and more complicated and expensive the Pentagon trying to reduce the cost of creation and maintenance of new equipment came to the conclusion that there was a need for deep unification which means creating a single fighter modifications of which will serve in both the Air Force and the Navy as you can see the ideas of the JSF program are growing from here as a result the tactical fighter experimental or tf-x program was initiated in 1964 came the first flight of the newest f-111 which was to become the basis of future machines but as usual if you're trying to please everyone you will not please anyone the tf-x concept was good from the point of view of development production and maintenance but the resulting aircraft did not meet the requirements of either the Air Force or the fleet these requirements were often too different and all the new solutions even the breakthroughs did not solve this problem and while the f-111 was accepted by the Air Force the sailors did not need their f-111b at all the f-111b was aimed at the basic requirements of the fleet for the long term patrolling of airspace around the Navy ship group and it was quite capable of performing this task but then the reality of military operations showed that aerial combat is not always a beautiful duel at long distances and in close quarters combat this dangerous fighter would turn into a sitting duck a new VFX program was initiated the result of which was to become an aircraft close to the f-111b but more adapted to naval aviation and importantly effective in a dogfight the requirements were very ambitious naturally such a project attracted all the bigger the aiders General Dynamics Grumman McDonnell Douglas North American Rockwell and LTV lean Tecmo thought it is practically forgotten by now but at one time it was a huge industrial conglomerate the leaders were McDonnell Douglas and Grumman but since drummer was a member of the f-111 project and the future of the effects in a sense was based on it it was decided to give the order to the company which already had the it also didn't take long to invent the name for the aircraft the main lobbyist of the program was Vice Admiral Thomas Connolly who personally received permits and funding from Congress then in the early 1960s the name of the future aircraft was formed by combining the officer's name and grumman special passion of giving their planes cat names and so the name Tomcat appeared the project was officially launched in 1969 the work was carried out at a very fast pace and to accelerate mass production the company significantly upgraded its main site on Long Island next to New York the fleet was rushing the company while the sailors themselves were rushed by McNamara they refused the tf-x program but still had to keep up with the deadlines in fact they skipped the stage of creating flying labs and immediately started building the aircraft they needed let's see what they created so the f-14 Tomcat the fighter is made according to the layout of a variable swift wing tube filled vertical tail and two engines located in the rear of the fuselage with the take-off mass of more than 30 tons or 74 thousand pounds the f-14 became the heaviest fighter operating on American aircraft carriers the fuselage of the aircraft is somewhat flattened and it's increased surface generates on average 40 to 60% of the lift force depending on the mode of the wing this percentage increases survivability which was confirmed in practice the f-14 got into serious trouble on several occasions and still made successful landings being almost devoid of a wing or keel console the wing of the aircraft has the ability to change its whip and the sweep can change automatically depending on the flight mode including during a battle the consoles can change angle from 20 to 68 degrees the engineers were actively working on the wing during the tests the plane even made landings on an aircraft carrier with maximum sweep but the speed was too high and the pilots were strongly recommended against it in addition the aircraft performed flights with different sweeps of the console while successfully maintaining control a fairly large part of the wing remained stationary it was done on purpose so that there will be space for suspending equipment and weapons on the f-111 there were rotary pylons directly on the consoles but this practice did not pay off it was heavy and not efficient aerodynamically the tail unit consists of two large keels mounted above the engines horizontal fully turning stabilizers offset slightly below the wing plane as well as two small kills under the engines the powerplant is represented by two pratt whitney TF 30 turbo fan engines with afterburners they were previously installed on the f-111 and Drummond neatly transferred them to the f-14 this powerplant could accelerate the aircraft to a maximum speed of about Mach 2.3 and at the cruising modes it was quite economical which was important for a patrol fighter interceptor to increase flight time and range the aircraft of course had the ability to perform aerial refueling however the TF 30 did not get a lot of love from the military their resource was very modest and reliability according to statistics about 28% of all accidents with the f-14 were caused by the engines with their constant failures stalls and fan breakdowns eventually by the end of the 1970s the f-14 underwent three motorisation and received the new general electric f110 they were more reliable and efficient and also unified with the similar engines already installed on the f-15 and f-16 which simplified maintenance the engines are quite spread apart which makes the fuselage larger and flatter this allowed to deploy more onboard systems and fuel as well as Hank additional weapons below in the rear part there is a tail hook catching cables of the arresting gear for active deceleration on the flight deck as expected the crew is seated in a tandem scheme one behind another under a single glazing of the canopy providing circular view the aircraft was equipped with the most advanced onboard electronics of its time the f-14 received a pulse doppler radar infrared sensors a weapons control complex and digital communication systems the central air data computer or CADC became the basis of the onboard complex curiously the CADC core can be considered one of the first full-fledged micro processors the creators of this computer the garret air research company even prepared a lot of scientific publications but working for the military has its drawbacks all materials were classified and published only in the late 1990s when no one cared the main objective of the f-14 was to gain superiority in air with the ability to protect a fairly large airspace over the Navy fleet groups and aircraft carriers the main hammer of the f-14 was the newest aim-54 phoenix missile with a mass of 450 kilograms or over a thousand pounds it had the active radar guidance system and a firing range of 130 to 200 kilometers the numbers differ no one would give the real data of course it was this missile that was supposed to protect the fleet from 2 16 to 22 and tu-22m the main potential enemy however unlike the f-111 the f-14 was able to intercept lighter targets as well as conduct a dogfight the aircraft received eight suspension points and is capable of carrying up to six point seven tons of weapons most often in the 1970s and 1980s the fighters were equipped with a set of two aim-54 phoenix missiles to aim-9 Sidewinders and three aim seven sparrows plus the ammunition for the onboard gatling cannon ironically only a few phoenix missile launches by the US Navy were documented over Iraq in 1999 although in the iran-iraq war of the 1980s the Iranians were using these missiles quite actively the cost of all these features was the complete inability of the Tomcat to strike targets on the surface the f-14 Tomcat prototype made its maiden flight in December 1970 trials continued for several years including aerial maneuvering work on aircraft carriers and firing tests by 1973 the aircraft was officially certified by the military in the u.s. Navy f-14 started deployment as full fledged combat units in 1974 replacing the old f4 the planes showed themselves pretty good although problems with the TF 30 engines didn't take long to come out there were many accidents at the beginning of operations the first Tomcat combat took place in 1981 during the Gulf of Sidra incident when two f-14s were engaged by two su-22 Jets of the libyan air force after that the f-14 repeatedly participated in local clashes and large-scale military conflicts until the beginning of the 21st century although they did not have to carry out their main tasks intercepting Soviet aircraft and cruise missiles the brightest year for most civilians in the history of f-14 was 1986 when these fighters went to the Top Gun flight school where Tom Cruise and his friends were performing crazy stunts in the sky playing volleyball and winning battles with the big 28 not a real plane but the movie pretty awesome the only country the f-14 was exported to was Iran the Iranian Air Force needed a new generation of fighters capable of withstanding the news Soviet mix of the iraqi air force iran made a big order for 80 fighters as well as all the attached equipment and weapons including 714 phoenix missiles most of these weapons were delivered however after the Islamic Revolution the contract was cancelled and several vehicles did not reach the customer despite the stopping of support from Grumman the Iranian f-14s continued to fly to this day they took an active part in iran-iraq war with very conflicting statistics of course also it is not known exactly how many of them are in service by 2019 from several units to several dozens the f-14s continued to take part in demonstration flights in Iran and several times they accompanied the Russian bombers during the operations in Syria the f-14 was in fact the first fourth generation fighter but created in the early 1970s it had many crude solutions although compensated by a significant modernization potential the most popular model was of course the first one f-14 a a group of 12 prototypes why f-14 aid was from this series and the fleet received a total of 478 aircraft also these aircraft were the ones delivered to Iran in the late 1970s the f-14 received new reconnaissance equipment and improved engines in the next decade they went through a deeper modernization in 1987 the f-14 a plus fighter was created it received the new f1 10 ge 400 engines and new avionics if the index seems strange to you do not be confused in 1991 it was renamed into f-14 be the final and most advanced version was the f-14 be super Tomcat it received the most advanced avionics onboard computers a glass cockpit and the new a an a PG 71 radar in some ways close to a similar station of the f-15e Strike Eagle the problem of the f-14 was it's heavily specialized nature as a fighter for gaining air superiority it was good against enemy aircraft but was not at all effective against targets on the ground in the beginning this was not critical but with time aviation was becoming more and more Universal and the Tomcat was not eventually in the 1990s after the retirement of the a-6 intruder attack aircraft Grumman decided to handle this issue the aircraft were equipped with various types of air bombs it was assumed that they will be able to provide additional support for the fa-18 in bombing operations nevertheless this did not solve all the problems in addition to its narrow specialization the f-14 remained complex and very costly at the time of its creation it was the most expensive fighter in the United States history the price of which was several times higher than that of the Phantom's for example already at the initial stage these factors prevented the aircraft from becoming a best-seller they were interesting for the marine corpse but disinterest quickly faded they needed a simpler and more versatile attack aircraft which later became the fa-18 the air force on the other hand were never really looking at the f-14 developing their own programs the result of which for the f-15 and f-16 in the beginning of the 21st century it became clear that the f-14 is no longer relevant Ramin initiated work to upgrade the plane but this project was too complicated and expensive the new versions of the fa-18 were much more optimal to purchase technically already by the end of the 1980s the Pentagon was skeptical of this clearly obsolete fighter and was not making big orders for new aircraft preferring to modernize the existing fleet the new f-14d cost about thirty five to forty million dollars for 1991 it was way too expensive the main weapon of the aircraft the Phoenix missile although it had unique performance was crazy expensive too and was hardly used in exercises which called into question the effectiveness of its use by combat pilots in the end the multi-purpose FAA team created to complement the flagship after several modernizations completely replaced it the series production of the f-14 was closed in 1991 and it retired in the United States in 2006 a total of 712 jets were delivered and this is the story of this glorious plane awesome but not very long and our today's video has also come to an end fast flights and soft landings to you

Channel: Skyships Eng

Views: 2,297,741

Keywords: F-14, F-14 Tomcat, F-14 fighter, Tomcat, Tomcat fighter

Id: IAqzEoN9o0w

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 17 2019