

Tales of the F-14 - aycangulez
http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/tomcat-tales.html

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pavel_lishin
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aycangulez
The anecdotes I liked most:

"In designing the cockpit, we worked with the project pilot who went through
system by system with each of the engineers in order to whittle down the
number of discrete controls in order to justify every one that the engineer
thought was necessary. In the flight control system the number of caution and
warning indicators was reduced. Some of the engineers wanted a first level
warning of every first level system, but we simplified the number of cautions
and warnings. The objective, among other things was that it was a Navy
airplane and the Navy didn’t want a pinball machine in the cockpit. They
didn’t want a pilot being distracted while he’s being shot off the catapult."
- Vincent Devino

"The Tomcat’s air-to-air weapons mix was just unmatched. The Phoenix gives you
up to 110-mile range. It launches and...[after a programmed number of feet]
the missile turns on its own radar where told to look. It was a launch-and-
leave situation. You can launch six and track more than 30 targets. One step
down was the Sparrow, at 20-25 miles. Then you step down to infrared
sidewinder. Now you’re talking feet-you’ve got that 25-mm gun, with about 600
rounds of ammo, so you have a full minute of firing time. It was sort of a
fighter pilot’s dream on an intercept [mission]. That capability has not been
matched, and won’t be. We don’t have it anymore." - Charlie Brown

~~~
MikeCapone
I wasn't expecting that second quote to be by... Charlie Brown. Must not
always be easy to be named like that.

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phreanix
Fave (relevant) quote:

"The best way to do something ‘lean’ is to gather a tight group of people,
give them very little money, and very little time."

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gaius
It works if you're defending the free world (as in, that's the motivation of
the members of the team).

It doesn't work _at all_ if you're implementing enterprise software. Who gets
gung ho about TPS reports? Rather than heroes, people feel exploited, since
they know they're busting their arses just to make their VP look good...

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phreanix
_It works if you're defending the free world (as in, that's the motivation of
the members of the team)._

Idealist me would like to think that such is the motivation of the majority of
the HN 'team' =)

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arethuza
Isn't Iran (of all places) still flying the F-14?

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aycangulez
Yes, they are still using it. In fact, Iran remains the only country that the
US exported F-14s to.

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gaius
Indeed, when the USS Vincennes shot down an airliner full of Iranian
civilians, they believed themselves to be under attack from an Iranian F14.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655>

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barake
It always blew my mind how long the F-14 was in service - they were present at
the American evacuation from Saigon in 1975.

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mrduncan
As a fighter, definitely.

When you compare it to other larger military aircraft, it doesn't seem very
long at all. The B52 has been in active service since 1955. The A-10 was
introduced in 1977 and isn't expected to be replaced until nearly 2030.

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AttilaTheHun
And the Douglas DC-4 was introduced in the 1930s and there are still a few
flying around!

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sliverstorm
In active service in the armed forces, or private/commercial?

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Maktab
Most are privately owned or with historical flights, but some do remain in
military service. For instance, the Salvadoran Air Force operates 2 near-
original C-47Ds and a few Basler BT-67s and the South African Air Force has 10
C-47TPs (converted to turboprop power with PT-6A engines) which are used in
the maritime patrol, light transport and EW roles.

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awongh
_During one of the all-night engine runs a few days before First Flight, I was
running the engines ... I looked over the side and saw a large puddle of
hydraulic fluid... I asked what happened, and he said it must have been a
loose B nut... We were all sleepy, so we went home and thought no more about
it._ !!

wtf?! you're test piloting a mulit-million dollar jet plane, it starts leaking
fluid when you're testing the engine on the ground, it leaks fluid, and since
you're sleepy you just forget about it and go home?! That's pretty crazy. I
guess these guys are more gung-ho than I thought. Would you even do that even
if you were testing a race car?

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MikeCapone
"At this point we were about a half-mile short of the runway, about 25 feet
above the trees. Bill quickly initiated the ejection sequence using his face
curtain. A sensitive accelerometer on the nose strut recorded and telemetered
back to the ground the little blips showing the firing of the canopy and then
the ejection guns on the two seats in turn. That all took 0.9 seconds as
advertised; 0.4 seconds later the nosewheel hit a tree!"

~~~
z303
Some footage of the last few seconds of the flight is on Youtube

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY3tsYoLopQ>

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aycangulez
As a fun side note, F-14s inspired the creators of Robotech (Macross). The
mechas in this classic anime look very much like F-14s when they are in their
normal "fighter" mode. Here is how they look like when transformed half-way:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VF-1S-Strike-
Valkyrie-02.j...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VF-1S-Strike-
Valkyrie-02.jpg)

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therockhead
Why is it that the Navy never replaced the F-14 with a fighter with similar
characteristics - speed, range, weapon range etc ?

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btilly
I assume because we're preparing for different threats. The F-14 was designed
for creating air superiority in direct confrontations with the Soviet Union.
Now our likely opponents will concede that territory to us and respond with
suicide bombs.

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kiujhyghjkl
The F14 was, like almost all weapon systems, built ot fight the previous war.
It's exactly what a WWII carrier pilot flying would have wanted and as soon as
they got promoted high enough - it's what they bought.

