Here's Why We Didn't Get the Super Tomcat-21 and Why That Was a Mistake

beginning in the late 1950s the u.s navy was looking for an interceptor to defend carrier battle groups against the threat of air-to-surface missiles fired from soviet bombers and submarines the mission was called fleet air defense and the navy wanted an airplane that had a more powerful radar and longer range missiles than the f4 phantom 2. studies of the fleet air defense concept led to the douglas f-6d missile ear but this was a pretty big airplane and it appeared to have little ability to defend itself once it fired its eagle missiles which were made by bendix the eagle actually had a range of 160 miles which is impressive but that project was cancelled in december of 1961. one component was salvaged for use on follow-on designs and that was the engine the pratt whitney tf-30 the navy turned to hughes that had been developing the aim-47 falcon missile for use with the air force xf-108 rapier that was also cancelled about the same time as the missile ear hughes actually offered the navy a newer version of the falcon called the aim 54 phoenix and the associated aug 9 radar system so now the navy had an engine a missile and a radar to accomplish the fleet air defense mission all it needed was an airplane to host these components so the us air force and navy are both seeking new airplanes because of the previous cancellations when robert mcnamara becomes secretary of defense and on february 14 1961 mcnamara formally directs the services to study the development of a single aircraft that would satisfy both requirements early studies indicated the best option was to base the design on the air force requirement and use a modified version for the navy as we always see with joint programs that demand creates some complications so in june of 1961 secretary mcnamara orders the go ahead of what they're calling tfx which is tactical fighter experimental program despite the air force and navy efforts to keep the programs separate so the air force and the navy can only agree on three parts of this airplane it needs to have swing wings needs to have two seats and it needs to have two engines the air force wants tandem seating for low level penetration ground attack while the navy wants a shorter high altitude interceptor with side-by-side seating to allow the pilot and raider operator to share the radar display also air force wants the aircraft designed for a 7.33 g with mach 2.5 speed at altitude and mach 1.2 speed at low level needs to be about 70 feet long the navy has a less strenuous requirement of 6 g's with mach 2 speed at altitude and high subsonic speed which is just about mach 0.9 at low level and it needs to be only 56 feet long the navy also wants the aircraft with the nose large enough for a 48 inch diameter radar dish which is basically the width of the aug9 radar so the tfx contract is awarded to general dynamics but because general dynamics lacks experience with carrier-based airplanes they partner with grumman to make the navalized version of the f-111b so right from the get-go weight and performance issues are plaguing the f-111b with respect to carrier suitability so with this program in distress grumman starts to study improvements and alternatives then in 1966 the navy actually awards an official contract to grumman to study alternatives that results in the grumman 303 airplane grumman continues to refine the design of the 303 into 1968 as vice admiral tom conley deputy chief of naval operations for air warfare flies the developmental f-111 and discovers it has difficulty going supersonic and poor landing characteristics so as a result of that he testified before congress about his concerns against the official u.s department of navy position and as a result of conley's testimony in may of 1968 congress stops funding for the f-111b and that allows the navy to pursue an answer tailored more deliberately to its requirements and not having to deal with the air force as it develops its fleet air defense airplane so in july of 1968 the naval air systems command issues a request for proposals also known as an rfp for what they're calling the naval fighter experimental vfx program vfx called for a tandem two-seat twin-engine air-to-air fighter with a maximum speed of mach 2.2 and remember the f4 phantom was infamously manufactured without a gun so the vfx requirement included the need for an m61 vulcan cannon built into the airplane bids for the vfx were received from general dynamics grumman vaught mcdonald douglas and north american rockwell four of those bids incorporated swing wing technology grumman used his 303 design initially and named their entry tomcat as a tribute to admiral tom conley who put his career on the line to kill the f-111 f-111b program and also naming the vfx tomcat was in keeping with the grumman line of cats hellcat wildcat bearcat panther cougar etc they also considered alley cat which was rejected because of sexual connotations and sea cat but that sounded a little weak kind of like a c plane sort of a name somewhere along the way the 303 went from a single vertical stabilizer to a twin tail design and the look of the classic tomcat was born grumman received the contract award in january of 1969. after more than 10 years the u.s navy finally had the fleet air defense platform it needed to counter the soviet union's air threat against the carrier battle group so as we said before whatever airplane was awarded the contract for vfx it was going to be built around three components and those were the tf-30 the aug-9 and the phoenix missiles so that's what grumman started with although it was lighter than the f-111b and the f-111 b's weight was one of the show-stoppers with respect to carrier suitability the tomcat was still the largest and heaviest u.s fighter to fly from an aircraft carrier a consequence of the requirement to carry the aug-9 radar and the phoenix missiles it also had an internal fuel load of 16.2 thousand pounds so to save time and avoid cancellation by the new nixon administration the navy skipped the prototype phase and jumped directly into full-scale development the air force did the same thing with the f-15 by the way first f-14 flew on 21 december 1970 just 22 months after grumman was awarded the contract the second flight by the way had a total hydraulic failure on final approach the crew safely ejected the tomcat reached ioc which is initial operational capability in so that is a very fast program as a side note the u.s marine corps was initially interested in the f-14 as an f-4 phantom replacement and they went so far as to send some of their aviators to vf-124 to train his instructors but ultimately the marines pulled out because the tomcat was not pursuing a ground attack role for the f-14 so let's back up a second at this time there were two major schools of thought with those charged with designing testing and fielding military aircraft the first school believed that the airplane should be designed with capability as the primary factor even if that meant the defense budget would support buying fewer of them the second school believed that airplanes should be designed to be built in the largest possible numbers that the budget would support with lesser but adequate capability to save money so it's with those two camps in mind that we introduce the navy's vfax program and vfax stands for naval fighter attack experimental program this program is designed to replace the a4 skyhawk the a7 corsair ii and the remaining f4 phantoms it's also designed to complement the f-14 so in august of 1973 it looks like the build more less capable airplane camp is winning out as congress tells the navy they need to pursue a lower cost alternative to the f-14 so that summer the secretary of defense james schlesinger orders the navy to evaluate the competitors in the air force's lightweight fighter program which turned out to be the general dynamics yf-16 and northrop's yf-17 on the 2nd of may in 1975 the navy announces it selected the yf-17 which is basically the loser in the air force's lightweight fighter program because the air force decided to go with the f-16 but since the lightweight fighter did not share the design requirements of the vfax the navy asked mcdonald douglas and northrop to develop a new aircraft from the design and principles of the yf-17 on march 1 1977 secretary of the navy w graham claytor announces that the f-18 would be named hornet so the navy immediately redesignates the hornet from the f-18 to the f-a-18 which oh by the way violated the op-nav instruction for how airplanes were supposed to be designated but the navy didn't care in fact they were trying to make a point about the versatility of this new airplane that they were fielding so along with having its desired fleet air defense capability in the form of the f-14 tomcat the navy was now also fielding an improved attack capability with an airplane that could go supersonic unlike the a6 and could also double as a fighter which is something the a6 couldn't do but as a fighter the hornet lacked speed range and endurance in fact a book called the pentagon paradox was written by jim stevenson and it documents all the ways mcdonald douglas and the navy program office fudged the numbers or otherwise blurred the truth to get the hornet fielded and once introduced to carrier air wings the hornet instantly became the limiting factor to how cyclic operations were conducted oneplus 45 cycles turned into one plus 30 cycles and when that proved to be too much in the face of the reduction in organic tanking capability one plus zero zero cycles were added to the beginning and the end of every fly day which put an additional burden on those working the flight deck basically the hornet had the same burn rate as the tomcat but it started with six thousand pounds less gas so the hornet was designed to perform both the fighter and attack rolls but it couldn't perform fleet air defense as well as the tomcat because it lacked the range and the endurance of the f-14 and it couldn't carry as much ordnance as the a6 these deficits proved to be something the navy tried to ignore but ultimately couldn't as events unfolded so when i showed up to vf 101 the grim reapers the f-14 training squadron to begin my rio training in 1983 all of the u.s navy's f4 squadrons had transitioned to f-14s except two those were the two squadrons based out in the western pacific aboard uss midway they still had f-4s but everybody else was flying the f-14a with the pratt whitney tf30 engine so a few months later while i'm still in the rag the f-14 training squadron a guy from the f-14 program office the class desk officer comes down and gives us a lecture about what's going to happen with the community and he tells us that by the time we finish our first sea duty which was about 1987 that everybody would be flying f-14 ds and that was amazing news so we were going to go from the f-14a to the f-14d in about three and a half years the f-14d was a huge improvement over the f-14a in that the pratt whitney tf-30 engines prone to compressor stalls as is well documented were replaced with general electric f-110 ge 400 engines the d also included newer digital avionics a glass cockpit replaced the aug9 with the newer apg-71 radar a different ejection seat the nac seat that didn't have an upper handle and it had infrared search and track but in 1989 the tomcat community saw the first signs of the beginning of the end when secretary of defense dick cheney refused to approve the purchase of any more f-14d model aircraft that were priced at 50 million dollars each and he pushed for a 25 million dollar modernization program of the f-14 fleet instead so congress decides not to totally shut down production of the f-14d and they fund 55 super tomcats as part of a compromise so the way that played out is 37 ds were built from scratch at grumman and 18 f-14as were converted into d models and those are designated f-14d parentheses rs now the 25 million dollar modernization program that secretary cheney was insisting on turned out to be the f14 a plus program so with the a plus like the d the tf30 was replaced with the ge f110 ge400 engine a great engine the f-14a plus also received different raw gear the alr 45-50 was replaced with the alr-67 radar homing and warning system many of the avionics components as well as the r9 radar were retained as i've documented in another episode the f-14 a-plus was re-designated the f-14b in about may june of 1991. a total of 38 bees were manufactured from scratch and 48 f-14as were upgraded into b variants so on a personal note with respect to models of the f-14 after my first tour in vf-32 where i flew the f-14a from 1984 to 1987 i was lucky enough to fly nothing but bees for the rest of my time in the f-14 so at the same time the early 90s when dick cheney's secretary of defense he complained that the f-14 was 1960s technology and despite an appeal from the secretary of the navy for at least 132 at 14d's and some aggressive proposals from grumman for a replacement chaney wanted to replace the f-14 with a fighter that was not manufactured by grumman so whether cheney had a financial interest in mcdonald douglas as some rumored or was put off by grumman's arrogance which admittedly grew during the years john lehmann was secretary of the navy even when he was secretary of the navy john layman was an a6 bombardier navigator in the reserves he was a huge fan of grumman went so far as to create an all grumman air wing to show other defense contractors that he didn't need them the lawmakers who represented bethpage long island had also fallen out of favor with the president george h.w bush administration so whatever the reason secretary janey demonstrated great disdain for grumman according to cheney the f-14 was a jobs program and to that point when the f-14 was canceled an estimated 80 000 jobs of grumman employees subcontractors or support personnel were affected and then things got worse for naval aviation the a12 avenger 2 was being developed by mcdonnell douglas and general dynamics as a next generation replacement for the a6 intruder the navy initially wanted to buy 620 a12s the marines were going to buy 238. the jet was a flying wing design in the shape of an isosceles triangle with a cockpit situated near the apex of the triangle the a12 gained the nickname flying dorito it was designed to carry precision-guided munitions internally up to two aim-120 amram air-to-air missiles two agm-88 harm air-to-ground missiles a complement of air-to-ground ordnance including unguided or precision guided bombs which could be carried in internal weapons bay but beginning in early 1990 mcdonnell douglas and general dynamics revealed delays and projected cost increases due to complications with the composite materials aircraft weight increased 30 percent over specifications this was bad news for an airplane that had to operate off an aircraft carrier also because of the complexity of the radar system there were technical difficulties during development and test all in all by one estimate the a12 program was consuming up to 70 percent of the navy's annual budget for aircraft gao report released in november of 1990 documented serious problems with the a12s program and a month after that report came out secretary of defense cheney told the navy they needed to justify the program and deliver reasons why it should not be canceled the navy's response as well as that of the contractors failed to persuade him and he canceled the program on the 7th of january for breach of contract so all of this leaves a gaping hole in the navy's carrier airwing composition plan in the early 90s because there was a general sense that the end of the cold war should yield a peace dividend in terms of defense spending the u.s navy considered updating an existing design more attractive than a new start in light of this defense contractors started pitching logical growth designs with the hopes that they made an almost entirely new airplane look like an existing type while also giving them a familiar evolutionary designation congress would see the product as a low-risk low-cost upgrade of a proven product and thus move forward with procurement so as mcdonald douglas licked their wounds and tried to figure out how to keep the company solvent as an alternative to the a12 they proposed the super hornet they initially called it the hornet 2. so in accordance with what they believed to be the rules at this time mcdonnell douglas claims that the super hornet is simply an update to an existing design however the super hornet is largely a new aircraft at about 20 percent bigger seven thousand pounds heavier empty and 15 000 pounds heavier at maximum weight super hornet carries 33 percent more internal fuel which was supposed to increase mission range by 41 percent and endurance by 50 over the legacy hornet the empty weight of the superhorn is about 11 000 pounds less than the f-14 which it is now supposed to replace while approaching but not matching the f14's payload and range so as a side note that becomes a big deal later with respect to service life of each one of the airplanes the super hornet is designed to carry a buddy store a tanking pod that's something the regular hornet didn't do and as the carrier air wing multiple punted on organic tanking the super hornet was used quite a bit in the aerial refueling role and that consumed a lot of the airplane service life as the years went on so as mcdonald douglas is pitching the super hornet grumman proposes the quick strike tomcat quick strike meant to be an upgrade for existing f-14s by giving them the air force's lantern system and a ground attack version of the f-14ds apg-71 radar it also is designed to carry standoff weapons like slam and harm quick strike was aimed at more cheaply picking up the intruder's slack than at replacing the a12's high-end capability however as this design was socialized it was seen as an insufficient technological leap over the f-14b and d models already in service further quick strike didn't solve the tomcat's inherent analog to digital architecture limitations or the legacy framework burdens of maintainability and sustainability meaning the f-14's cost per flight hour and maintenance man-hours were prohibitive in the emerging budget environment so remember the tomcat walk around episode where i pointed out how much effort it took for maintenance personnel to open panels on the nose of the f-14 for instance so grumman goes back to the drawing board realizing that quick strike isn't evolutionary enough that the powers that be will not green light an airplane that's just an incremental improvement on the existing airplanes so they come back with super tomcat 21. so let's go to the training aids let's pretend that gypsy 214 is actually a super tonkat first thing we got new engines the super tomcat has the ge f110 429 engine it's 29 000 pounds of thrust each this airplane would have been able to supercruise which means you can go supersonic in basic engine that's a great feature for a fighter to have in terms of range and endurance second thing got rid of the glove veins and re-contoured the shoulder so that it would accommodate 2200 pounds in each wing of additional fuel again increasing range and endurance they put the night owl flear targeting pod under the fuselage instead of having to use one of the weapon stations single piece windscreen for improved visibility wide angle raster scan hud capable of displaying flare imagery huge improvement over the existing hut glass cockpit new mission computers and graphics processors onboard oxygen generation system obogz now of course obog's had its own problems going forward but let's just say not having to use locks bottles is a leap in technology apg-71 radar with upgrades ported over from the apg-70 which was the f-15e strike equals radar digital flight control systems which solved the high angle of attack flat spin problem as well as some of the other controllability issues around the boat turn the phoenix rails because now the aim 54 is a dry missile that doesn't need liquid cooling into wet wing pylons capable of carrying 300 gallons each max trap was increased by 7 000 pounds always a good thing because of larger segmented fowler flaps super tomcat 21 had reduced approach speed and better low speed handling characteristics the airplane integrated the latest standoff weapons as well as the aim 120 amram and it had better survivability particularly in the form of the ale47 countermeasures dispenser but grumman was caught in a catch-22 of sorts the first idea the quick strike wasn't evolutionary enough and the evolutionary idea the super tomcat 21 was too expensive so congress decided to go with the super hornet and with that decision the navy was forced to accept reduced capability in terms of speed range endurance in the name of pure digital architecture that would allow the airplane to incorporate improvements easier during its service life better maintainability and cheaper cost but even though the quick strike and super tomcat 21 were rejected in favor of the super hornet option naval aviation still had to find an interim solution to plug the gap between the retirement of the a6 and the super hornet entering service so the first thing they did was they unlocked the tomcats resident bombing capability pilots got smart on air-to-ground hud symbology and dumb bomb delivery techniques for instance 45 degree dives 30 degree dives rios learned what the switches and rotary knobs on the aug15 panel were for after years of ignoring that panel but the tomcat was a 10 mil dumb bomber compared to the hornet's 1 million accuracy as a dumb bomber and that meant it wasn't the right platform for targets where the potential for collateral damage was unacceptable for instance when the uss theodore roosevelt was in the adriatic with kag aida board in 1995 they begged the ato riders to let them do a bombing mission so those ato schedulers finally relented and vf41 did a mission over bosnia and they wound up slinging a string of four bombs well past the target fortunately this was the face of a mountain that was uninhabited but those results kept the tomcat off the ato from that point forward i was in the air wing that relieved the theodore roosevelt and we didn't even get to try doing dumb bombing missions while we were there we did a lot of tarps reconnaissance missions over bosnia and we also did some buddy bombing with our hornets in the ear wing which made us kind of an extension of their wing we'd dial in the laser codes they'd tell us to pickle and they would laze the bomb to its target so the airplane was not a precision guided strike weapon yet but because of what we weren't able to do in bosnia the tomcat community started to develop let's call it a poor man's quick strike so this was a relatively inexpensive and rapid upgrade using the low altitude navigation and targeting infrared fortnite lantern targeting pod now lantern is traditionally a two pod system but the tomcat only used the targeting pod which is the aaq with a steerable flear and a laser target designator the targeting pod was mounted on station eight which is the right-wing glove pylon the lantern pond did not require changes to the f-14s software but that pod was designed to operate on a 1553 bus airplane which the tomcat was not so martin marietta developed an interface card for lantern the rio would get pod imagery on a bigger tid and this was you took the round tactical information display and now you had a flat 10 inch programmable tactical information display a very cool multi-functional display in the rear cockpit and the rio would steer the precision guided bombs using a hand control unit installed on the right side of the cockpit so this lantern mod was a stroke of genius it happened on the late great snodgrass watch when he was fighter wing with the assistance of lieutenant larry slate and i've spoken about larry slade in another episode larry was in the back seat of slate 46 when they were shot down during desert storm and he became a pow for the balance of the war but went on to do great things in the tomcat community most notably this lantern system integration so lantern changed everything and just in time because post 911 the navy very much needed a deep strike asset because now it didn't have the a6 and tomcat filled that role going into northern afghanistan in a way that no other airplane in the air wing could so by the time the final f-14 deployment happened in 2006 the airplane was more lethal than ever over its roughly 35 years of dominating the skies the tomcat proved to be one of the most capable flexible aircraft in the history of military aviation started as a pure fighter that could take out airborne threats over 500 miles away from the carrier morphed into a high endurance long-range precision guided strike fighter and along the way the f-14 excelled at a host of other missions as varied as reconnaissance and ford air controller airborne so the tomcat's inherent flexibility and versatility begs the question what if the pentagon's decision that they made in 92 had gone the other way how would the super tomcat have performed during the crises that the nation has faced in the 21st century and where would the airplane be today first let's say the way forward solved the legacy tomcat's limitations like those associated with maintenance man hours sustainment cost per flight hour things like access panels and black boxes were brought into the digital age along with basics like aircraft's wiring and hydraulics this new digital state of the art architecture allowed the super tomcat to keep up with the incremental improvements in weapon system and radar technology as they presented themselves and as the budget supported year after year the tomcat survivability limitations were mitigated if not eliminated altogether with reshaped leading edges and intakes in the application of radar absorbent coatings that were also resilient enough to endure after months on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier at sea and the last remnants of a steam gauge cockpit were replaced with a fully glass one that could be totally reconfigured as weapon systems improved over the years second the way forward leveraged the legacy tomcat's inherent advantages particularly those around speed range and endurance those advantages relieved the organic tanking burden to a large degree and gave the joint task force on station capability that allowed for more persistent presence when and where it was required and let's just agree that it's empirical truth that having two guys in the airplane instead of one is a huge advantage also the tomcats available real estate allowed for mods that increased endurance even more as well as increasing weapons payloads and ranges and also swing wing remains an aerodynamic advantage so the bottom line super tomcat 21 plus would be more survivable fully tanked up super tomcat 21 could go very far and protect itself in and out of the target area super tomcat 21 plus is more than just a fighter its digital electronic warfare system allows it to be a force multiplier in terms of intel fusion something they like to attribute to the joint strike fighter these days and speaking of joint strike fighter the irony is we didn't feel the super tomcat because of budgetary concern and instead we fielded a 1.2 trillion dollar airplane that while a next generation airplane can't go as fast or as far or carry as much as the super tomcat would have been able to bottom line you could say we spent more to get less and if you added six generation functionality like loyal wingmen where the rio slash wizzo controls drone swarms say that 10 times fast you'd already have your next generation air dominance capability but of course this didn't happen because that's not how defense acquisition works and that's the topic for another day also while it's inarguable that we've dumbed down some of the metrics associated with carrier-based strike warfare since the cold war the super hornet is a very capable airplane that has been modified in the intervening years to keep up with the threat in fact the navy likes the super hunt so much that we're buying 78 more of them to fill the gap between the fact that we used service life of the super hornet too quickly because of tanking and it's taking us too long to field the f-35 but again i like to think of how clean the plan would have been had we made the decision in 1992 to field the super tomcat 21. all right that's going to do it for this episode please ring the bell and subscribe like and comment support the channel using super thanks or become a patron at patreon.comwardcarroll check the links below for merch and where to get the punks trilogy my first three novels about life in a tomcat squadron just republished by the naval institute press when you check out use the discount code punk yt for 25 off and i look forward to talking to you again soon [Music] you

Channel: Ward Carroll

Views: 1,067,331

Keywords: Ward Carroll, F-14 Tomcat, F/A-18 Hornet, Super Hornet, U.S. Navy, Soviet Union, U.S. Air Force, F-15 Eagle, LANTIRN pod, TARPS, aircraft carrier, F-111, Lightweight Fighter Program, TFX Program, DCS, DCS World, Top Gun, NGAD, F-35, defense procurement, defense budget, Congress, Phoenix Missiles, TF-30 engine, F-110 engine

Id: CpXyYgL4jPI

Length: 31min 24sec (1884 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021