Aircraft Information
> Aircraft Make: Grumman Model: F-14A Nickname: Tomcat
> Aircraft Mil Civ Description: Tactical Jet
> FAA Category and Class: Airplane ME Land
> Engine Description: Two Pratt & Whitney TF30-P-414A turbofan engines
Aircraft Experience
> As of: 10/30/2024
> Number of Hours Flown: 2
> Number of Times Flown: 1
> Other Aircraft Models Associated: F-14A-D
First Flown Information
> Sequence First Flown: 76
> Date First Flown: 5/16/1991
> Location First Flown: NAS Miramar, CA
> Who and/or What Organization First Flown With: VF-124, F-14 RAG, LT (LCDR?) Roano
(c) Wikipedia
Recollections: Like so many other exceptional opportunities afforded to me by the Navy, this one came while serving as a USNTPS IP, on a DT-II exercise for a student. It took two simulator sessions and 3 manups to get the flight done (showing both the complexity and the challenges the F-14 faced in terms of reliability. Compare this training track with my entry on the A-10).
Still…I’d gone thru TPS when the first Top Gun movie came out (our Class name was a play on the movie…we were the “Top Geeks”) and my good buddy and TPS Classmate, Joe “Reb” Edwards could no longer hold over me that I’d never had the pleasure of flying the F-14. I was about to do it! But, it took 3 manups (the first two tries were cancelled after engine start, first for a hydraulic leak and the second for an avionics problem I don’t recall. Maybe it was just that my instructor–a PILOT in the backseat without any flight controls–thought better of sitting back there with a P-3 pilot in the front!)
The plane handled extremely nicely. It’s a HUGE airplane, really, but a pleasure to fly. While I never got to fly the “D model”, which had a bigger (and more appropriately sized) engine, I could see that the F-14A was underpowered. Or, as an Italian student put it (in a debrief after completing his DT-2 in the F-14) “Zee F-14….it eeese a Peeeeg.”
Filed Under: Tactical Jet, 76-100
The Big Fighter. Loved it!
(It’s interesting to me that of the (110 different) airplanes flown, the ones I️ truly loved are the ones that require great skill & proficiency to master.
It’s the antithesis of what a test pilot tries to do—make aircraft carefree and easy to fly.
Back in the 1990s, you walk into the O-club at Oceana or Miramar and ask who’s the best, great-hands Tomcat pilot on base, it would start an argument, but the same 2-4 names would always rise to the top.
Walk into Cecil or Lemoore Hornet bases, the Fighter Attack Guys (if any were actually to be found in the O’Club) would shrug and claim they were all very good.
The Tomcat humbled average pilots and happily killed the bad ones. Cheers!
I totally agree with you, Pinto. I think it’s particularly true in TRAINING aircraft…safe but challenging…a fine line. As I talk about in my T-28 post, I think the Trojan taught me well, because it was challenging. Only flew the Tomcat once but I understand why you loved it. So, who were those 2-4 best Tomcat guys, besides you of course. 🙂