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The fantastic F-14 Tomcat


jonesy1275
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I thought I'd share some photos I took of the Tomcats final embark whilst onboard the USS Theodore roosevelt back in July 2006. VF-31 Tomcatters was on exercise off the coast of the Carolinas where I spent the last two days of Tomcat carrier ops photographing the action.

 

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The last ever launch of a Tomcat off a carrier...

 

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I hope you like them.

 

Neil.

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Hard to believe that this superb, awesome plane is no longer in service with the USN. It's still much better than most of the stuff flown by "the bad guys"!!

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Cobrahistorian

Fantastic pics! Sadly the Tomcat was more of a liability than an asset by the early 2000s. It was outclassed by many other platforms, and even though it had a new lease on life as a bomb truck (and a pretty good one), 15 maintenance hours per flight hour was getting far too costly to continue it in service.

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It's still much better than most of the stuff flown by "the bad guys"!

That's right.

 

The Bad Guys have got one F-14A from Iran but they were unable to copy such a state-of-the-art plane as they did it in the case of B-29.

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I thought I'd share some photos I took of the Tomcats final embark whilst onboard the USS Theodore roosevelt back in July 2006.

Neil,

 

Thanks a lot! Fantastic images with great historical value.

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Fantastic pics! Sadly the Tomcat was more of a liability than an asset by the early 2000s. It was outclassed by many other platforms, and even though it had a new lease on life as a bomb truck (and a pretty good one), 15 maintenance hours per flight hour was getting far too costly to continue it in service.

 

I am an old Tomcat maintainer, and we had some airframes that were averaging over 60 maintenance man-hours per 1 hour of flight. The AWG-9 radar was a plumbing nightmare. Beautiful aircraft, no doubt, but she was a b@tc& to maintain. Those are some awesome pics, Thanks for posting.

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These are great shots of a sad moment in Naval Aviation history. The F-14 is my favorite aircraft. Period.

 

I shot a few back in '89 when I spent a week aboard the Ranger.

 

VF-2 Bounty Hunters - at the moment of trap

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Fired up, awaiting release of the catapult:

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I am an old Tomcat maintainer, and we had some airframes that were averaging over 60 maintenance man-hours per 1 hour of flight. The AWG-9 radar was a plumbing nightmare. Beautiful aircraft, no doubt, but she was a b@tc& to maintain. Those are some awesome pics, Thanks for posting.

 

 

Whoaa... Now I understand better why they retired it.

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I thought I'd share some photos I took of the Tomcats final embark whilst onboard the USS Theodore roosevelt back in July 2006. VF-31 Tomcatters was on exercise off the coast of the Carolinas where I spent the last two days of Tomcat carrier ops photographing the action.

 

I hope you like them.

 

Neil.

 

 

Very cool, thanks for sharing. Great photos from a great photo opp!

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