F-14 to fly again?

[The_Eric]

Most of them were destroyed to prevent Iran from getting spare parts.

How/why is that even a concern? Is it that difficult to keep planes in a secure enough area that hostile governments can't get their hands on them? Or do some or all end up being demilitarized and sold, thus making them available through various channels to our adversaries?

 

[Astro14]

How/why is that even a concern? Is it that difficult to keep planes in a secure enough area that hostile governments can't get their hands on them? Or do some or all end up being demilitarized and sold, thus making them available through various channels to our adversaries?

About 70 of them are in museums - not all museums are equally secure. Some critical parts are easily removed.

The Navy had to go back and remove those critical parts from the airplanes on display.

Since the aircraft type was retired, there was no need to keep spare aircraft in the desert, no need for spare parts, so, most of them that were in storage at AMARC were shredded, including my favorite, Victory 211, BuNo 161134, a block 110 TARPS airplane in which I flew several combat missions.

Here it is on Cat 3, about to launch on a combat mission, in 1991

It happened to have my name on the canopy rail at the time.

 

[CleanSump]

Which aircraft did you work on that were sun downed ?

Tomcat was a very complex aircraft and needed lots of maintenance hours to keep them flying.

I did get to see the Tomcat demo at air show the last year before retirement.

A-6, EA-6B, and E-2C. E-2C was still flying, but being parked as I retired 2 years ago. It's a real pain in the behind for logistics people to scrounge for things. Even a simple flap screwjack can be unavailable.

 

[Tikka]

Hi.
Ward Carrol has made a piece on this subject. He talks to a former Tomcat pilot about what will be needed to get one flying.

I am guessing Astro would find this interesting as a trip down memory lane.