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View Quote I feel like it's a little unfair to include the 1 F16 air Combat loss, considering it was lost to another F16. That one should cancel out. |
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As much as I love the F14 and consider it the most beautiful plane ever built, it was a pig for maintenance, was not really a dog fighter, and in its age offered less and less to make it valuable to keep around. Cost to keep it in the air was getting too high. Perhaps KA3B will be along to slap me around for being wrong on some points. View Quote Plus all of the tooling is gone now |
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Your faces, what do they mean because an actual navy pilot said it. Can you refute his claim of difficulty based on your experience as a naval aviator? View Quote I can Superhornets are sooo nice behind the ship. And now with PLM it has become even "easier". Not easy, mind you, but the Navy gives you all the tools you need. Of course, even though I've lived in Colorado I have never chased ass there (married) so indeed your friend may be right. I'm surprised, Colorado had some nice looking ass. |
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View Quote Boner! |
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And Lancers. Lots and lots of lancers. Because pointy sticks scare the bejessus out of every one. View Quote After you are perforated with pointy sticks you won't like them either! OK so the Tomcat thing wont work *hangs head in sorrow* But a BB with banks of MASSIVE rails guns and multiple reactors to power them...... come on that's both effective and everyone's wet dream! (why I tossed that in there ;p) |
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When the Tomcat was put into service the biggest threats to the Navy were surface ships, subs, and land based bombers. We had subs and surface ships, subs, and Intruder to counter the surface ship threat, Surface ships, subs, Vikings, various helicopters, and Orions (Replaced by Posiedons), to counter the subs, and surface ships and Tomcats to take care of the bombers.
The Tomcat was a bomber killer. It was pressed into the air superiority role but really wasn't designed for it. Later it was pressed into the strike role as the Intruders were retired. Navy now needs an air superiority fighter. The Super Hornet is good but I see it as more the Navy's F-16. They need their version of the F-22. They also need something to replace the capabilities lost when the A-6 was retired and a replacement for the Viking's ASW capabilities. I welcome the opinion of those more in the know. |
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The thing that is mostly missed about the Tomcats is their legs. They can be in the air for a while, and towards the end of their life they were quite good carrying a bombs supporting our ground troops. They could loiter a long time and carry a payload. With that and the speed, they made quite good bomb truck. No reason why the Navy should have given up on the platform other than saving a few bucks for less capability.
If they built new Tomcats with bigger engines and upgraded avionics I think the Navy would have been better off. |
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The thing that is mostly missed about the Tomcats is their legs. They can be in the air for a while, and towards the end of their life they were quite good carrying a bombs supporting our ground troops. They could loiter a long time and carry a payload. With that and the speed, they made quite good bomb truck. No reason why the Navy should have given up on the platform other than saving a few bucks for less capability. If they built new Tomcats with bigger engines and upgraded avionics I think the Navy would have been better off. View Quote No. Just no. |
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No. Just no. Explain. Cool. Build new airframes too. |
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The Marines had F-4's represented in "The Great Santini"
I loved the Tomcat. Biggest baddest machine off the catapults. Not as jaw jarring as the Intruder/prowler; I think I left some fillings on the deck due to those two |
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No. Just no. Explain. Cool. Build new airframes too. |
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This is probably a dumb question but why don't they create another rendition of the F-14, like F-14E, but with newer engines and electronics? There would be way less R&D to create it from start to finish. Or is that like putting a brand-new Ferrari engine in a Dodge Caravan mini-van from the 80s. View Quote most the people that were behind its development are probably dead, and it was developed on paper. I doubt there is much left but service publications. i truly appreciate the aesthetics of the f14 from a purely visual standpoint its my favorite aircraft. but shoehorning new shit into an old system doesnt make sense when you can build a new system around new components. |
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Maintenance. It was a pig in that regard. It simply cost too must too keep in the air, in dollars and time (which is dollars too). From what I've read, one Tomcat would often be cannibalized on a carrier for parts to keep the others flying. The F14 is my favorite military plane, but even I know it had to go. It's just too bad nearly all of them where destroyed, ostensibly to keep parts from reaching Iran. I wish more of them could have been put on static display. |
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Now we're cooking with peanut oil. http://gpx741k9ffd3p5zv840ulv3j.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/F35CVX23-141103-N-IP743-272b.jpg View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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No. Just no. Explain. Cool. Build new airframes too. http://gpx741k9ffd3p5zv840ulv3j.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/F35CVX23-141103-N-IP743-272b.jpg |
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I feel like it's a little unfair to include the 1 F16 air Combat loss, considering it was lost to another F16. That one should cancel out. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
I feel like it's a little unfair to include the 1 F16 air Combat loss, considering it was lost to another F16. That one should cancel out. |
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Maintenance. It was a pig in that regard. It simply cost too must too keep in the air, in dollars and time (which is dollars too). From what I've read, one Tomcat would often be cannibalized on a carrier for parts to keep the others flying. The F14 is my favorite military plane, but even I know it had to go. It's just too bad nearly all of them where destroyed, ostensibly to keep parts from reaching Iran. I wish more of them could have been put on static display. View Quote But why couldn't newer versions/models been made? It would have helped with the maintenance issues and would have kept multiple capabilities in the US arsenal. |
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But why couldn't newer versions/models been made? It would have helped with the maintenance issues and would have kept multiple capabilities in the US arsenal. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Maintenance. It was a pig in that regard. It simply cost too must too keep in the air, in dollars and time (which is dollars too). From what I've read, one Tomcat would often be cannibalized on a carrier for parts to keep the others flying. The F14 is my favorite military plane, but even I know it had to go. It's just too bad nearly all of them where destroyed, ostensibly to keep parts from reaching Iran. I wish more of them could have been put on static display. But why couldn't newer versions/models been made? It would have helped with the maintenance issues and would have kept multiple capabilities in the US arsenal. |
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But why couldn't newer versions/models been made? It would have helped with the maintenance issues and would have kept multiple capabilities in the US arsenal. View Quote Because the design was outdated and as an air superiority fighter it was outclassed over 30 years ago even before the movie that made it famous. You might as well ask why we didnt just upgrade the f-4u instead of building jets. |
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Longer range. More loiter time. Carry more payload. More sexy.... View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Which capabilities? Longer range. More loiter time. Carry more payload. More sexy.... How do you make 2000 lbs of copper wire do this? http://www.asiapacificdefencereporter.com/articles/217/electronic-warfare |
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The thing that is mostly missed about the Tomcats is their legs. They can be in the air for a while, and towards the end of their life they were quite good carrying a bombs supporting our ground troops. They could loiter a long time and carry a payload. With that and the speed, they made quite good bomb truck. No reason why the Navy should have given up on the platform other than saving a few bucks for less capability. If they built new Tomcats with bigger engines and upgraded avionics I think the Navy would have been better off. View Quote No. Tomcats had already been upgraded a couple of times. You have no idea how much it cost to keep the upgraded Bombcats in the air. Navy budget is already overtaxed with ship and aircraft maintenance costs. The juice wasn't worth the squeeze. |
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From what I've read, one Tomcat would often be cannibalized on a carrier for parts to keep the others flying. View Quote To be fair, that's standard for almost every squadron that deploys nowadays. The parts just aren't there, so hangar queens are immediately designated at the beginning of deployment. Scratch that: It was true up until I retired in 2005. I don't know about the last decade...but I have my suspicions (and I'm sitting about 10 feet away from the back of a Superhornet as I type this as a civilian). |
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No. Just no. Explain. Cool. Build new airframes too. That's exactly what they did. They called it the Super Hornet. |
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To be fair, that's standard for almost every squadron that deploys nowadays. The parts just aren't there, so hangar queens are immediately designated at the beginning of deployment. Scratch that: It was true up until I retired in 2005. I don't know about the last decade...but I have my suspicions (and I'm sitting about 10 feet away from the back of Superhornet as I type this as a civilian). View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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From what I've read, one Tomcat would often be cannibalized on a carrier for parts to keep the others flying. To be fair, that's standard for almost every squadron that deploys nowadays. The parts just aren't there, so hangar queens are immediately designated at the beginning of deployment. Scratch that: It was true up until I retired in 2005. I don't know about the last decade...but I have my suspicions (and I'm sitting about 10 feet away from the back of Superhornet as I type this as a civilian). I will say that I have never seen a designated Super Hornet sitting in the front of Bay 1 in pieces like I always did with the Tomcats. I can't go much further than that though. |
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But why couldn't newer versions/models been made? It would have helped with the maintenance issues and would have kept multiple capabilities in the US arsenal. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Maintenance. It was a pig in that regard. It simply cost too must too keep in the air, in dollars and time (which is dollars too). From what I've read, one Tomcat would often be cannibalized on a carrier for parts to keep the others flying. The F14 is my favorite military plane, but even I know it had to go. It's just too bad nearly all of them where destroyed, ostensibly to keep parts from reaching Iran. I wish more of them could have been put on static display. But why couldn't newer versions/models been made? It would have helped with the maintenance issues and would have kept multiple capabilities in the US arsenal. There aren't any capabilities the Tomcat had that the Super Hornet doesn't. Now the JSF brings even more to the fight. |
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Longer range. More loiter time. Carry more payload. More sexy.... View Quote The aviation battlefield isn't what you--or anyone else that wants to restore old platforms like the Tomcat and Intruder--think it is. The way we fight evolves to meet current threats, and that requires new weapons to do it with. |
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I will say that I have never seen a designated Super Hornet sitting in the front of Bay 1 in pieces like I always did with the Tomcats. I can't go much further than that though. View Quote My last deployment with Tomcats (VF-154), their last deployment as a Tomcat squadron. The night before packup, they had teams furiously cannibalizing parts from the aircraft on static display in front of the base gym...from a maintainer point of view, it was utterly horrifying. I want to say the metrics had them at several hundred maintenance hours per flight hour, vs. less than 40/per for the old legacy Hornets. The Tomcat guys knew their stuff...but it was because they had to. |
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That's exactly what they did. They called it the Super Hornet. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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No. Just no. Explain. Cool. Build new airframes too. That's exactly what they did. They called it the Super Hornet. What does the SuperBug do better than the Tomcat with the same avionics? Other than maintenance... |
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What does the SuperBug do better than the Tomcat with the same avionics? Other than maintenance... View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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No. Just no. Explain. Cool. Build new airframes too. That's exactly what they did. They called it the Super Hornet. What does the SuperBug do better than the Tomcat with the same avionics? Other than maintenance... Employ modern weapons. Dogfight. Tank. Decreased maintenance. The Tomcat was a long range interceptor designed to fly against soviet bombing raids and shoot them down hundreds of miles away from the CVN with a missile that turned out to be a massive disappointment. Its avionics were absolutely 1970 state of the art, but it's not the 1970s anymore. |
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My last deployment with Tomcats (VF-154), their last deployment as a Tomcat squadron. The night before packup, they had teams furiously cannibalizing parts from the aircraft on static display in front of the base gym...from a maintainer point of view, it was utterly horrifying. I want to say the metrics had them at several hundred maintenance hours per flight hour, vs. less than 40/per for the old legacy Hornets. The Tomcat guys knew their stuff...but it was because they had to. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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I will say that I have never seen a designated Super Hornet sitting in the front of Bay 1 in pieces like I always did with the Tomcats. I can't go much further than that though. My last deployment with Tomcats (VF-154), their last deployment as a Tomcat squadron. The night before packup, they had teams furiously cannibalizing parts from the aircraft on static display in front of the base gym...from a maintainer point of view, it was utterly horrifying. I want to say the metrics had them at several hundred maintenance hours per flight hour, vs. less than 40/per for the old legacy Hornets. The Tomcat guys knew their stuff...but it was because they had to. that's roughly what I remember hearing years ago. I was on not the last deployment, but one of the last deployments they did, and the maintainers absolutely hated that bird. |
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Employ modern weapons. Dogfight. Tank. Decreased maintenance. The Tomcat was a long range interceptor designed to fly against soviet bombing raids and shoot them down hundreds of miles away from the CVN with a missile that turned out to be a massive disappointment. Its avionics were absolutely 1970 state of the art, but it's not the 1970s anymore. View Quote So the Navy couldn't use an upgraded Tomcat? The old one had longer legs than the newer Bug. |
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So the Navy couldn't use an upgraded Tomcat? The old one had longer legs than the newer Bug. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Employ modern weapons. Dogfight. Tank. Decreased maintenance. The Tomcat was a long range interceptor designed to fly against soviet bombing raids and shoot them down hundreds of miles away from the CVN with a missile that turned out to be a massive disappointment. Its avionics were absolutely 1970 state of the art, but it's not the 1970s anymore. So the Navy couldn't use an upgraded Tomcat? The old one had longer legs than the newer Bug. |
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Employ modern weapons. Dogfight. Tank. Decreased maintenance. The Tomcat was a long range interceptor designed to fly against soviet bombing raids and shoot them down hundreds of miles away from the CVN with a missile that turned out to be a massive disappointment. Its avionics were absolutely 1970 state of the art, but it's not the 1970s anymore. So the Navy couldn't use an upgraded Tomcat? The old one had longer legs than the newer Bug. With the same payload? What if the Tomcat had upgraded engines over the "D" model? |
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So the Navy couldn't use an upgraded Tomcat? The old one had longer legs than the newer Bug. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Employ modern weapons. Dogfight. Tank. Decreased maintenance. The Tomcat was a long range interceptor designed to fly against soviet bombing raids and shoot them down hundreds of miles away from the CVN with a missile that turned out to be a massive disappointment. Its avionics were absolutely 1970 state of the art, but it's not the 1970s anymore. So the Navy couldn't use an upgraded Tomcat? The old one had longer legs than the newer Bug. You're not understanding what we're saying. The Tomcat was built for a role it would never fill. It was shoehorned into other things, like flying ISR and moving mud, but it was never particularly good at any of them, and its airframe was an absolute piece of shit. "upgraded" isn't a word you'd use for it, you'd have had to develop a brand new plane -- which the Navy did, and they called it the Rhino, and now we've got JSF. You know Rhino is not just an upgraded F/A-18A, right? It was a whole new plane, designed for what the Navy needed at the time with the understanding the Tomcat was done. There's never been a need for an "upgraded Tomcat", because the Tomcat never really did the job it was designed to do in the first place. I'm sure it would have had more use if the cold war had ever turned hot, but thank god it didn't, because the Phoenix was not at all what it was cracked up to be, and we'd probably have lost a battle group or two before we figured that out. The Tomcat was a purpose built AIM-54 carrier. That was its purpose -- to ferry Phoenix missiles as far out from the battle group as it could and launch them at incoming Soviet aircraft before they could launch their ASCMs. |
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With the same payload? What if the Tomcat had upgraded engines over the "D" model? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Employ modern weapons. Dogfight. Tank. Decreased maintenance. The Tomcat was a long range interceptor designed to fly against soviet bombing raids and shoot them down hundreds of miles away from the CVN with a missile that turned out to be a massive disappointment. Its avionics were absolutely 1970 state of the art, but it's not the 1970s anymore. So the Navy couldn't use an upgraded Tomcat? The old one had longer legs than the newer Bug. With the same payload? What if the Tomcat had upgraded engines over the "D" model? With less payload, actually, because the -35 can actually carry things slick instead of cluttering itself up. |
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Employ modern weapons. Dogfight. Tank. Decreased maintenance. The Tomcat was a long range interceptor designed to fly against soviet bombing raids and shoot them down hundreds of miles away from the CVN with a missile that turned out to be a massive disappointment. Its avionics were absolutely 1970 state of the art, but it's not the 1970s anymore. View Quote |
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Oh also...
http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-history-combat-01.htm Watching them drop bombs in 03 was pretty rad. Our FAC said they were pretty hot shit for PGM's. |
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You. Can't. Simply. Put. New. Engines. On. With less payload, actually, because the -35 can actually carry things slick instead of cluttering itself up. View Quote Different brands even. Just have to be an American to do so, not an American't. |
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