wabpilot

No prob JA.

The F-14 was designed to do a couple of things really well, and Grumman snuck in a few other benefits along the way. The F-14 is a great fleet air defense fighter. It hauls lots of missiles and lots of fuel and a good sensor set. The AIM-54Cs are supposed to be maneuverable enough to take down a fighter. That's one of those "it depends" kind of things. The 54C is no Sparrow or AIM-120 and it's in no way shape or form a Sidewinder. Still, it can bust up a fighter raid and do some damage. Close up, the 54C is worthless. I'd jettison it in a WVR fight. What the F-14 does really well is shoot down bombers, bomb laden fighters and cruise missiles. That is the primary mission and a mission for which only the F-18F comes reasonably close to performing. Even the F-15C won't kill cruise missiles like the F-14 can. And the F-14 can stay on station 250 miles from the deck for two hours without refueling. In short, mission one is to build a barrier that forces any enemy to launch his missiles at long range. Mission two is to attrit those missiles so the inner ring air defenses do not get overwhelmed. The AIM-54C and AIM-7 will do that better than any other pair of missiles out there. Mission three is to fight against any MiG-23 or earlier fighters and win every time. It will do that very well.

The problem for the F-14 comes against the MiG-29 and Su-27 types. They are both smaller and more maneuverable. Although neither has the avionics capability of the F-14. (Especially the F-14D.) By the time the MiG-29 was available to us for evaluation, my report from 1982 about our boys flying our plane not always being able to beat our boys flying their planes was proved out. Normally we can defeat any Soviet/Russian fighter out there, but not always.

The F-15 is a different problem for the F-14. Unlike the MiGs and Sukhois, the F-15 has great avionics. The pilot workload is much lower for the F-15 than in the F-14, allowing the pilot to concentrate his efforts on the opponent. The F-15 has some dangerous points on the performance envelope, but the flight management computer takes care of those. That is not the case with the F-14. The naval aviator has to spend a lot more mental effort on aircraft control. Couple the F-15's better avionics with its better maneuverability and it is a very difficult adversary for the F-14.

The F-18 and to a lesser extent F-16 are even more manueverable than the F-15. They are both designed with that intent and the US got what it asked for. In any given WVR engagement, an F-18 should be able to gain position on an F-14 within two turns. It's that stark. Like I said earlier, BTDT, got the t-shirt.

Another fighter pilot and I were having a discussion about the USAF's wall of Eagles. He, an F-16 driver, and I agreed that neither his mount, nor mine at the time had much of a chance with only AIM-7s. With AIM-120s and a two to one advantage, he thought a few F-16s might survive an encounter with a wall of Eagles. I think the same is true for the F-14, although with our ability to turn and burn, I think there would be more survivors. With the AIM-54C, I think we might be able to scatter enough Eagles to push through a strike. But, to keep the hole open, it would cost us dearly. I doubt we could get our attack types back. The Eagles would run us off and kill them at their leisure. The only real way to bust through a wall of Eagles is to somehow get their AWACS. And how to do that, I will not discuss.

I saw four F-15As take out 11 adversaries. Four Mirge IVs escorted by seven Mirage F1s. Thankfully, no frogs were harmed. Just some massively wounded egos. The Mirage IV drivers were particularly disheartened, as they fully expected to be able to penetrate our minimized wall of Eagles and deliver their nukes. The ROE were changed for the next day, denying me and my gang the use of our AIM-54s. The results were a little different, one F1 got through, though only as a cruise missile substitute. The F1 was targeted by not one, not two but three different SM-1s leading the umpires to rule that he did not hit our NATO amphibious fleet. Again, no actual frogs were harmed, only their egos.