[HN Gopher] Why did the F-14 Tomcat retire decades before its pe...
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Why did the F-14 Tomcat retire decades before its peers? (2021)
Author : zeristor
Score : 146 points
Date : 2022-10-30 10:04 UTC (12 hours ago)
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| zoomablemind wrote:
| _"...But like the bringing the F-22 Raptor back from the dead...
| "_
|
| When did the F-22 die that it had to be brought back?
| nocoiner wrote:
| I think he was referring to restarting the F-22 production
| line.
| alberto7 wrote:
| I heard that was near impossible, because the tooling was
| destroyed.
| chipsa wrote:
| The tooling exists and was carefully packed away. The
| problem is the stuff that wasn't F-22 specific, and we
| can't make anymore, because the company that makes them
| doesn't anymore. Or doesn't even exist.
| b06timmer wrote:
| I did two Western Pacific tours (West-Pacs) while in the Navy. On
| the first one in 1979 we had the F-4 Phantoms and on the second
| one we were introduced to the Tomcat's. For me, this was a mind
| blowing experience.
|
| The F-14 is a very large aircraft. It had electroluminescent
| exterior lighting that looked straight out of a sci-fi novel and
| with its differential rear stabilizers it looked like a living
| machine, especially when landing.
|
| I was an electronics tech in a bomber (A6) squadron so I didn't
| know much about the workings of the aircraft, as mentioned in the
| article. I will say that I am always in awe when I see that
| aircraft and will always be.
| dctoedt wrote:
| What carrier were you on (and air wing) that still had F-4s in
| 1979? By the time I got to the Enterprise in early 1976, the
| embarked air wing, CVW-14, had no F-4s anymore, just F-14s (and
| A-7s and A-6s, etc.).
|
| The article's picture of a Soviet Bear bomber above a carrier,
| being escorted by armed F-14s flying close aboard, brought back
| memories of how we were always greeted with a "welcome to
| WestPac" flyover by a Bear, and we likewise sent up armed F-14s
| to make sure everyone stayed peaceable. On my first WestPac
| deployment, one of my roommates in "Boys Town" (an eight-man
| bunkroom for junior officers, just below the flight deck) was a
| warrant officer who ran the ship's photo lab; he brought us all
| 8x10 glossies of a similar photo, taken by the back-seater in
| one of the F-14s. I still have mine somewhere.
| greedo wrote:
| I think some Reserve Marine squadrons were operating them up
| until 1992, so it seems plausible that they were in use at
| that time.
| b06timmer wrote:
| I was on the Ranger (CV-61).
| (https://i.imgur.com/Wma9k84.jpg)
|
| We also had the Bear's and the trawlers. I think that had a
| lot to do the spy John Walker Jr.. He gave the Russians the
| cryptographic codes for the Navy, and they could read all of
| our communications. That's why the Bear's knew exactly when
| the carriers were changing station.
|
| I was an AT and programmed the "code of the day" into each
| aircraft, every day. Mode-4, IFF.
|
| Edited to add: CVW-2 for airwing. West Coast.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I always loved the F-14. Top Gun was of course a big reason (and
| I'm glad they brought it back for the newest film). But before
| Top Gun, there was Macross (or Robotech in the US). The variable
| state of the Tomcat influenced the variable state design of VF-1
| Vaklyrie fighters in the anime. And I'm sure the AIM-54/AWG-9
| Phoenix missle system (with the ability to fire on multiple
| targets almost at once) influenced the multiple missle launches
| seen throughout the TV series. Here's a clip I found:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZazVwBlz9fc
| mgarfias wrote:
| Duder needs to read his Boyd.
| jwithington wrote:
| Trash aircraft. 40-60 hrs of maintenance required for 1 hour of
| flight. Its successor, the F/A-18, required about 10x less.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| I don't understand how a plane like that would work in a
| serious conflict. A week of maintenance after an hour of
| flight? Anyone depending on those planes in a war wouldn't last
| very long.
| [deleted]
| rambambram wrote:
| I guess multiple technicians work on the aircraft at the same
| time. Still a lot of man hours.
| techstrategist wrote:
| I'm no expert, but 40 hours of maintenance probably isn't one
| tech working 9-5 for a week.
| VLM wrote:
| Also aircraft are not cars. The front line does day to day
| wartime service, but the "tasks people take cars to auto
| mechanics to do" like completely tearing down and re-
| assembling is done by a totally separate depot level
| service back in the states. Its like "keeping it running
| day to day" vs "doing a complete restoration".
|
| Depot service hours only matter in a budgetary sense,
| although I heard they were immense for the F-14. All those
| moving wing parts need to be removed, inspected, x-rayed or
| magnafluxed or whatever they did, reassembled, and
| exhaustively tested. In comparison, on the flight line day
| to day, I don't recall hearing the jet required unusually
| more time than similar aircraft.
| izacus wrote:
| Hmm, that's strange, because I keep hearing from several
| Navy sources that the F14s biggest problem indeed was the
| time they needed for servicing - the newer Hornets
| require significantly less time for equal maintenance
| operations (avionics, engine swaps) and also break less.
|
| The time the F-14s spend sitting inside hangars (and
| requirements of trained techs to work on them) being
| useless was the primary driver of their retirement.
| Carrier hangar space and tech numbers are very limited
| after all.
| VLM wrote:
| In a serious conflict, within hours either the carrier will
| be sunk and so maint will be a moot point, or the opfor will
| no longer have the capability to sink the carrier (at least
| by air) and again maint will be a moot point.
|
| Kind of like calculating hours of maintenance per hour of
| cruise missile flight time, admittedly that metric would
| apply very well to an observation platform like a E-3, but
| not so much to a wartime interceptor platform.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Exactly, the F-14 value calculus stems from the carrier's
| survivability.
|
| Keeping a carrier from being sunk was _almost_ invaluable
| (at least, to the Navy) in many envisioned conflicts.
|
| Consequently, in a modern, first-strike-is-primary-strike
| (limited numbers of exquisite, high-lethality weapons and
| platforms) scenario, ongoing maintainability is less of an
| issue than maximizing aerial and combat performance.
| mst wrote:
| Reminds me of the UK Type 440 destroyer class, which (I'm
| going from memory here, if somebody fact checks me I
| expect them to be right, not me) was designed to fire
| missiles at incoming USSR aircraft ... with an average
| time from initial engagement to toast of around 7
| minutes.
|
| But if those aircraft were intending to drop nuclear
| weapons on British soil, even a single successful kill
| would have saved far more lives than the crew complement
| of a 440.
| greedo wrote:
| Can the F/A-18 do BARCAP? Engage cruise missile carrying
| aircraft at range?
|
| The F-14 was an excellent aircraft when using the F-110
| engines. The TF-30s were terrible. Cheney just didn't trust
| NAVAIR to develop any aircraft (see the A-12 fiasco), and he
| wasn't going to approve updating all the F-14s to the D
| standard.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Anyone interested would enjoy reading about John Boyd, head of
| the Fighter Mafia:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/031...
| lukas099 wrote:
| Seconded, he was truly a remarkable figure in U.S. military
| history, both for his personality and his accomplishments.
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| It's an outstanding book about an outstanding man but still a
| bit of a hagiography when it comes to all the "fighter mafia's"
| ideas on aircraft design. However, his focus on prioritizing
| investments in people over weapons is a truly underappreciated
| part of his legacy.
|
| Another story of an undersung military airpower leader is that
| of Red Flag & Moody Suter:
| https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1100flag/
|
| There's a better longform writeup I saw once from one of the
| military service academies, but I can't seem to find it now.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I think the reason was Iran.
|
| Before the revolution, Iran had bought F-14s and made them the
| core of their air force.
|
| The US went out of its way not only to retire the F-14 but also
| to ensure that there would be no spare parts for it that could
| help Iran maintain its F14 fleet.
| usefulcat wrote:
| This seems.. unlikely? If the US govt didn't want Iran to get
| spare parts, all it had to do was forbid the US companies
| making those parts from selling them to Iran.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Iran used F-14As to great effect during the Iraq-Iran conflict.
| The Tomcat flown by Iranian pilots did exceptionally well
| against its Soviet and French peers in the Iraqi Air Force.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Fans of the Tomcat might be interested in F-14 RIO Ward
| Carroll's YouTube channel.
|
| Here's an episode covering Iran's usage of the F-14 against
| Iraq: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HYrasBB4k
| eternalban wrote:
| Listening to the intro, good to point out that the Shah was
| an accomplished pilot himself and could appreciate the
| demonstration.
|
| --
|
| "`There were several factors which influenced the selection
| of the F-14. Iran's northern border with the USSR, and
| those to the west and southwest with Iraq, are guarded by
| high mountains. Our Air Defence Command was building radar
| outposts on many peaks for better radar coverage, but we
| could never improve the situation with ground-based radar
| alone. There were too many "blind spots" in this coverage,
| and the big white domes of our radar stations were also
| excellent targets, visible from up to 50 miles away.
| Intelligence information obtained at the time verified that
| the Soviets would indeed strike them first.
|
| `In the south, along the Persian Gulf coast, we had only
| US-supplied radars, which did not work properly in hot and
| humid conditions -- that is, for ten months of the year --
| and otherwise also had poor performance, despite several
| upgrades. All the radars supplied to the IIAF as part of
| Military Assistance Program projects were far from being
| top-of-the-line. The Americans gave us what they wanted to
| give, not what we needed.
|
| For two years -- 1973-74 -- a group of Iranian radar
| instructor including Col Iradj Ghaffari (the first Iranian
| tactical radar instructor) studied coverage problems
| associated with "Radar Sites Reinforcement," but could not
| find a solution. Eventually, it was decided that a "flying
| radar" would eliminate the terrain masking problems. That
| flying radar would also have to be able to defend itself.
| It is beyond doubt that during the war with Iraq, the F-14
| proved that it was exactly what we needed.
|
| `Before these studies were conducted within IIAF circles --
| at the time we were still flying F-5A/B Freedom Fighters
| and F-4D Phantom IIs we started looking for a top-of-the-
| line fighter interceptor. The result of these studies,
| directed by Gen Mehdi Rouhani, was a requirement for F-14s
| and AEW aircraft. US briefings on F-14s and F-15s
| undoubtedly helped us to formulate our requirement. We
| created the plan to purchase eight AEW aircraft --
| initially four, followed by four more -- and the F-14s.
| Eventually, four orders were issued -- the first for 30
| Tomcats and the second for 50. There was one for Boeing E-3
| Sentry AWACS, followed by one for two communication
| satellites, which would enable all these aircraft to
| communicate securely with each other.'
|
| "Unaware that the Iranians had already identified the F-14
| as the right aircraft for their unique operational
| requirements, the US Navy and Grumman started an intensive
| campaign to 'sell the Shah', which included sending the
| F-14 Program Coordinator of the Chief of Naval Operations,
| Capt Mitchell, to Tehran twice to brief the Shah and IIAF
| commanders on the Tomcat's capabilities. This culminated in
| a spectacular fly-off in July 1973 at Andrews AFB,
| Maryland, for the Shah and a group of high-ranking Iranian
| officers."
|
| source: https://theaviationgeekclub.com/former-iiaf-tomcat-
| pilots-te...
|
| the demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mrFcsw-Ew
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| (Tangent, in praise of the F-14)
|
| Before the F-14s were retired (2004-ish?), I attended an air show
| at the Quonset Air National Guard Base [0] .
|
| As part of the show, an F-14 took off from the runway and then
| went vertical (I assume on afterburners). It stayed vertical
| until it disappeared into the clouds.
|
| It felt like I was living in some sci-fi future, watching a
| spaceship launch. I was in awe. It was like some Stewart Cowley
| [1] book [2] come to life.
|
| IMHO it's still one of the coolest-looking fighter planes ever,
| up there with the YF-23 [3] and Su-35 [4].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_Point_Air_National_Gua...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Cowley
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Spacecraft-2000-2100-D-Authority-
| Hand...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-23
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35
| xionon wrote:
| I have a vague childhood memory of looking through a large
| illustrated book about spaceships in our public library and
| being in awe. When I came back on another trip, it was gone. I
| never knew the name or author, but the memory surfaces every
| few years. It always made me a little sad, because I couldn't
| remember enough to find it as an adult - just the vibes I got
| as a child.
|
| I am now 99% sure it was Spacecraft 2000 - 2100 AD. Thank you
| so much for posting the name and helping me solve this mystery.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| You're welcome! One day when I was pretty young, my dad
| brought that book home from the local library. He didn't
| often do stuff like that, so it's a really nice memory.
|
| I couldn't remember much about the book either. I did some
| digging a few years ago when I wanted to get a copy for one
| of _my_ kids.
|
| Tangent: the spaceship designs in the Homeworld games [0]
| remind me a lot of that book.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld
| [deleted]
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Ah Chris Foss cover art, God I loved his space art when I
| discovered a book of it as a kid.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The first time I saw an F-22 do this out of Dobbins (north of
| Atlanta) completely changed my art-of-the-possible physics
| understanding.
|
| Seeing something going vertical _and accelerating_ is
| fascinating.
| [deleted]
| sedatk wrote:
| I agree about the coolest looking. It has a very muscular look
| from the front. I'd also add F-4 and Mig-29 to the list. F-22
| isn't bad either although not as cool as YF-23.
| YZF wrote:
| The F-15 can also do that. I guess they don't operate from
| carriers though but otherwise they're probably the ones that
| took away a lot of the F-14's niche.
| darksaints wrote:
| I saw an F-14 during fleet week in San Francisco when I was still
| in high school...we were watching from the pedestrian pathway on
| the golden gate bridge. It broke the sound barrier, and I still
| remember the shock wave and the sound of the bridge cables
| vibrating for 5-10 seconds afterwards. It was terrifying...I
| seriously thought the bridge would be damaged from it. I'm still
| not sure what the story was behind it, whether it was an accident
| or an "accident", but it made me fully appreciate the reasons why
| supersonic flight is not allowed over land.
| dingaling wrote:
| Just as a point of note, the vapour cone often seen around fast
| jets at low level in humid conditions doesn't necessarily mean
| they're going supersonic themselves. Certain local areas of
| airflow do, however, which causes the drop in air pressure and
| thus condensation.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| You don't need supersonic anywhere to cause condensation.
| Watch the wingtips of a commercial airliner landing in high
| humidity; you'll often see swirls of fog caused by the low
| pressure inside the vortices.
|
| But, the cone of condensation coming off the body of a plane
| is the supersonic shock wave.
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| > But, the cone of condensation coming off the body of a
| plane is the supersonic shock wave.
|
| And shock surfaces can be present over the body due to
| local flow speed being supersonic even when the aircraft's
| velocity vector is strictly subsonic. Though to be fair,
| still in the transonic realm if you're seeing shocks.
| darksaints wrote:
| Not sure if that was an explanation for me, but I've seen it
| before and I wasn't basing it off that. This was obvious from
| the sound. The plane was too far away for me to see a
| condensation cone. It was probably somewhere over Angel
| Island at the time.
|
| A sonic boom, on a small scale, isn't something
| impressive...bullets cause sonic booms, even the tip of a
| bullwhip will. I had been around high explosives before too,
| an oddity of my father's profession. This wasn't just a loud
| jet, it literally sounded like a bomb, and it resonated for
| what felt like 5-10 seconds.
| CH1jZci6jV wrote:
| I served in the last F-14 squadron, VF-31. When President Bush
| landed on our carrier (Mission Accomplished!) they had the
| inferior F-18s in the background for the political shots. We were
| told that was because the US taxpayers would be pissed if they
| knew how ripped off they got for the F-18, which was replacing
| the F-14 in all of the squadrons.
|
| This might be just F-14 bravado, of course, but I do also
| remember that like the second week of "shock and awe" (the
| initial Iraq campaign bombing) they stopped all F-14 flights for
| the same reasons. F-14s were trouncing the sorties of the F-18s,
| even though we were one squadron vs four or five of their
| squadrons, because we were the only jets capable of actually
| reaching Bagdad from the carrier and we were able to convert our
| bombs to "smart bombs" much faster (F-14s break a lot more so our
| techs were more skilled).
| darksaints wrote:
| By the time of the second gulf war, the F-14D cost 20% more per
| unit than the F-18E, and some 80-100% more to maintain. I'm not
| sure how you're concluding that the taxpayers were ripped off
| by that.
|
| Also, didn't we have airbases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? Why
| were we relying on carrier aircraft for bombing Bagdad when we
| could have been using F-15s and F-16s?
| tb_technical wrote:
| Out of curiosity was this the F18 Hornet or the F18 Super
| Hornet?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| How sophisticated was the AA threat over Baghdad on the initial
| wave?
| CH1jZci6jV wrote:
| I think we thought they were a lot more sophisticated than
| they actually were. But shock and awe was designed to
| basically neutralize all of that anyway. The Navy was the
| night shift and that included a lot of tomahawk missiles too.
| The Air Force was the daytime campaign so there was a lot of
| capability to take out different threats.
|
| The biggest threat I remember was we were very sure Saddam
| had chemical weapons (mostly because we sold them to him
| previously, but I digress). So we had to carry gas masks and
| did chemical attack drills alot. We also were forced to take
| many shots including small pox and an experimental anthrax
| shot. Many of my friends have medical conditions they believe
| are related to those shots.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Surprising re shifts! More recently, the Navy has been
| biased towards day shifts due to carrier landing windows.
| My understanding is a big part of the Navy
| training/brief/debrief focus is the recovery.
| mysterydip wrote:
| There's a big difference in number of personnel involved
| and how important equipment (radar, IFF, landing systems)
| are for daytime vs nighttime recoveries.
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| SECProto wrote:
| > Isn't shock and awe designed to strike fear and terror
| in the hearts and minds of the populace? When you bomb
| bridges, railroads and vital energy infrastructure, the
| civilians are the ones who suffer the most.
|
| Per the Wikipedia article on the invasion and campaign
| being referenced, no this was not the intent:
|
| > _In practice, U.S. plans envisioned simultaneous air
| and ground assaults to incapacitate the Iraqi forces
| quickly [...] would allow them to attack the heart of the
| Iraqi command structure and destroy it in a short time,
| and that this would minimize civilian deaths and damage
| to infrastructure._ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_in
| vasion_of_Iraq#Opening_...
|
| The real impact turned out ... a bit different than this
| claimed strategy
| yywwbbn wrote:
| No, it was designed to strike fear and terror into the
| hearts of common soldiers so that they would run
| away/surrender instead of fighting. Civilians were just
| collateral damage.
|
| The uprising happened during the first war, but Bush I
| decided that he'd rather keep Sadam in power and that
| Kuwait's oil was enough...
| diskzero wrote:
| Being on the ground and dealing with MOPP gear was no fun
| either. The Army certainly took the risk very seriously.
| The MOPP gear receded into the background on later
| deployments. While all the shots may be a slight concern, I
| am more afraid of breathing in all the invigorating air
| from the burn pits.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > F-14s break a lot more
|
| Pretty sure this is the answer lol...
| CH1jZci6jV wrote:
| F-18s def are lower maintenance overall but they couldn't go
| very far (important when your ship isn't docked in Bagdad) or
| drop bombs in adverse weather so not very useful during a
| war. Doesn't mean they are not politically useful, though.
| One part is made in each congressional district on purpose.
| sedatk wrote:
| Is that the case with Super Hornets too?
| izacus wrote:
| Yes, the 18s and 16s have relatively low fuel capacity in
| comparison to the 14. The F-35 finally improved on tank
| capacity quite a bit.
| stouset wrote:
| Super hornets have about 100mi shorter combat range than
| the Tomcat. That said they are capable of buddy air-air
| refueling so that can extend their range by a bit (at the
| cost of an extra pilot, airframe, and associated costs
| which doesn't get to carry a useful payload).
| ethbr0 wrote:
| What was the feeling from the squadrons on the whole "Mission
| Accomplished!" political chaff after the fact?
|
| I heard the banner was pre-planned by the ship as a celebration
| for the completion of the cruise, but then it was prominent in
| the photo ops and Bush got attacked as though he were
| celebrating victory in Iraq.
|
| Curious on thoughts from someone who was there, or if you all
| even had opinions about it afterwards.
| CH1jZci6jV wrote:
| Excellent question. I worked in politics after the military
| and when I was in the West Wing during the Bush admin it came
| up once! They said the same thing, that it was the ship's
| idea. I reminded them that aircraft carriers don't have
| printing presses so it would be a little hard for the sailors
| to put that kind of banner together.
|
| It could be that the ship's leadership wanted something like
| that (they are politicians too). But at least in my squadron
| we were all furious the president was coming because we had
| been out at sea for the longest nuclear and F-14 cruise of
| all time (10 months) and we just wanted to go home to our
| families but now we are delayed another week for a political
| stunt and have to spend the next two weeks cleaning the ship
| in preparation.
| CH1jZci6jV wrote:
| It's fun to have been a part of history in that way though.
| And when I have some kind of career advancement I always
| throw up a "mission accomplished" banner as a joke.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| 290 days with prep for a presidential visit at the end is
| a helluva deployment. Nice to see Wikipedia records the
| sacrifice: https://web.archive.org/web/20120328094805/htt
| p://www.av8rst... And looks like the captain made flag,
| so apparently someone was happy. ;)
| smitty1e wrote:
| This is a pet rant of mine.
|
| The U.S. will always fetish gadgets at the expense of simple
| functionality.
|
| You'll always get a DDG-51 rather than an FFG-7; an M-16 rather
| than an AK-47.
|
| This despite the reality that the FFG-7 does most of what you
| need a navy to do, more cheaply, and an AK-47 is far less fuss
| and bother than an M-16.
|
| The F-14 falls right in line.
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| Within a given class of system, sometimes rugged, robust, and
| plentiful does win the day over sophisticated but more fragile
| and expensive. On the other hand, an advanced military will
| want advanced capabilities and there is plenty of history of
| putting such things to good use. See for example the F-117,
| precision guided bombs/JDAMs, etc.
|
| A lot of good arguments can be made about how the U.S. has
| failed to control the costs of developing and fielding advanced
| capabilities. Sometimes they just plain make bad design
| decisions, like with the M1A1 or F-35. But I don't think
| there's a valid case that advanced capabilities confer
| insignificant benefits vs. large quantities of less-
| sophisticated systems. You ideally want a good balance of both
| and you need the understanding and empowerment on the
| acquisition side to control costs.
|
| Re the M-16, Jim Fallows wrote a great article decades ago:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-...
| unity1001 wrote:
| Tomcat et all, all the swing-wing aircraft were the solutions of
| an interim era in which the engines were still not yet developed
| enough to make up for the drag that wings with low angles
| induced, but the aircraft needed such low-sweep-angle wings in
| order to be able to take of and land in short distances.
|
| From MIG-23 to Tomcat to F-111 to less-known Su series to Tornado
| to whichever example you can imagine, were designed in this
| period.
|
| Then engines got much stronger. They overcame the drag from low
| sweep angle wings and readily pushed aircraft to the barrier of
| 2000 km/h speeds. It was also discovered that at 2000 km/h you
| fly like a brick and there is not much room for manuevering or
| doing anything. It was also discovered that the practical max was
| 2500 km/h, and beyond that you either use titanium like in SR-71
| and keep the aircraft light so that it couldn't do anything but
| recon, or, just accept that your aircraft would burn and crash if
| it exceeded that speed. Even the successful and widely used
| MIG-25 had 2500 km/h as its max.
|
| Therefore aircraft speeds hit a wall, engines got powerful enough
| to make up for the loss from non-swing wings. Add to that how the
| industry learned to use the entire aircraft body as a lifting
| surface instead of loading everything on the wings, any reason
| for swing wings has gone away.
|
| Hence their early retirement.
| yyyk wrote:
| Because the F-14 was based on the epitome of 1960s tech, while
| the newer planes were based on 70s/80s tech. There was no slack
| for upgrades and even maintenance was difficult.
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| This is a very underappreciated aspect. The systems ( _i.e._ ,
| avionics and portions attached to the avionics) would have also
| needed significant updates ($$$) to keep the aircraft relevant
| into the 21st century. It's not just the engines that needed
| modernizing.
| izacus wrote:
| That update existed (F-14D) but the upgrades of 40+ year old
| airframes were deemed to be a pretty big waste of money when
| they could be spent on fully modernized designs that could be
| stealthy and require less maintenance and pilots.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Idk, the B52 is still flying and that airframe was designed
| like in to 50s I think.
| izacus wrote:
| The B52 isn't rated (and regularly) used for high-G
| manouvers, splashed with sea salt and crashed into a ship
| deck.
|
| Carrier life is rough on planes.
| guestbest wrote:
| No one is mentioning airframes, but the technology put in the
| composites of the F18 airframe was worlds cheaper and more
| flexible to repair in a fleet than the pre composites airframe
| of a F14
| jabl wrote:
| "Pre composites", doesn't that mean, well, aluminum? That's
| not particularly hard to work with, no? With composites,
| well, you can slap together some repair relatively easily,
| but for more complicated stuff, well you're not carrying
| around a large autoclave on a carrier are you?
|
| (Unless the above doesn't make it abundantly clear, I have
| little knowledge of aircraft repair procedures)
| Qtips87 wrote:
| I read that the F-14 is still stick and rudder and not Fly-by-
| wire.
| indymike wrote:
| Short version was the engines were terrible. They were prone to
| compressor stalls and blades started failing ahead of
| specification. The Phoenix missile and associated AWG-9 radar
| were top of the line in 1972, but were simply obsolete by mid
| 90s. If you look at the lifespan of the F-14 it was pretty
| remarkable, and the irony is that the F/A-18 was another design
| from the same era - it was a beefed up, navalized version of the
| YF-17 Cobra which lost out the the F-16.
| galgot wrote:
| F-14 was a very complex and expensive to maintain. A beauty, but
| an Hangar Queen in her last years.
|
| Maybe by "peers" the author meant it was one of the "teen"
| fighters serie, F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18. Like there was the
| "century" fighters, F-102, F-104, F-105, F-106.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| Fun point I read about this topic while back is that planes
| essentially cost the same amount of money per pound in the air,
| so building anything with two times the MTOW is an inherent
| disadvantage.
| rjsw wrote:
| Apparently, a comment on the TSR-2 [1] was that it was too
| heavy. The problem was that the manufacturer misinterpreted
| this and instead of just going away and designing a smaller
| aircraft they spent a lot of money trying to make the
| existing one lighter.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2
| muro wrote:
| Any reason for not including the F-101?
| galgot wrote:
| just one, my poor memory.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| The flight computer ("Central Air Data Computer") was interesting
| design and rather advanced for its time.
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/secret-history-of-the-first-micr...
| ddalex wrote:
| Having read the original article , I disagree that this is a
| microprocessor -
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190523172420/http://firstmicro...
|
| I feel this is in line with other computers of that time, and
| uses rather clever parallel design to improve the performance
| of the specific functions required - but it is not general
| purpose by any means.
| justinator wrote:
| _More troubling still, with the engines mounted a vast nine feet
| apart to allow for greater lift and more weapons carriage space,
| a stall in one engine could throw the aircraft into an often
| unrecoverable flat spin. These issues led to the loss of a
| whopping 40 F-14s in all._
|
| That's a huge design flaw.
| arethuza wrote:
| I believe that's one reason why the English Electric Lightning
| had its two engines arranged vertically.
| chiph wrote:
| It's not like they didn't know about it - it was a tradeoff
| that allowed them to carry more ordnance and drop-tanks on the
| center-line. They weren't able to put ordnance stations on the
| wings, so the centerline and the sides of the fuselage were the
| only areas available to carry the honkin' big Phoenix missile
| (13 feet long!)
|
| As a swing-wing plane, putting weapon stations on the wings
| meant they'd have to pivot in the opposite direction of the
| wing motion to keep the bombs/missiles pointing forward (so
| they didn't become an aerodynamic drag.) Pivoting ordnance
| stations on the wings would also mean the wing swing servos
| would need to be larger and more powerful (aka heavier). So no
| ordnance on the wings.
|
| http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-wsm.htm
|
| The other heavy consumable part of a fighter is the fuel. Most
| of the fuel on the F-14 was carried inside the fuselage between
| the engines. There were small tanks in the wings (which mean
| there was a flexible hose connecting it - that likely leaked)
| but most of it was stored along the centerline of the aircraft,
| helping with the center of gravity and allowing it to turn
| faster.
|
| http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-fueltank.htm
| jabl wrote:
| Hypothetically, couldn't they have made a design with both
| engines right beside each other, and fuel tanks, and pylons
| for weapons and drop tanks on the outside of the "engine
| box"?
| HPsquared wrote:
| Huh, interesting. The Panavia Tornado was a swing-wing plane
| from a similar vintage and did have pivoting wing-mounted
| pylons. Tradeoffs abound in aviation though, of course.
| justinator wrote:
| Imagine if one of your swing wings is locked in the "out"
| position and one in the, "in" position. Couldn't imagine
| all the scenarios like this the pilots had to deal with.
|
| I LOVED seeing the F14 fly in the 80s at an air show. Total
| star of the show - I can't believe how close to the ground
| they fly that thing!
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I thought that was impossible with the way the wings were
| geared. But apparently I'm wrong. I found this:
| https://imgur.io/L9OEWQr
| justinator wrote:
| Right? Seemed like this would have been a big whoopsie
| with several giant gears mashed up to dust to be able to
| make this happen.
| justinator wrote:
| More F-14s were destroyed (which OK: in conjunction with the
| crappy engine) because of this design than in combat.
|
| The AIM-54's never lived up to their name as an air to air
| missle, since it was meant to shoot down bombers, which never
| flew (and you know: thankfully never flew). Though they tried
| against fighters - that wasn't very successfully (except for
| Iran?).
|
| One wonders if a computer system like what's in the F35 could
| have worked in the F14 to mitigate the problem with engine
| failure - of course: if one could go back in time 30+ years
| to install it.
|
| Good point on the variable swept wings not allowing hard
| points, didn't think about that. The F111 did allow for
| ordinances on the wings and they did it in the method you've
| described (tho much larger plane)
|
| Perhaps the greatest achievement for the F14 was selling it
| to Iran, which had a real hard time keeping them in the air
| due to flight costs. Kinda sold them a lemon then cut off
| diplomatic ties. No one else wanted the plane!
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| > One wonders if a computer system like what's in the F35
| could have worked in the F14 to mitigate the problem with
| engine failure
|
| It could be possible that with full-authority fly-by-wire
| flight controls, a flight computer could prevent departures
| in case of single engine failure. I doubt anyone with
| enough F-14 flight dynamics knowledge is going to be on HN
| (you never know though!) to say if there was enough
| authority in the controls in these parts of the envelope to
| recover from such scenarios.
|
| While not the same failure mode, the SR-71 in the '80s
| acquired a system called "DAFICS": Digital Automatic Flight
| and Inlet Control System. During supersonic flight, you
| could get inlet unstart (ejection of the internal normal
| shock and a resultant sudden decrease in thrust due to poor
| inlet performance) - which typically occurred
| asymmetrically and was not uncommon. DAFICS sensed an
| impending unstart and actually forced both inlets to
| simultaneously unstart. A less expensive patch than
| redesigning a finicky inlet already 20+ years old.
|
| https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-
| papers/content/85...
|
| That aside aside, the real fix the F-14 needed was the GE
| engines (A+/D model). So you likely ought to blame the
| losses of these airframes from engine-induced issues on
| acquisition system decisions, rather than the airframe
| design itself.
| chiph wrote:
| Here's a photo I took of an F-14 that had stopped over at
| Sheppard AFB in the early 80's.
|
| https://imgur.com/Ji55Vgv
|
| And another one next to an A-10. Notice how substantial the
| landing gear is on the F-14 compared to the A-10, and the
| A-10 was designed for landings on improvised runways...
|
| https://imgur.com/GMupZaq
| Kubuxu wrote:
| It's due to carrier landing requirements. When landing on
| carrier, you don't flare the aircraft, you just dump it
| on deck with significant vertical speed. At least that is
| what you do with F-18 (with 200-400feet per minute
| descend rate), I would assume F-14 is the same for all
| the same reasons.
| avar wrote:
| Couldn't the pivoting of wing mounted weapons stations be
| driven by the airflow over the mounted weapon, rather than
| mechanically?
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| It's not a design flaw, it's a design choice which was made
| without the expectation the airframe would be saddled with the
| awful TF-30s. A very valid design choice at that.
|
| If you want to understand more about the genesis of the
| configuration, look on YouTube for "Peninsula Valley Seniors"
| or "Western Museum of Flight" for a talk by Mike Ciminera of
| Grumman.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| This is how Goose died.
| jeffdn wrote:
| And how the test pilot who was flying the F-14 to get the
| shot for the movie died[0], as well.
|
| [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Scholl
| aceazzameen wrote:
| Oh wow, I never knew about that.
| histriosum wrote:
| Uhm.. sort of, I guess? The airplane that Art Scholl died
| in was a Pitts S-2 BiPlane, not an F-14. So.. pretty
| different, although yes he died in a spin while filming
| footage for Top Gun.
| Test0129 wrote:
| The F-14 was a fantastic airplane. My favorite of all time
| (except for MAYBE the A-10, F-4, or the spitfire).
|
| Unfortunately, it was too expensive to maintain and didnt perform
| a role that couldn't be performed by more advanced multi-role
| fighters (e.g. the F-16 and F-18) at the point it was retired.
| Similar to the A-10, really, in that the F-35 will likely take
| it's place.
| nradov wrote:
| The decision was mainly a cost reduction measure, driven by the
| failure of the A-12 program and a need to free up funds to fight
| the GWOT while continuing JSF development. The earlier F-14
| problems had largely been resolved in the F-14D model and there
| was a clear, low-risk development path to the "Super Tomcat 21"
| model with greatly improved capabilities in every area. The
| F/A-18E/F Super Hornets which replaced the Tomcat, while cheaper
| and more reliable, lack the speed and range that would be needed
| to fight a future Pacific Theater war against China.
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29653/this-is-what-gru...
|
| https://youtu.be/CpXyYgL4jPI
|
| I think the Navy is now regretting their decision, but it's too
| late to go back.
| pdoege wrote:
| I think it is even worse. NAVAIR had the 14 with its massive
| capabilities and instead spent a ton of money improving the A6,
| A7, a bunch of canceled projects, picked the effing LOSER of
| the LWF program, and then effed the 2 stealth projects and got
| out of the 2010s with extremely limited capability.
|
| Even worse, the money that could have been spent building ships
| that would be useful in a conflict with CN was spent on effing
| GUN Cruisers (!!!) and littoral ships that didn't even work.
|
| Imagine instead if the USN had 8 additional Burkes,
| upgraded/refurbed 47s, Aegis/VLS across the fleet, and a hi/lo
| of updated, maintainable 14s and 16s.
|
| The US taxpayer spent billions and billions and got nothing.
| It's been huge scandal for 30+ years
| izacus wrote:
| I stronly doubt your conclusion considering the Navy is
| replacing the F/A-18s with F-35s which are closer to design of
| 18s than 14s.
|
| Perhaps there might be time to face the fact that the F-14 may
| not have been the most useful (and upgradable) planes for
| actually practical roles the carrier aircraft are expected to
| do?
|
| The F-14 maybe has been sexy in the air, but for effective and
| operational warfare the things like logistics, maintainability,
| reuse of parts and carrier space matter much more, especially
| if F-14s shortcomings made it less able to actually be in the
| air when needed.
|
| It's like taking your daddys 1970s charger (with new
| infotainmed and bolted on cruise control) into a desert
| expedition. Sure it has that gas guzzling V8 for the POWER when
| you need to hunt sand people, but in reality a modern Hilux is
| going to make the combined force a much more potent force and
| won't need truckloads of spare parts and mechanics to trail it.
| Even if it doesn't go 0-60 in 3s.
| zokier wrote:
| The article does not spell it out directly, so to clarify the
| title a bit here are the introduction years of the relevant
| aircraft:
|
| * F-14 1974
|
| * F-15 1976
|
| * F-16 1978
|
| * F-18 1983/84
|
| * F-22 2005
|
| * F-35 2016ish
|
| The interesting thing here is that F-18 was introduced only a
| decade after F-14, while F-15 -> F-22 took nearly three decades
| and F-16 -> F-35 four.
| indymike wrote:
| The F-18 was based on the Northrop YF-17 that lost to the F-16
| for it's contract. The Navy likes twin-engine fighters for
| safety reasons.
| YZF wrote:
| The F-15 and the F-16 were just so good. Also there are many
| versions of those.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| That's because the original F-18 was not a replacement for the
| F-14 - it was intended to be a complement. The F-18E/F which
| did replace the F-14 entered service in like 1997 or something.
| The F-18E/F is not really a variant of the F-18 - calling it
| E/F was a procurement masterstroke.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| The author lists the "F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, and F-16 Fighting
| Falcon" as peers. I'm not really sure I agree with this. The F-15
| and F-16 are land based fighters. The F-14 is a carrier launched
| aircraft. The requirements are different & the constraints are
| different. To consider the F-15 as a peer isn't even a valid
| starting point. It's a different plane for a different mission.
|
| Also worth mentioning there are effectively two generations of
| F-14, the second one having an improved engine design. These did
| not debut until 1987.
| masklinn wrote:
| The F-16 actually had a carrier demonstrator, the Vought 1600,
| for VFAX.
|
| While the F16 beat the YF17 for LWF, it's carrier version was
| defeated by the carrier version of the YF17 (which would become
| the F/A-18).
|
| I would agree that the F16 is not a peer to the F15 or F14, the
| entire point of the 16 was to be a small and cheap workhorse.
| Not just because of the LWF program, but because that was its
| designers' ethos inside General Dynamics.
|
| The 15 is 50% heavier when empty, And the 14 more than double
| (though part of that is changes and reinforcements for carrier-
| based operations, the Vought 1600 was also quite a bit heavier
| than an F-16).
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| > The F-16 actually had a carrier demonstrator, the Vought
| 1600, for VFAX.
|
| To be clear, the Vought 1600 (a partnership with GD where
| Vought took on the prime role and GD became a sub, similar to
| the what happened with Northrop and McDonnell-Douglas with
| the YF-17 and F-18) never left the conceptual design phase.
| You won't find a Vought 1600 airframe in any museum.
|
| > Not just because of the LWF program, but because that was
| its designers' ethos inside General Dynamics.
|
| And also on the part of the USAF instigators of the LWF
| program (the so-called "fighter mafia"). The interesting
| thing is that if you look at the combat & military exercise
| record of the F-15C, it contradicts a lot of what the fighter
| mafia took and preached as gospel, at least as far as the
| air-to-air theater goes. The F-16 did/does enjoy a great deal
| of success as a multirole fighter with a non-trivial emphasis
| on the ground attack role.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| It's been nice in my opinion to see the international
| market for the Viper generation to maintain relationships.
| It's a spiffy development imho for a really practical
| machine.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _The interesting thing is that if you look at the combat
| & military exercise record of the F-15C, it contradicts a
| lot of what the fighter mafia took and preached as gospel,
| at least as far as the air-to-air theater goes._
|
| I dunno. Another way of looking at it is that the F-15 has
| never had to compete in a war the fighter mafia was
| designing around: specifically total war.
|
| Israel/US vs Lebanon/Syria/Iraq was never a peer state
| conflict, and so allowed staged strikes or long-range
| AWACs-supported intercepts, both of which played to the
| F-15's strength, without exposing the weaknesses the
| fighter mafia claimed to address (feasibility of procuring
| large numbers and visual range dogfighting).
|
| The F-16 was designed for a scenario where the _number_ of
| F-15s became a limiting factor and where any-fighter >>
| no-more-fighters. I.e. NATO-vs-WP
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| Sure, in a pure mass vs. mass scenario where the
| adversary's systems are no more advanced than yours, more
| mass likely wins. But this is really the only scenario in
| which aircraft like the F-16 or F-18 give you "air
| dominance".
|
| The fighter mafia tended to overextrapolate from Vietnam
| that systems/technology were never going to be the force
| multiplier originally thought, and you needed to equip
| lots of smart men with incredible knife-fighting ability.
|
| The maybe underappreciated lesson from the F-15 (air-to-
| air variants anyway) is that the systems did indeed catch
| up to airframe capabilities and proved their mettle. Not
| just in combat with lesser-trained adversaries but also
| in western military exercises. Moreover the F-15 doesn't
| give up very much in the WVR dogfight situation either,
| despite a lack of fly-by-wire (until F-15SA) or lack of
| relaxed static longitudinal stability. I'm sure you can
| setup a WVR fighter maneuvers set where the F-16's
| characteristics give it an advantage but that is likely
| to be a small window in the envelope of potential
| engagements. The F-15's size actually ends up being a
| pretty sweet spot and is (ironically?) a better airframe
| for getting within the adversary's OODA loop.
|
| That all being said, John Boyd is credited with keeping
| the F-X program from foolishly pursuing a more complex
| and less maneuverable design - design direction which
| deserves immense praise.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Compare the LWT idea the "figher mafia" proposed to what
| the F-16 actually is though.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| The main thrust of the article is that the machine has no
| direct peers because the job it was designed for was unique,
| and restates this several times all through it. Any comparisons
| to any other aircraft are by definition automatically contrasts
| with other things that are different.
|
| The later upgrades which are worth mentioning, were mentioned,
| several times.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| They are peers in the sense that they had their first flight
| and operational introduction within 4 years of each other.
| Contemporaries would probably have been a better choice of
| wording.
| YLYvYkHeB2NRNT wrote:
| > ... but without a Soviet boogeyman to keep Uncle Sam's
| pocketbook upturned and shaking, it became an incredibly
| expensive and sometimes problematic solution to a problem nobody
| had anymore.
|
| This says a lot about our world. Just look outside.
| psychphysic wrote:
| Russia's performance in Ukraine has been so abysmal I believe
| Western war hawks are most offended.
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| Cold war Russia and today's Russia are two different beasts.
| Also, Russia's strategy of deliberate large-scale brutality
| against civilians to win military conflicts still motivates
| the drive to nullify their military capabilities as quickly
| as possible.
| Aloha wrote:
| This.
|
| The Soviet Union had _vast_ excess capacity to scale its
| army, build more armaments, etc. All of that went away as
| unaffordable when the Union collapsed.
| metadat wrote:
| > Could the F-14 have been modernized, upgraded, and improved to
| still be flying today? Of course it could. But like the bringing
| the F-22 Raptor back from the dead... sometimes it would cost
| more to keep a really good older fighter than it would cost to
| design and build a great new one.
|
| Is the F-35 considered "great" when compared to the F-22 Raptor?
| I was under the impression the Raptor was better in most ways,
| but also way expensive.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm no expert on military aircraft, though I have
| visited the _San Diego Air and Space Museum_ countless times.
| izacus wrote:
| They really do different things. F-22 is meant to fight other
| planes and has much less flexibility of attacking ground
| targets and supporting the army. It also can't even land on a
| full sized carrier, much less a smaller Marine one.
|
| F-35 is a jack of all trades, has a better sensor suite for
| ground attack, can be dispatched somewhere from a deck of even
| small carriers and is much cheaper to manufacture. It is also
| worse at fighting other planes (although not bad really).
|
| In any kind of real fight you'll probably see both because
| they're complementing each other, but the 22 is much less
| flexible and more specialized at its role.
|
| So the 22 is more of a successor to F-15 and F-35 is a
| successor to the F-18 or F-16.
| srvmshr wrote:
| The F-22 is an air dominance fighter. It's primary objective is
| air superiority. F-35 on the other hand is a versatile
| multirole aircraft which has been adapted to 3 variants for air
| force, navy and the marines.
|
| The F-35 trades a slightly higher radar visibility (vis a vis
| F22) with a very modular software & hardware architecture &
| networked combat assistance. Its avionics is much more easily
| upgradeable & mostly written in a C++ dialect to best of my
| knowledge. F-22 on the other hand is absolutely the best in
| class on stealth & maneuverability - but the tech it is built
| on, will be of 90s always (sadly). Its avionics & controls were
| coded in Ada on i960MX architecture (CPU clock ~90MHz) which is
| no longer maintained.
|
| Between the two, F-22 is a marvelous bird still, and still
| outclasses F-35 in air dominance roles. Its capabilities can
| strike fear to even well-equipped combat adversaries. In an
| anecdote that I was told by an US airman friend, Pakistan AF
| had scrambled F-16s during the OBL's Abbotabad raid, but the
| sortie was pushed to flying the perimeters of the city when a
| F-22 pair switched on their radar beacons temporarily to ping
| their presence (& as a obvious warning). Apparently they were
| overflying at reasonably high altitude having taken off from
| Qatar or KSA on special close air support mission. Their
| stealthy presence & perceived capabilities from this incident
| speaks volumes.
|
| Edit: The hardware is Intel i960MX. I mistakenly remembered it
| as IBM Power architecture.
|
| Edit2: Aviation Intel also surmised that F-22s were possibly in
| the theater
|
| http://aviationintel.com/was-the-f-22-used-for-contingency-c...
| mst wrote:
| Having seen quite a lot about the language, I do rather
| wonder whether Ada would've been a better choice of
| implementation platform, just with a modern-ish processor
| underneath it.
|
| (I would not describe myself as competent at either Ada -or-
| C++ though, so take my wondering with a suitable amount of
| salt)
| cstross wrote:
| It's worth noting that despite all the valid points about the
| costs of the F-14, the F-14 was _the cheaper alternate platform_
| for the AIM-54 and AN /AWG-9 radar; they were originally
| developed (as the AIM-47 and AN/ASG 18) for the Lockheed YF-12A,
| a Mach 3 bomber-interceptor variant of the A-12, single-seat
| predecessor to the SR-71:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12
|
| (The YF-12A program got as far as a 96 plane order for the USAF
| before it was cancelled in favour of the cheaper F-106X project,
| which also failed.)
|
| Anyway, before condemning the F-14 for being expensive to
| operate, I invite you to consider the likely costs of fielding a
| fleet of hundreds of nearly-hypersonic interceptors based on the
| same hardware as the SR-71 ...
| Tronno wrote:
| I was curious how much the Phoenix missile itself cost. Some
| sources state a development cost of $167M, and a unit cost of
| ~$500k (with ~5000 built), adding up to about $2.5B, some of
| which was recouped by sales to Iran.
|
| It's impossible to say how much money was spent on aircraft
| capable of firing the missile, since they were also designed to
| do other things, and raw production/maintenance costs are hard
| to track down anyway. The Tomcat alone seems to have cost tens
| of billions to build and operate.
|
| Ultimately, "the AIM-54 has been used in 62 air-to-air strikes,
| all by Iran during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War" (Wikipedia).
|
| Whether or not this outcome was "expensive" is up to the
| American taxpayer, I guess.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I've never understood why the AIM-54 wasn't replatformed
| after the decision was made to retire the F-14.
|
| I guess procurement politics?
|
| But maybe also because the terminal active radar guidance was
| no longer capable of burning through expected Russian ECM?
| And in a balancing of "substantially update and redesign" vs
| "invest elsewhere", long-range fleet missiles weren't a
| priority in the wake of the USSR's collapse and Russia's
| economic struggles.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > I've never understood why the AIM-54 wasn't replatformed
| after the decision was made to retire the F-14.
|
| It was a huge fucking missile. Only the F-14 was able to
| physically carry it and it's unique pylon. If adapted to
| other airframes they might have only been able to carry a
| single missile. Even the F-14 could only practically carry
| four of them. If it launched with the max of six and didn't
| fire any it would have to jettison two before attempting a
| landing.
|
| The AIM-120 in contrast could be carried by a number of US
| and allied fighters, had active radar homing (fire and
| forget), and BVR capability. The latest versions can even
| match the range of the AIM-54.
|
| The AIM-54 was designed to hit incoming high altitude
| bombers coming for a carrier battle group outside of the
| range they could launch nuclear ALCMs. With that job
| largely obviated by the collapse of the USSR and end of the
| Cold War there was never much need to keep the system in
| service.
|
| The danger to carrier battle groups today are lower
| altitude cruise missiles, opposing fighter/attack aircraft,
| and UAVs. A missile that really only works well against
| high altitude targets isn't all that useful.
| jabl wrote:
| Yeah, wikipedia says the Phoenix weighed about 450kg,
| three times as much as an AMRAAM. And given that the
| latest versions, like you mention, have a range very
| close to the Phoenix, and the AMRAAM has been continually
| developed (presumably including advances in sensors,
| electronics and software), whereas Phoenix apparently
| wasn't developed since the 1986 AIM-54C. So except for a
| very slight advantage in nominal range, arguably the
| modern AMRAAM is vastly superior in every respect.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| MBDA Meteor has the dimensions of Amraam but is air
| breathing and has very high range and speed. For one
| example, even the small Gripen has already fired it.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| As I understand it, the AIM-54 being too expensive for its
| utility and its function being less prioritized was part of
| the calculus of retiring the F-14, which happened _after_
| the AIM-54 was retired.
| oxfeed65261 wrote:
| The quote from Wikipedia appears to be wrong. The US has also
| used the missile in combat. FTA:
|
| "In January of 1999, two F-14s each fired one Phoenix missile
| at two Iraqi MiG-25s, only to have both miss. Later that same
| year, another F-14 fired a Phoenix at a MiG-23, only to miss
| once again. No F-14 ever shot down an enemy aircraft with the
| missile it was designed to carry."
|
| The Wikipedia quote above is from the initial introductory
| section. Later, Wikipedia[0] says:
|
| > U.S. combat experience
|
| > On January 5, 1999, a pair of US F-14s fired two Phoenixes
| at Iraqi MiG-25s southeast of Baghdad. Both AIM-54s' rocket
| motors failed and neither missile hit its target.
|
| > On September 9, 1999, another US F-14 launched an AIM-54 at
| an Iraqi MiG-23 that was heading south into the no-fly zone
| from Al Taqaddum air base west of Baghdad. The missile
| missed, eventually going into the ground after the Iraqi
| fighter reversed course and fled north.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix#U.S._comba
| t_e...
| bombcar wrote:
| Part of the problem with "super expensive" weapons is they
| rarely get used in actual situations and so not much is
| known about their performance in theater.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Also, the AIM-54 was designed to down bombers, which even
| in TU-22M form have very different maneuverability than
| fighters.
| oxfeed65261 wrote:
| True, and the article discussed this. However, two of the
| three AIM-54 missiles launched by the US in combat failed
| to even ignite; the characteristics of the target
| aircraft were irrelevant.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| From the article I got the idea that the AIM was probably
| short for "And... I Missed."
| chipsa wrote:
| https://designation-systems.net/usmilav/missiles.html
|
| Theres's an entire system for how the designations work.
| chipsa wrote:
| The F-12 cancelation is also why SR-71 producing ended: part of
| the cancelation order from the SecDef was to destroy the
| tooling for the YF-12. Which is the same as the tooling for the
| SR-71.
|
| Though: this is actually beside the point because the Navy
| wasn't ever going to operate the F-12. The predecessors of the
| F-14 were the F-111B (rejected because it wasn't actually going
| to be carrier qualifiable) and the F6D (rejected because it was
| useless once the missiles were launched)
| jes wrote:
| Why destroy the tooling?
|
| I assume it's to ensure that a previous program can't be
| revived and thus threaten the follow-on program.
|
| In my view, if the follow on program is truly compelling, it
| should live or die based on its own performance, but I guess
| that's not how the game is played.
|
| I think this was done with the Saturn V, as well.
|
| Thoughts?
| V_Terranova_Jr wrote:
| It's really for two primary reasons:
|
| 1. Storing tooling, especially huge aircraft-sized tooling,
| has real costs associated with it. There's the physical
| space it occupies as well as the costs associated with
| keeping it from degrading. Guess who industry charges for
| all of this?
|
| 2. Concerns about security. If an adversary manages to
| surreptitiously capture images or other data on the
| tooling, perhaps they can get closer to developing an
| equivalent capability.
|
| It's certainly possible the idea is also at play that by
| destroying the tooling, you prevent advocates of the
| current system from jamming up the process of acquiring new
| and improved systems. It would be great if the development
| and acquisition of new systems was always merit-based and
| rigorous, but it's often not. I'm not saying this is the
| case, but it could have been a fear of guerrilla advocacy
| from Lockheed or its advocates in the Government stymieing
| progress. For all its awesomeness, the A-12 family was
| heinously expensive to operate. If you had pressure from
| congresspersons or ill-informed generals to acquire more of
| these because of their incredible capability, but that
| meant you couldn't afford to improve your capabilities in
| other areas, you might not appreciate that pressure.
| jes wrote:
| Good points - thank you.
| chipsa wrote:
| In this specific case, it was because McNamara believed
| that SAMs were too good for the aircraft to survive, and to
| keep it from being resurrected, he ordered it destroyed.
| There was no direct follow on program, just spy satellites.
| frankharv wrote:
| First off at the end of a production run you are faced with
| a decision.
|
| Do you preserve the production line or destroy it?
|
| The customer paid for it so it is their property usually.
| They make the call.
|
| I would bet that the tooling was not destroyed but
| transferred to other lines.
|
| The jigs and fixtures used would be destroyed because it
| was top secret job.
|
| Safer to destroy than preserve.
| jes wrote:
| Good points - thank you.
| greedo wrote:
| The F-14 was the alternative to the aborted F-111B. This was
| originally intended to carry the Phoenix and AN/AWG-9. Although
| it would have been cool, the YF-12 would have difficulty with a
| catapult launch.
| CarVac wrote:
| Amusingly, the AIM-47 page says that the YF-12A was itself a
| lower-cost replacement for the XF-108 program.
| pastaguy1 wrote:
| The F15 doesn't get a ton of fanfare, but it's an extremely
| capable aircraft.
| chasd00 wrote:
| As a kid the F15 was the only plane I ever drew pictures of and
| hung in my room. I agree, it's a fantastic aircraft.
| gdubs wrote:
| Lots of great stories in the comments here, but I figured I'd
| drop a little reference to my time in the saddle:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Burner
|
| Hard to overstate how large the F-14 loomed in the consciousness
| of kids growing up in the 80s/90s -- not just from Top Gun but
| from this game as well. So many quarters spent having this
| machine babysit me while my mom shopped.
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