F-14 to fly again?
- Thread starter Tikka
- Start date
F14-2 everything is incompatible
If it’s not cost-effective to build another assembly line and supply chain to make more F22s, then its orders of magnitude worse to do so for an ancient out-of-production aircraft.
Owen Lucas
$100 Site Donor 2023
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2021
- Messages
- 4,813
Yep.
An in depth walk around of Tomcat would be very nice.
45 min video of the entire aircraft with some memorable / funny stories.
I did have the pleasure of meeting him at 4 different air shows.
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Most of them were destroyed to prevent Iran from getting spare parts.
I actually gave a guided tour of the F-14 at the Valiant air museum in Titusville, Florida.
The F-14 there is one that I flew in combat, over Sarajevo, in the summer of 1995.
My wife and I were visiting Florida, and we were being given a tour one of the volunteers. When he started talking about the jet, I gave him a couple of pointers, and then asked if he would like me to tell him about this airplane.
It’s a really good museum. Who knows, if one of you guys is there, I don’t live too far away these days, maybe we can set that tour up.
I would love to see @Astro14 fly a demonstration in the F-14. I have sat with him and talked about the F-14, his knowledge is astounding so many years after getting out of the F-14 seat. I'm sure after many years of flying the 757, getting back into the F-14 wouldn't be much of a transition.
I was looking at the open canopy and thinking he looks a little different than I expected.
When I was in Qatar we had two Navy F-14's park next to our F-16's. To put it lightly, I was unimpressed. I don't want to make enemies here of our 14 lovers so that's all I'm gonna say!
CleanSump
Site Donor 2026
I've sundowned 3 Navy aircraft while at HQ and it's difficult to keep the last few flying up until the scheduled last flight due to lack of parts and/or unique support for them. It isn't likely they'll get more than one flying, if that. All the old hydraulics are out of manufacture and there's no repair facility. Avionics were mostly shredded or common avionics transferred and used up on other aircraf that have now sundowned. There just isn't much in Ready For Issue (RFI) parts left. No support for outdated avionics and integrating new ones is not cheap.
Plus, a private entity won't own the aircraft. Federal law requires that even former military aircraft on display or in museums are still owned by Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and only on loan. BTDT.
Plus, a private entity won't own the aircraft. Federal law requires that even former military aircraft on display or in museums are still owned by Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and only on loan. BTDT.
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.
I kept on hearing that every retired F-14 that wasn’t completely shredded had its titanium wing box cut to prevent it from ever flying. The Tomcat in Top Gun: Maverick was from a museum and had to be towed. I’m rather skeptical that one will ever fly.
I also recall reading the display aircraft were structurally disabled to prevent future use.
That was supposedly the wing box. Grumman had to develop electron beam welding to build them.
