Glad I found this video, as I was an enlisted F-15 Radar/INS technician working the ACEVAL/AIMVAL Air Force Blue Force, got the patch too. One thing I noted, the Navy said they maintained those Tomcats with no contracted help. On the Air Force side we got plenty of McDonnell Douglas contractor help. Our Eagles were brand new and modified to have what went into the F-15C models later. For 1977 that was some amazing tech.
Huge difference between maintaining an Eagle at an AFB and a Tomcat on a carrier at sea. Salt water, availability of parts, limited space, constant pitching and rolling, swept wing for the 'Cat, hard landings and catapult take-offs - never considered your comment on contractor availability though. I wonder if the so-called Sea Eagle ever got into production if it would had issues as well.
F-14A averaged anywhere from 40-60 MMH/FH and had some of its worst recorded mx hours early in its service life. I think you’re referencing the APG-63 Programmable Signals Processor upgrade that became standard in the F-15C, and back-filled into A models. Another interesting thing about this film that isn’t mentioned is the Helmet-Cueing System they were testing after years of the Honeywell VTAS/AIM-9G in the F-4J. Notice the HMCS at 1:34, 6:45, 10:17, and 19:05. There’s another point where I saw an umbilical, but I can’t find it.
The Navy had three maintenance levels, Squadron, Intermediate and Depot levels. Squadron level was the only level that was 100% Navy. Intermediate and Depot level utilized some contracted maintenance.
I was in, in 1987 stationed at Luke AFB, AZ. We had 15 C's and D's. When I was leaving in Dec '88 we was just getting E models. The 461st TFTS was the first of our squadrons to get them. The F-15 is just a badass, ass kickin' aircraft. It has never been shot down in combat. THE EAGLE... Such a fitting name for it. A true bird of prey. I will always be partial to the Eagle
Yeah but we all know for a fact those tomcats had contractors crawling all over em when back home off the carrier. My dad flew f4s off carriers in Vietnam and for many years later. He said when back home the aircraft would be thoroughly inspected and worked on after every carrier deployment
1972 I was 9 years old...we were driving through the Mojave desert in our GMC Camper I'm up top and all of a sudden this roar was coming fast! I scrambled down and just as I stuck my head through the crawlspace 3 TOMCATS about 50 feet over us ( the camper lurched forward then side to side) all 3 point at the ceiling and hit afterburners! My Dad looking up yells out " WE GOT JETS NOW MOTHERFUCKERS! GIVE ME ANOTHER BEER IVAN! " America didn't have jets when Dad was a Combat engineer Amphibious island Hopper WWII US ARMY! 14 Beach head landing's! Purple Heart
The F-14 "proved to be a very maintainable aircraft." Look, I miss the Tomcat as much as anybody, but we also need to face facts: it was a maintenance nightmare.
Well that's what happens after decades of hard living that is shipboard life. I'm really confused where you're coming from the oldest airframes weren't even a decade old when this was shot. It was anything but a maintenance nightmare back then. 30ish years later only a fool would be surprised the amount of maintenance issues it had. And being honest it was fucking Amazing the A's and B's only needed the amount of maintenance they did need towards the end. I don't know your history no idea if you're a veteran that's lived around these things or a civilian who only knows what he's read. So most of this is for people that are newly interested in this and know next to nothing. So for those that don't know the A was NEVER intended to be a large production run, the TF-30 was NEVER intended to be in the aircraft for more than a few years. If I remember correctly the intention maybe make up the RAG squadrons and worst case like a few squadrons and only a few years. It was basically like taking the prototype then mass producing that. So ease of maintenance and longevity had no thought given to them. If anyone can give an example of a prototype or EMD level aircraft that did then by all means post it up. Should you only find one then it should be fairly obvious it was a foolish waste. Prototypes have short life's. The D model however got the time and attention paid to it and it's reliability at the end shows it. Yes it was also a much younger airframe so it's youth also helped in that regard just like the A's when they were young, BUT it was just a small component. It was never considered the Tomcats greatest enemy would be its own government followed by the chair err.. airforce. There were enough people in the government that hated it that's really a miracle the availability rate of the A and B was as good as it was at the end with the amount of government neglect it endured. And the airforce did everything they could to screw the F401 up and knew damn well what could happen with the TF-30's they were perfectly fine with the knowledge aircrew would die or be crippled because of it. There's so much more I could write but don't have the time. The Tomcats story is a million miles from simple and two million miles from short. It's story deserves to be told the majority of people really don't much at all about the Tomcat and that needs to change the plane deserves better. I've spent 35 years reading, watching things about it, spent 7 years in the Navy and realizing what I thought I knew back when I was a civie was really nothing. 35 years and new truths to still learn daily. The community is finally starting to talk and are actively shedding a lot of light on things.
I worked F-15Cs in the early 90s. Amazing aircraft. I am not sure what this video had to do with the F-15. This is really an F-14 tactics vs the AIM-9L video.
I guess they were not allowed to really discuss the eagles in that video. All they could do were some shots at the ground and the hint that they outperformed the Tomcats.
@@TomcatE303 Can definitely kill them before they even engage, but if the Eagle manages to get up close and personal, it's gonna be rough for the Tomcat
Not a chance. The only thing the tomcat had on the eagle back then was multi target tracking (not engagement, tomcat could engage more than one at a time). Over the years, that changed for both. They could both eventually track and engage multiple targets.
Guess I missed the Tomcat vs. Eagle part?! Sure, I saw F-15's taxi about, saw F-14's fly against Northrop F-5E's, figure subject of this video better named - F-14 Tomcat vs F-5 Tiger II at Nellis.
@12:02 that's a young Joe "Hoser" Satrapa wow! He took out 2 F-15s twice in row and there's video to prove it and they were canopy shots lol.. one the BEST! GO NAVY!! RIP HOSER
I find it incredible that any pilot ever understood what was being communicated through that radio. It's poetic static, nothing else. You can understand a few numbers and that's it.
After a short time, one gets used to hearing the muffled voices. Once you’re used to the job and the lexicon associated with it, your mind fills in the unintelligible parts.
It is really very easy. We actually had classes on radio brevity. A lot of what you are hearing is braa (bearing, range, altitude and aspect calls) either from the reporting aircraft or in reference to a anchor point in space.
@@gtc1961 F-14As in the fleet only flew with tanks for ferry flights until the early 1980s. It changed the launch and recovery schedule once they started using the EFTs.
@@gtc1961 VF-1 and VF-2 flew F-14A's without tanks during their early cruises except when they needed to stay on station (ex CAP during evacuation of Hanoi)
As a twelve year old in 72 my world centered around the plane we saw it land and take off and homestead Air Force Base was the F-4 Phantom. Some of my buddies loved the 104. I always saw it as a dart not much to look at.
" *Designed at another time for another mission* , the swing wing, long range interceptor more than held its own in the close-in 30 mile air combat arena at Nellis" Strange to hear that in a documentary from 1975, given that when the 1975 edition of ACEVAL/AIMVAL took place, not even a full year had elapsed since the F-14`s very first deployment with the US Navy aboard the carrier USS Enterprise (Sept. 22nd 1974).
Your right and one of the pilots with a mustache said near the end of the video he's been flying F4 and F-14s for 10 years 🤔 I guess he was referring to F4s 🤷🏻♂️
It was designed for another time and another mission. It was the ultimate fruition of two decades of interceptor design which started with the F6D Missileer nearly 20 years previously… through the F3H, F-4, and F-111B… carrying a missile system that was likewise steeped in history from Hughes via the F-101 and YF-12 interceptors. Grumman did a crash program on the F-14 from its experience with the F-111B and the only other high performance naval aircraft it was producing at the time, the A-6, because the last fighter they had made for the US Navy was the F11F back in the late 50s. That it could hold its own was more of a fluke than anything, perhaps a byproduct of being able to unsweep its wings and having a lifting body to offset the massive weight and poor thrust. All other variable geometry fighters like the Mig-23 and Panavia Tornado either suffered horribly in dog fights or were dedicated interceptors or ground attack aircraft. There’s a reason why we don’t see them today. The Eagle was designed with light wing loading and massive thrust to weight as a near complete departure from US fighter design. The F-4 had the high thrust.. but not the wing to match because it was designed for sheer speed as the F-14 was. There’s a reason why the F-15 is still being made today while the F-14 is a museum piece.
I’m curious about the cockpit mock-up shown at 14:32 It looks like a proposed F-14 variant with a digital cockpit with 4 MFDs, but I wonder what it is. It might simply be a technology demonstrator program only loosely related to the F-14, but I’m happy to learn more about it.
That is the mockup of what Grumman planned to be the F-14C. Early in the program, Grumman planned to build approximately 30 or so F-14A versions, at which time the F401 engine would be available and production would be the F-14B. They would then follow up with the F-14C that included digital avionics upgrades, expanded modes for the AWG-9 including air to surface, fly by wire flight controls, and other refinements. Obviously this never materialized, as cuts were made to the program and the F-14A remained in production until 1987. Other pictures of that mockup have surfaced over time. I think it was eventually reworked into a configuration that represented what actually became the F-14D cockpit. I wonder what happened to the mockup.
That is the F-14C (yes, C) proposal Grumman had in the original buildout of the F-14 program. The F-14A, was going to be the early production runs, as we saw. Limited to about 50 or so to get training aircraft to the Navy. The F-14B was going to be "the model" they built out based upon the navalized variant of the P&W F100 (designated: P&W F401) engine. It would otherwise share the AWG-9 and associated avionics of the F-14A. The Final variant was the F-14C which was to feature a modernized cockpit for the 80's and 90's, expanded mission computers, and expanded A2G capability with a new, improved radar. What happened was the original P&W F100 engine had some huge teething problems which delayed it's success until the mid 1970s. By then, Grumman and the Navy opted to continue F-14A production and axed the original F-14 development plan. The Navy tested the GE F101 Derivative Fighter Engine and liked it a lot but lacked funding to make the upgrade to the fleet. Eventually, the DFE gave way to the GE F110 engines which would eventually be selected to be added to the F-14. This created the F-14A+, later redesignated to the F-14B. The planned cockpit upgrades and avionics upgrades for the F-14C would eventually find their way into the F-14D program, but were scaled back somewhat compared to the original C proposal. Four MFD's gave way to just two up front. The integration of the IRST and eventual cancellation of AIM-120 integration in favor of LANTIRN/PTID/JTIDS/Link16, and so on. No F-14C's were ever produced. A combination of politics, peace dividends, and a nearly bankrupt Grumman killed off any hope of seeing Grumman's 1990's proposed F-14E/F variants... the ASF-14 and ST-21 concepts were brilliant, but significant doubt on Grumman's ability to deliver on the promises within budget and on time, in combination with a certain politician (Dick Cheney) having a massive hard on for killing off the F-14 in favor of Boeing products (a decision which later hampered the US Navy's carriers) murdered all hope of ever seeing a truly modernized F-14. The thing is, the airframe is stupid capable aerodynamically, but alas, we got Super Hornets instead.
@@Whiskey11Gaming F-14A LRIP was only supposed to be 13, then later 17 birds until the F401-PW-400 was to be the power plant for full-rate production F-14B as you said. They spent hundreds of millions of early 1970s money on that F401, which I think gutted a lot of the budget for planned upgrades to the F-14 in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. There are some interesting documents from the early 1970s about all of that. The money spent on F401 was astronomical.
That's fascinating, so GE kind of came to the rescue of the Tomcat right? I didn't know P&W had such problems, so you know where I can learn more about that history?
This was a great look at the early days of these aircrafts. The only other thing I wanna say is about the nostalgia for the early 80s I get when I hear 70s-era music like this 6:36. That kind of music played in a lot of shows made in the 70s which I watched as an 80s kid.
For close-in dogfights, the radar automatically acquires enemy aircraft, and this information is projected on the head-up display. The F-15's electronic warfare system provides both threat warning and automatic countermeasures against selected threats.
Did the 1970s and 1980s versions do this? With the F-15 they are still doing avionics upgrades. I read somewhere that the latest version of the F-15 has avionics more advanced than the F-22.
@@Chris_at_Home They were always working on getting the F-15A’s TEWS to perform more advanced tasks in the EW set, but information about it was never discussed openly then or now. A lot of the wish-list deficiencies from TEWS played into ASPJ, which the F-14D got. ASPJ-like capabilities were baseline for the Super Hornet. F-15EX is not more advanced than the F-22, since F-22 has closed-loop integrated avionics suite with far more embedded sensors in the airframe like an EW aircraft blended with a fighter. No F-15 will ever have the integrated sensor count of an early lot Raptor even. F-22 is built for ease of hardware upgrades as well for processors and sensors.
That's my understanding as well, but I think those early version were just too cumbersome and not at all reliable, otherwise they would've been fielded much sooner. I was with VF-101 and VF-142 in the early to mid 80s and I never saw those kinds of helmets at all.
VTAS II (Visual Target Acquisition System). The VTAS interfaced with the Sidewinder Expanded Acquisition Mode (SEAM) installed in US Navy fighter aircraft to exploit the advanced lock-on possibilities in the AIM-9G Sidewinder air-to-air missile.
I remember seeing my first one in 1972 when went over my head right after it took off as I was walking to the chow hall at Pax River NAS. I was there for P-3 training. My son hooked Tomcats up to the cats on the GW in the mid 1990s.
F-14A performed very well in the 70s when they were brand new. Some of them could scream to Mach 2.5+ in maintenance check flights as some pilots have vouched. They also had very high operational readiness in the 70s. Some of the A model that were tuned high could even accelerate vertically like the F-14 B/D could. However, P&W engines had poor long term sustainability and also were de-tuned in the 90s at slow speeds (static thrust) for better stall margins at very slow speeds/high alpha with a mid-compresion by pass valve installed (MCB). Also, the airframe age was another thing when F-14 B/D came along (many of the B/D were converted from old A airframes). All of this contributed to the maintenance issues especially once Grumman went bankrupt.
Greetings from Dominican Republic 🇩🇴 Mike Guardia excelent video and documentary of f-15 eagle vs f-14 tomcat in the combat air simulated en el us naval miramar also of missile with systems electroptic in the exercise
It was a big mistake for the F-14 guys to cede the long range shots. I was a Tomcat guy and almost every time we fought F-15s, 16s, 18s, F-5s, etc were were almost always hamstrung with "no Phoenix" rules, or forced into a range that was only 40 miles. Sure, going to the merge and short range shots are more fun, but if you have a big stick, use your big stick. And I'm not talking about half the time, or even most of the time. We rarely (90%) used Phoenix in "tactical" air-air training, and when we did it was often limited to one long-range shot with no kill removal.
Did it ever work in practice? I remember AF friends commenting on how bad it actually was and the few times fired in combat, didn't work. Sad to think Iranians were the only successful users IF you believe their own records.
Unfortunately, the phoenix was useless against those airframes. The phoenix was great against the non maneuvering bomber aircraft for which it was designed, but one good turn from a fighter type aircraft and the missile was defeated.
1975 - Shows how far ahead they were and are in their thinking as to the shape of future air combat and technologies. Makes you shudder to think what's under the bench waiting to appear on the scene today and as to how it will alter the face of air combat.
Very Good video. The computer generated view of the fight in real time is for me the most interesting part, I had no Idea it was available that early in the 70', I thought it was 80' technology. The US was so far ahead of everybody else then....
Tons of people in the comments don't understand this video, but the part at @10:10 is most important. The F-14's radar and avionics suite was really bad at BVR IFF, and coupling this with long range weapons was stupid. This is why none of them flew air dominance sorties starting in 1991. The Visual ID requirements, maintenance costs, poor stall/spin characteristics, and randomly exploding mid-flight is why the F-14 was retired, and it's never coming back while we still buy New F-15s today.
Well, I think the real crux is that F14, unlike F15, wasn't an air superiority fighter. It was a long range fleet defense interceptor. In this primary role, it simply didn't need complex integrated IFF capability. So within that context, as was designed, coupling long range weapons to long range radar with good enough IFF for that purpose totally makes sense. What wouldn't make sense would be to push it into air dominance role in an environment that it wasn't designed for. Indeed, F15 was much better suited for that, because that was exactly what it was designed for. This was ultimately solved with F14D, but as you correctly point out, there was ton of other reasons why it simply didn't make sense to keep F14 in service. It's a gorgeous plane, but it's entire concept was outdated at that point.
F-15- истребитель завоевания господства в воздухе, а F-14- перехватчик бомбардировщиков на дальних дистанциях. Этим все сказано. F-15 - вне конкуренции! Он лучший!
All true but they would have kept them if it wasnt for $. Hence the Hornet, which was the replacement, was quickly upgraded to the much bigger super hornet, while all the mission specific airframes were retired
@@jyy9624 Tomcat was doomed long before the end of cold war and start of budget cuts. It badly needed fielding outside USN for future influx of funds for upgrades and sharing the cost of additional platform development. You can draw a similar line with Raptor. It will be retired way before fighter it was supposed to replace is gone.
Wow! Was this a hidden gem from that early AIM-9L period! There must have been relief when the AMRAAM finally came on line, and the finicky Sparrow was fazed out. Thank You!
This is where the AIM-9L came from. AIM-9E2, AIM-9G, and AIM-9P were proliferated in the US fleet at the time. AIM-9G was a Helmet-Cued missile as well starting with the F-4J VTAS. If you look at this video at 1:34, 6:45, 10:17, and 19:05, you will see Helmet-Cueing System helmets. These were one of the things tested in AIMVAL that rarely get any mention. The helmets you see in this video were far more advanced than the older Helmets used in the F-4J VTAS program, which was pretty hush-hush.
Aimval aceval was not f14 vs f15. But f14/15 vs f5s as red air. It says this in the fist 60 seconds. There were unofficial fights of f15 vs 14 but they were strictly forbidden. If you can find Hosers book he talks about it or log into the tomcat association forums. Hoser Satrapa himself recounted many stories from this before his passing.
The entire point of this evaluation was High Cost but Low Numbers vs Low Cost High Numbers. Quality vs Quantity. And the justification for the F-16 Program was to pump up the numbers at a significantly lower cost than the F-15.
ACEVAL/AIMVAL was from 1974 to 1978 using pre-production F-15A's and production F-14A's. McDonnell Douglas had contractors on site to help the F-15 crews, but they had been flying the F-15A since 1972 while the F-14A was already a "mature" product.
(paraphrase) F-14 pilot: "We had to get within that lethal environment(within the F-5E's all aspect heater WEZ) in order to satisfy the test's requirement for Visual Identification(VID) prior to weapons engagement." If they only knew just how real this test's parameters would be in regards to the F-14A & B service some 15 years later during Desert Storm. The Rules Of Engagement(ROE) that the F-14 fought under required a VID prior to weapons engagement. this was due to a variety of reasons, one of them being the Tomcat's Identify-Friend or Foe (IFF) equipment wasn't robust enough for unlimited Beyond Visual Range(BVR) engagements. Constant upgrade support for the F-15 left the Eagle superior in this arena. During ACEVAL-AIMVAL- the big jets(-14 & -15) would easily get a Sparrow shot off, but because they were Semi-Active missiles requiring RADAR illumination from the firing aircraft until warhead detonation-thus limiting the firing jet's maneuvering, the smaller, Red Team F-5 would snap off an all-aspect heat seeking/fire/forget missile thus resulting in a mutual kill of both jets. Having MiGs and F-14/15 killing each other at 1:1 ratios is far from ideal for the Blue team.
VID restrictions were part of all of the air tasking ROE in Desert Storm, not just for the F-14... NCTR was seen as horribly unreliable, as was IFF transponder codes. Combine that with USAF controlling air tasking over the AO and shock, the USAF assets got a lot of play time while Navy jets stayed out in the Gulf providing FAD/CAP to the boats... which was kind of their role to begin with.
@@Whiskey11Gaming There was also the attempted shoot-down of an A-6E by an F-14A crew early in the air war, which relegated that unit to Fleet Defense over the Red Sea around the Carrier. USAF E-3A operator intervened to get them to check-fire and likely saved lives that night from fratricide. AWG-9 sucked over land. APG-63 is superb over land when it comes to look-down/shoot-down, and was about 10 years ahead of the power curve compared to AWG-9 since AWG-9 development was rooted in the 3rd Generation.
To me comparing these 2 in their orignal plan is like comparing night and day...the F-14 originally designed to fly ahead of the fleet and shoot down attack aircraft before they got anywhere near the ships and the F-15 designed as a dogfighter..to take the fight to enemy fighters and get down and dirty with them.
It's a bit of a misnomer to say the F-14 wasn't designed to get down and dirty with enemy fighters... it was an air superiority fighter which happened to be carrier based and had unique requirements set upon it. It has the tightest turn radius of any of the US 4th Gen Aircraft (F-14 through F/A-18) and the turn rate to match an F-16C at 1.5g less. That's not an atribute of a single purpose aircraft. While the F-15's air superiority legs would ultimately be flexed in the 90's, it was used almost exclusively as an interceptor in North America prior to that, and limited to single target engagements only using the AIM-7. When the AIM-120 came out, the F-15 was able to flex it's wings a bit more. Both aircraft are VERY capable, and it really comes down, cliche as it is, to the person flying it. A famous example was a 2v2 F-14A vs F-15C at Nellis in which a famous picture of an F-15 in the gun pipper of an F-14A HUD was taken... the F-14As took on two F-15C's in BFM and won... Joe "Hoser" Satrapa was a hell of a pilot, and his exploits were well known. That particular image from that incident almost cost McDonnell Douglas the Japanese F-15 contract.
@@Whiskey11Gaming F-14 was fleet air defense and air superiority, so it had to beat the Bear and Badger, their cruise missiles, and the MiG-21. F-15 was primarily a forward-based air superiority fighter in USAFE and PACAF, as well as the NORAD mission set taking over as we phased out the F-106s in ADC. For every F-15 in an F-14 HUD, there were about 4x F-14s getting simulated guns. F-15 FWS guys didn’t mess around in BVR or BFM, and were extremely cutthroat. Fight pilots being what they are will not come back and accurately relay the overall stats of the BFM sorties. When TOPGUN needed competent instructors to run their F-16N initial Radar training, they hand-selected F-15C FWS patch wearers to go through an accelerated F-16 conversion with them at Luke, then come to Miramar and teach how to imply the Radar the way F-15C guys were known for on the BVR timeline. USN had no experience with this because up until that time, it was all 2-men crews who had fighters with a capable BVR Radar and the pilots weren’t driving the Radar.
They never should have retired the Tomcat. With modernization it would still be a very capable aircraft today. Imagine a modernized Tomcat at 60,000 feet going Mach 2, firing AIM-260s guided in by data link. Or, better yet, modernized versions of the Phoenix dropping down from space at Mach ridiculous.
13:50 "If the AIM-7 had been a launch-and-leave missile or if he could have been able to fire his AIM-54 missile, which is launch-and-leave, the situation would have been entirely different." Emphasizes just how important full active RADAR homing missiles, ie AIM-120 really is. active guidance, great range while fitting within the confines of the AIM-7 silhouette and weighing approx. 150 pounds less. Heck you can even mount the things on the wingtips stations of f-16s and WITHIN the confines of Raptors and Lightning-2s. Hornet vs. Tomcat "encounters" changed substantially once AIM-120 reached the fleet in the early 90's. USAF officially adopting it in late 1991, post Desert Storm.
The AIM-120 was slated for F-14 integration. In fact, it was early F-14A's at China Lake which helped develop the Track While Scan capabilities of the AIM-120A since the F-14 was uniquely capable at the time of supporting such a fire mode. There are even videos of AIM-120A's being launched from an F-14A. Had politics, mostly Dick Cheney, not destroyed the F-14D modernization, the F-14D would still be on carriers today, only now being replaced by F-35C's. An F-14D with AIM-120's mounted conformally like the AIM-7 was is going to be one slick and formidable fighter, never mind AIM-9X/JHMCS added to that list.
@@Whiskey11Gaming F-14D test pilots said they had unforeseen aerodynamic problems with the AIM-120 during separation tests. The thing that really destroyed the F-14 fleet modernization was the MMH/FH required to keep it flying and the 2 crew requirement. Great platform for expanding the mission sets, but hampered by the complexity of the FLCS, the outdated wiring harness architecture, hydraulic leaks, structural issues especially with the landing gear that weren’t identified until later in its service life, brakes always failing, etc. All of this represented significant risk to the Navy that was seen at the DoD level and cut into O&M costs for the whole fleet. That’s why they leaned to the Super Bug.
Charlie Slammers didn't come into being until 1996 if memory serves. And A's and B's were nowhere near as capable. By the time anyone had any meaningful quantities of C AMRAAMs, the F-14 was relegated to mud moving duties.
The Tomcat was a beast of a plane. And boy was she beautiful. She had it all. What a shame we had to do away with her because of the regime change in Iran. She was gone way before her time.
It was Chaney, not the Pentagon that killed the Tomcat. She was a danger to his pox faced baby: Hornet; which failed all it's trials and never exceeded at anything.
A long range weapon isn’t of much use when rules of engagement (ROE) require visual confirmation of enemy targets. Additionally, having to request permission to fire adds an additional level of complication that reduces the effective employment of weapon systems.
This was a great video from the 1970’s, it showed how we were training for a future conflict with the Soviets. But it seemed to have some biased towards the F-14 in its maintenance requirements. After the USSR fill the Navy was fairly quick to retire the Tomcat. Also, during the first Gulf war in 1991, the Eagles proved to be even more reliable than the Airforce even believed. Not to mention their kill ratio. But I’ll skip the whole thing in this video about identity before shooting? Geez!
It also has an internally mounted, tactical electronic-warfare system, "identification friend or foe" system, electronic countermeasures set and a central digital computer.
Nice, did you copy this from Wikipedia? Why don't you tell me why you think it's better?I disagree with your opinion but the F-15 and F-14 are my favorite aircraft of all time. In my opinion the Tomcat is a superior aircraft.
@@luisangelotanoencarnacion2826 So what does this have to do with comparisons between the Navy and Airforce? If you're going to include all the international F-15 victories, why not include the F-14 victories for Iran?
@luisangelotanoencarnacion2826 Pretty easy to get lopsided scores when you are going up against an unwilling or incompetent opponent and only have sources from the winning side.
The F-14 and F-15 get out radius by an F/A-18, and the F-14 and F-15 get out rated by the F-16. And that is according to their real life Energy Maneuverability diagrams.
It did better in AIMEVAL/ACEVAL than the F-15 and getting a 2:1 advantage. Having said that, the engines it was designed for cane a decade later in F-14 B/D
@@VonHoffnung True, but it looked odd since they can only guide one at a time and none of them (might be a display resolution thing though) looked like they'd gone stupid.
@@1978dcn Ehh... the AIM-7 isn't locked to a single launch like you'd expect. Yes, you can only launch on one target, but the missile is looking at returns from the radar off of that one aircraft, so multiple AIM-7's being supported isn't impossible since it's not receiving anything from the launching aircraft directly. It's not like it is receiving mid course guidance via datalink to get on target, it's merely intercepting via radar reflections and thus is not limited in the number of missiles you could theoretically launch and support. That is in stark contrast to the AIM-54, of which only six could be supported (probably because only six could be carried :P) due to lack of additional channels to support the mid course guidance updates.
@@Whiskey11Gaming Ha! Glad to see your reply. I Was messing with DCS's F-14A the other day and accidentally Fox-1-ed two AIM-7s and both guided... first thing I thought was 'oh crap, I posted a comment saying this can't happen, didn't I?'.. Happy to see I was corrected when I came back just now. Your explanation was great, thanks. I've read a LOT about Tomcats since I was a kid but it's funny how much more you can learn by actually employing em, even in a sim.
Yup. During Functional Check Flights at high speeds, the outer sections ripped off due to a unique aerodynamic drag condition. They stopped installing them after that and went with the nozzle configuration most have seen throughout the F-15’s history.
@@pike100 Yes, the feathered panels that used to surround the variable diameter exhaust nozzles. Look at the exhaust nozzles of the new F-15EX in the below video at the twenty-two second mark. It has turkey feathers. ua-cam.com/video/S1FiruA5tEk/v-deo.html
When I hear this narrator or a similar timber and inflections, I know it's going to be a good documentary! Just imagining the actual capabilities of a modern day F-18 Super Hornet, F-16, F-22 and F-35 with modern computing and super fuzed bombs!
I feel sorry for those guys out at Nellis wearing all that heavy flight gear! I live in Las Vegas where Nellis AFB is located and it gets damn hot out here in the summer. Like easily 120-130 over the blacktop. It must be awful wearing that stuff before getting in the airplane.
I was a top gun instructor in 1986. The Top Cat was a miserable flying experience. Constantly breaking down, horrific cockpit, annoying WSO’s always nattering on about their girlfriends etc. When the documentary Top Gun came out I couldn’t believe the take on the F-14! Made it out to be invincible 😂😂
anyone else notice no markings on any of the tomcats? while i love the Tomcat even though i was USAF i belive this video to lean heavy on the cat.. vs the eagle.. and it was a Grumman produced video.
They talk of their new and improved "launch and leave IR missiles" (the AIM-9L) and its ability to take on enemy targets more easily than before. Today, the AIM-9X can be fired from the F-35 in ANY direction, even if the enemy target is behind it. I think the F-15EX might have the same capability. (I might be wrong.)
There is no year shown exactly wegen this movie was produced, But Program was flown until 1978. Interesting is, that the F-14s show the All grey Camouflage, used regularly only from 1981 or so onwards.... And they seem to have no national insignia.
The f-14 had a huge vantage as it was a perfect standoff aircraft, being using the phoenix missile that allowed it to destroy any aircraft it came up against, shame it's no longer being used and the UK had the option of buying them but the UK kept on with the tornado project instead, but this is now in past history as they are now no longer in service
The Air Force never flew Wildcats.. it was a Navy airplane from the start Also, there was no Airforce during WW2, it was the Army Air Corps (and they did not fly wildcats either) the US Airforce only became a seperate Service on 18 September 1947.
The message is clear - dogfight capability in a fighter has to be secondary (in design) in modern warfare. a 3 mission suvival rate at the merge is an unacceptable loss rate. They did it before all aspect weapons because they had to.
It's very striking how they emphasise the importance of standoff or beyond visual range capability as being the key thing. Nearly 50 years ago. And yet people even now question (just for example) the F-35 because it might not be quite the best-ever thing in a dogfight. Half a century!
@@villiamo3861 it’s a matter of concept. Or would be unwise to field an army of snipers and then have the strategy rely in that they will never get closer than 1/2 k. In war there are no absolutes. During Korea and Vietnam the air force thought the same, to the point where US though they were so superior air capable due to better missiles that for a time they even abandoned autocoannons in the F4 thinking hat missiles would keep bandits away. They were wrong, and learned a tough lesson. That’s why literally top gun was founded.
Informative documentary coverage video about characteristics of F-14 tomcat aircraft's 7:35 & F-15 aircraft....video introduced comparative evaluating of two excellent USA 🇺🇸 designed aircraft's...focused on TV 📺 technology enemy airplanes ✈️ identify in long ranges in F-14 ..thank you( 19:58 )( Mike Guardia) channel for sharing
12:50 fascinating! How the f-14 Not able to use a launch and leave missile like the Phoenix, had to track its semi-active sparrow missile all the way into the target coming head on, and so by the time they had to witness the tracking of the missile into the target, in this case an F5, you have five was already in the envelope to shoot and aim nine short range sidewinder at it which is a launch and leave missile. The F5 tiger would be destroyed but it would also take down the multi-million dollar tomcat as well, which as the narrator says is unacceptable. Given the numerical superiority of the Warsaw pact, we would need a much better kill to lost ratio than that
•’FUN FACT (well, maybe not so much for Navy fans)’• after the failed F-111B project, the Navy actually looked at getting the “F-15N” model Eagle because of it’s speed, maneuvering, and range. But the Eagle would have to be redesigned for Navy carrier uses (removing the Eagle’s radar and replacing it with the ones to work with the Phoenix missiles, changing the landing gear, etc) and wasn’t worth the cost. So the (clears throat) “settled” on the F-14!
That doesn't make any sense since the F-14 was selected as the Navy's aircraft before the program which lead to the F-15 had finalized it's choice on the F-15. The F-15N was entertained about as much as the ADCOM F-14 was entertained... the Navy concluded that a USAF aircraft forced to be modified for carrier use, would be significantly heavier and perform worse than a dedicated design. Similarly, the USAF looked at the F-14 and determined it was too heavily built for their needs. Add in a little of "not another US Navy Jet in the USAF" mentality and you get the F-15.
In my opinion a multi-mission avionics system sets the F-15 apart from other fighter aircraft. It includes a head-up display, advanced radar, inertial navigation system, flight instruments, ultrahigh frequency communications, tactical navigation system and instrument landing system.
In aimval aceval the f14 ended up with the highest kill ratio. They also had integrated TCS for and early VID. The eagles countered by bolting rifles scopes to the instrument coming. There were also unofficial 2 f15 vs 1 f14 engagements. The f14 won. Both services sent there best crews. I imagine the difference is cultural. The navy has more room to do what they want and come up with ideas, back then anyway.
@@tomhull4387 Desert Storm proved the opposite. The Turkey’s TCS was not good enough. The Eagles integrated IFF sensors were what was needed to operate in the airspace that featured planes from multiple allied forces. Due to this the F-15 was tasked the air dominance mission and took 32 of the 41 air to air kills. The Turkey was relegated to CAPs over the water and got one measly kill of a helicopter.
@@ejnavarro I think the Tomcat also had weaker/inferior RHAW/RWR gear at the time, compared to the Eagle, so it wasn't as survivable over Iraq as the Eagle was.
There is nothing about a multi-mission avionics set which sets the F-15 apart... in fact, the F-15A through D in US service lack all Air to Ground modes, which made it particularly SINGLE mission focused. It wouldn't be until the F-15E, in US service, that the Eagle saw those A2G modes utilized. Lots of F-15C stories from GWOT of pilots having to guess using manual gun modes to support troops on the ground and strafe targets. What DID hamper the F-15 early on was the lack of an Active Radar Homing missile. Something the F-14 had, and as a result, the F-14 actually was a better option for the USAF for the role the F-15 performed, which was bomber intercepts over Canada... but the USAF didn't want another Navy jet. That's not to say the F-15 isn't a great jet, it certainly is... but had the USAF looked at the requirements objectively, the F-14 would have been their fighter, and the F-15 would have been a footnote in the history books. It's also important to point out the F-15 lacked fighter to fighter datalink, and datalink in general, until the early 2000's in the F-15C/D fleet. The F-15A/B never got it. The F-14A had Datalink (Link4) in the 1970s and while it was seriously limited, it was something. The F-14D getting Link16/JTIDS in the 90's was huge too. Add in IRST on the F-14D, and you have quite the technology demonstrator. In fact, it was the F-14 which laid the ground work for the AIM-120 and Track While Scan multi target engagement modes of all other US aircraft. The AIM-120A cut it's teeth being launched from F-14A's at China Lake before TWS modes were added to the F-16 and F-15.
@@ejnavarro Ironic that the USAF was put in charge of air tasking and determined what was and wasn't the ROE... they set out requiring two forms of challenging before labeling bogey's (ambiguous, but probably hostile) as bandits (hostiles). This could be accomplished through NCTR and IFF Transponders, but it could also be done via VID. In fact, VID was effectively mandated dude to numerous near friendly fire incidents... the USAF determined the unreliability of NCTR and left them with little choice but to let non VID target's escape if radar contact was the only form of identification because of the lack of reliability of NCTR. The Tomcat is UNIQUELY capable in the VID arena due to being the only jet in the air outside of F-4E's and F-4G's in the AO, to have a TCS pod (the F-4E's and F-4G's had the same pod, incidentally). So yeah, the USAF forced F-14's to stay out over the ocean on FAD and prevented F/A-18's from being used as CAP due to lack of IFF Transponder interrogation (but they had NCTR!) when they ended up restricting their OWN aircraft to require VID or NCTR + IFF Transponder code identification before engaging. For further reading google: "Joint Operations in the Gulf War, An Allison Analysis" by USAF Maj. P. Mason Carpenter. It's a publicly available document which outlines the air tasking during Desert Storm and the limitations imposed on coalition aircraft. If you search for Visual Identification you'll find the sections which I reference above.
Glad I found this video, as I was an enlisted F-15 Radar/INS technician working the ACEVAL/AIMVAL Air Force Blue Force, got the patch too. One thing I noted, the Navy said they maintained those Tomcats with no contracted help. On the Air Force side we got plenty of McDonnell Douglas contractor help. Our Eagles were brand new and modified to have what went into the F-15C models later. For 1977 that was some amazing tech.
Huge difference between maintaining an Eagle at an AFB and a Tomcat on a carrier at sea. Salt water, availability of parts, limited space, constant pitching and rolling, swept wing for the 'Cat, hard landings and catapult take-offs - never considered your comment on contractor availability though. I wonder if the so-called Sea Eagle ever got into production if it would had issues as well.
F-14A averaged anywhere from 40-60 MMH/FH and had some of its worst recorded mx hours early in its service life. I think you’re referencing the APG-63 Programmable Signals Processor upgrade that became standard in the F-15C, and back-filled into A models. Another interesting thing about this film that isn’t mentioned is the Helmet-Cueing System they were testing after years of the Honeywell VTAS/AIM-9G in the F-4J. Notice the HMCS at 1:34, 6:45, 10:17, and 19:05. There’s another point where I saw an umbilical, but I can’t find it.
The Navy had three maintenance levels, Squadron, Intermediate and Depot levels. Squadron level was the only level that was 100% Navy. Intermediate and Depot level utilized some contracted maintenance.
I was in, in 1987 stationed at Luke AFB, AZ. We had 15 C's and D's. When I was leaving in Dec '88 we was just getting E models. The 461st TFTS was the first of our squadrons to get them.
The F-15 is just a badass, ass kickin' aircraft.
It has never been shot down in combat.
THE EAGLE... Such a fitting name for it. A true bird of prey.
I will always be partial to the Eagle
Yeah but we all know for a fact those tomcats had contractors crawling all over em when back home off the carrier. My dad flew f4s off carriers in Vietnam and for many years later. He said when back home the aircraft would be thoroughly inspected and worked on after every carrier deployment
I can't say it enough Mike, your channel is full of the most important Military Videos I've ever seen!
1972 I was 9 years old...we were driving through the Mojave desert in our GMC Camper I'm up top and all of a sudden this roar was coming fast! I scrambled down and just as I stuck my head through the crawlspace 3 TOMCATS about 50 feet over us ( the camper lurched forward then side to side) all 3 point at the ceiling and hit afterburners! My Dad looking up yells out " WE GOT JETS NOW MOTHERFUCKERS! GIVE ME ANOTHER BEER IVAN! "
America didn't have jets when Dad was a Combat engineer Amphibious island Hopper WWII US ARMY! 14 Beach head landing's! Purple Heart
Awesome story, thanks for sharing! And much respect to your father. Sounds like a hero.
Lol cool story!😂
Your pops wins the comment section for the day!!!😂
Nice
I'm so jelly
Today I learned Top Gun lied to me. We had in fact been that close to Mig 28s before.
😂😂😂😂😂😂 Yep!!!!!!
‘Sir, the soviets have done something they haven’t done before. They’ve started naming their planes with even numbers.’
‘MOTHER OF GOD!!! 😳’
@@Sir_Gugharde_Wuglis😂
@@Sir_Gugharde_Wuglis Su-24, Su-30, Su-34, Yak-38
@@Sir_Gugharde_Wuglis Nah they just put Tu-28 and MiG together (yes I know it was Tu-128)
The F-14 "proved to be a very maintainable aircraft." Look, I miss the Tomcat as much as anybody, but we also need to face facts: it was a maintenance nightmare.
You caught that too. XD
typical military industrial complex propoganda
Well that's what happens after decades of hard living that is shipboard life. I'm really confused where you're coming from the oldest airframes weren't even a decade old
when this was shot. It was anything but a maintenance nightmare back then.
30ish years later only a fool would be surprised the amount of maintenance issues it had.
And being honest it was fucking Amazing the A's and B's only needed the amount of maintenance they did need towards the end. I don't know your history no idea if you're a veteran that's lived around these things or a civilian who only knows what he's read. So most of this is for people that are newly interested in this and know next to nothing.
So for those that don't know the A was NEVER intended to be a large production run, the TF-30 was NEVER intended to be in the aircraft for more than a few years. If I remember correctly the intention maybe make up the RAG squadrons and worst case like a few squadrons and only a few years. It was basically like taking the prototype then mass producing that. So ease of maintenance and longevity had no thought given to them. If anyone can give an example of a prototype or EMD level aircraft that did then by all means post it up. Should you only find one then it should be fairly obvious it was a foolish waste. Prototypes have short life's.
The D model however got the time and attention paid to it and it's reliability at the end shows it. Yes it was also a much younger airframe so it's youth also helped in that regard just like the A's when they were young, BUT it was just a small component.
It was never considered the Tomcats greatest enemy would be its own government followed by the chair err.. airforce. There were enough people in the government that hated it that's really a miracle the availability rate of the A and B was as good as it was at the end with the amount of government neglect it endured. And the airforce did everything they could to screw the F401 up and knew damn well what could happen with the TF-30's they were perfectly fine with the knowledge aircrew would die or be crippled because of it.
There's so much more I could write but don't have the time. The Tomcats story is a million miles from simple and two million miles from short. It's story deserves to be told the majority of people really don't much at all about the Tomcat and that needs to change the plane deserves better. I've spent 35 years reading, watching things about it, spent 7 years in the Navy and realizing what I thought I knew back when I was a civie was really nothing. 35 years and new truths to still learn daily. The community is finally starting to talk and are actively shedding a lot of light on things.
This was before they shut down the production lines and destroyed all the tooling needed to manufacture spares.
Agreed
I worked F-15Cs in the early 90s. Amazing aircraft. I am not sure what this video had to do with the F-15. This is really an F-14 tactics vs the AIM-9L video.
THANK YOU.....I was expecting to see simulated combat F-14 vs F-15.....LOL.
I guess they were not allowed to really discuss the eagles in that video. All they could do were some shots at the ground and the hint that they outperformed the Tomcats.
@@pyroman83inf F-14A outperforms F-15A, there is a article of it.
@@TomcatE303 Can definitely kill them before they even engage, but if the Eagle manages to get up close and personal, it's gonna be rough for the Tomcat
Not a chance. The only thing the tomcat had on the eagle back then was multi target tracking (not engagement, tomcat could engage more than one at a time). Over the years, that changed for both. They could both eventually track and engage multiple targets.
Guess I missed the Tomcat vs. Eagle part?!
Sure, I saw F-15's taxi about, saw F-14's fly against Northrop F-5E's,
figure subject of this video better named - F-14 Tomcat vs F-5 Tiger II at Nellis.
@12:02 that's a young Joe "Hoser" Satrapa wow! He took out 2 F-15s twice in row and there's video to prove it and they were canopy shots lol.. one the BEST! GO NAVY!! RIP HOSER
I find it incredible that any pilot ever understood what was being communicated through that radio. It's poetic static, nothing else. You can understand a few numbers and that's it.
The mind filters it out and you can understand everything....
After a short time, one gets used to hearing the muffled voices. Once you’re used to the job and the lexicon associated with it, your mind fills in the unintelligible parts.
Does it really sound that staticy when live? Is a lot of it the terrible tape recorder and old, degreased tape being played now?
It is really very easy. We actually had classes on radio brevity. A lot of what you are hearing is braa (bearing, range, altitude and aspect calls) either from the reporting aircraft or in reference to a anchor point in space.
1:56 F-14A with false canopy and no EFT(External Fuel Tanks), a rarity. That's as clean as a Tomcat ever came.
Was thinking the same thing. Never seen a tomcat with a false canopy on it before.
Early block F-14s didn't normally use external tanks. They didn't start using them until the early to mid 1980s.
I was assigned to VF-32 for two years, never saw one without the tanks. Ever
@@gtc1961 F-14As in the fleet only flew with tanks for ferry flights until the early 1980s. It changed the launch and recovery schedule once they started using the EFTs.
@@gtc1961 VF-1 and VF-2 flew F-14A's without tanks during their early cruises except when they needed to stay on station (ex CAP during evacuation of Hanoi)
I grew up within walking distance of Nellis. Seeing all of the different aircraft come through was one of the best parts of my childhood.
As a twelve year old in 72 my world centered around the plane we saw it land and take off and homestead Air Force Base was the F-4 Phantom. Some of my buddies loved the 104. I always saw it as a dart not much to look at.
" *Designed at another time for another mission* , the swing wing, long range interceptor more than held its own in the close-in 30 mile air combat arena at Nellis"
Strange to hear that in a documentary from 1975, given that when the 1975 edition of ACEVAL/AIMVAL took place, not even a full year had elapsed since the F-14`s very first deployment with the US Navy aboard the carrier USS Enterprise (Sept. 22nd 1974).
Your right and one of the pilots with a mustache said near the end of the video he's been flying F4 and F-14s for 10 years 🤔 I guess he was referring to F4s 🤷🏻♂️
notice no fleet makings on any of the tails... fresh from the factory cats with top gun instructors id bet..
It was designed for another time and another mission. It was the ultimate fruition of two decades of interceptor design which started with the F6D Missileer nearly 20 years previously… through the F3H, F-4, and F-111B… carrying a missile system that was likewise steeped in history from Hughes via the F-101 and YF-12 interceptors. Grumman did a crash program on the F-14 from its experience with the F-111B and the only other high performance naval aircraft it was producing at the time, the A-6, because the last fighter they had made for the US Navy was the F11F back in the late 50s.
That it could hold its own was more of a fluke than anything, perhaps a byproduct of being able to unsweep its wings and having a lifting body to offset the massive weight and poor thrust. All other variable geometry fighters like the Mig-23 and Panavia Tornado either suffered horribly in dog fights or were dedicated interceptors or ground attack aircraft. There’s a reason why we don’t see them today.
The Eagle was designed with light wing loading and massive thrust to weight as a near complete departure from US fighter design. The F-4 had the high thrust.. but not the wing to match because it was designed for sheer speed as the F-14 was.
There’s a reason why the F-15 is still being made today while the F-14 is a museum piece.
Yep, my dad was part of VF-1 during that cruise (I was born Nov 1974). He served as the Navy Liaison with Grumman.
@@jayirving6996Brand new Block 90 Tomcats were flown from Long Island to Nellis.
I’m curious about the cockpit mock-up shown at 14:32
It looks like a proposed F-14 variant with a digital cockpit with 4 MFDs, but I wonder what it is. It might simply be a technology demonstrator program only loosely related to the F-14, but I’m happy to learn more about it.
That is the mockup of what Grumman planned to be the F-14C. Early in the program, Grumman planned to build approximately 30 or so F-14A versions, at which time the F401 engine would be available and production would be the F-14B. They would then follow up with the F-14C that included digital avionics upgrades, expanded modes for the AWG-9 including air to surface, fly by wire flight controls, and other refinements. Obviously this never materialized, as cuts were made to the program and the F-14A remained in production until 1987.
Other pictures of that mockup have surfaced over time. I think it was eventually reworked into a configuration that represented what actually became the F-14D cockpit. I wonder what happened to the mockup.
That is the F-14C (yes, C) proposal Grumman had in the original buildout of the F-14 program. The F-14A, was going to be the early production runs, as we saw. Limited to about 50 or so to get training aircraft to the Navy. The F-14B was going to be "the model" they built out based upon the navalized variant of the P&W F100 (designated: P&W F401) engine. It would otherwise share the AWG-9 and associated avionics of the F-14A. The Final variant was the F-14C which was to feature a modernized cockpit for the 80's and 90's, expanded mission computers, and expanded A2G capability with a new, improved radar.
What happened was the original P&W F100 engine had some huge teething problems which delayed it's success until the mid 1970s. By then, Grumman and the Navy opted to continue F-14A production and axed the original F-14 development plan. The Navy tested the GE F101 Derivative Fighter Engine and liked it a lot but lacked funding to make the upgrade to the fleet. Eventually, the DFE gave way to the GE F110 engines which would eventually be selected to be added to the F-14. This created the F-14A+, later redesignated to the F-14B.
The planned cockpit upgrades and avionics upgrades for the F-14C would eventually find their way into the F-14D program, but were scaled back somewhat compared to the original C proposal. Four MFD's gave way to just two up front. The integration of the IRST and eventual cancellation of AIM-120 integration in favor of LANTIRN/PTID/JTIDS/Link16, and so on. No F-14C's were ever produced.
A combination of politics, peace dividends, and a nearly bankrupt Grumman killed off any hope of seeing Grumman's 1990's proposed F-14E/F variants... the ASF-14 and ST-21 concepts were brilliant, but significant doubt on Grumman's ability to deliver on the promises within budget and on time, in combination with a certain politician (Dick Cheney) having a massive hard on for killing off the F-14 in favor of Boeing products (a decision which later hampered the US Navy's carriers) murdered all hope of ever seeing a truly modernized F-14. The thing is, the airframe is stupid capable aerodynamically, but alas, we got Super Hornets instead.
@@Whiskey11Gaming F-14A LRIP was only supposed to be 13, then later 17 birds until the F401-PW-400 was to be the power plant for full-rate production F-14B as you said. They spent hundreds of millions of early 1970s money on that F401, which I think gutted a lot of the budget for planned upgrades to the F-14 in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. There are some interesting documents from the early 1970s about all of that. The money spent on F401 was astronomical.
That's fascinating, so GE kind of came to the rescue of the Tomcat right?
I didn't know P&W had such problems, so you know where I can learn more about that history?
Really enjoyed this video and the comment section is gold. Nice to read intelligent comments on UA-cam for a change!
This is GOLD!!! Thank you !
This was a great look at the early days of these aircrafts. The only other thing I wanna say is about the nostalgia for the early 80s I get when I hear 70s-era music like this 6:36. That kind of music played in a lot of shows made in the 70s which I watched as an 80s kid.
For close-in dogfights, the radar automatically acquires enemy aircraft, and this information is projected on the head-up display. The F-15's electronic warfare system provides both threat warning and automatic countermeasures against selected threats.
E
Did the 1970s and 1980s versions do this? With the F-15 they are still doing avionics upgrades. I read somewhere that the latest version of the F-15 has avionics more advanced than the F-22.
Check out the Israeli f-15E Ra’am’s
Amazing jets. Too bad one was as dangerous to the pilots as it was to the enemy.
@@Chris_at_Home They were always working on getting the F-15A’s TEWS to perform more advanced tasks in the EW set, but information about it was never discussed openly then or now. A lot of the wish-list deficiencies from TEWS played into ASPJ, which the F-14D got. ASPJ-like capabilities were baseline for the Super Hornet. F-15EX is not more advanced than the F-22, since F-22 has closed-loop integrated avionics suite with far more embedded sensors in the airframe like an EW aircraft blended with a fighter. No F-15 will ever have the integrated sensor count of an early lot Raptor even. F-22 is built for ease of hardware upgrades as well for processors and sensors.
Interesting, and I love the Tomcat. But this had nothing to do with the F-15. Misleading video title.
Any idea what kind of helmet the F-14 drivers are using? Looks like some kind of early HMS. I heard that they trialled such a thing at AIMVAL/ACEVAL
That's my understanding as well, but I think those early version were just too cumbersome and not at all reliable, otherwise they would've been fielded much sooner. I was with VF-101 and VF-142 in the early to mid 80s and I never saw those kinds of helmets at all.
Yeah prob
Idk tho lol
VTAS II (Visual Target Acquisition System). The VTAS interfaced with the Sidewinder Expanded Acquisition Mode (SEAM) installed in US Navy fighter aircraft to exploit the advanced lock-on possibilities in the AIM-9G Sidewinder air-to-air missile.
It was called VTAS. It was an early helmet mounted cueing system. You can see th sensors above the canopy rails.
And this was just the F-14A. Sure do miss the Tomcat, even if only 4th gen.
It only was 4th gen ;), even the D model.
I remember seeing my first one in 1972 when went over my head right after it took off as I was walking to the chow hall at Pax River NAS. I was there for P-3 training. My son hooked Tomcats up to the cats on the GW in the mid 1990s.
@Chris would have been a great precursor to college then OCS and flight school for your son. I guess if interested
F-14A performed very well in the 70s when they were brand new. Some of them could scream to Mach 2.5+ in maintenance check flights as some pilots have vouched. They also had very high operational readiness in the 70s. Some of the A model that were tuned high could even accelerate vertically like the F-14 B/D could. However, P&W engines had poor long term sustainability and also were de-tuned in the 90s at slow speeds (static thrust) for better stall margins at very slow speeds/high alpha with a mid-compresion by pass valve installed (MCB). Also, the airframe age was another thing when F-14 B/D came along (many of the B/D were converted from old A airframes). All of this contributed to the maintenance issues especially once Grumman went bankrupt.
Would see them Tomcats endlessly as a kid
At Oceana...Way Rad
I have this as the 2nd half of my video from GoodTimes Home Video titled: Top Gun Aces! I still love this video!
Greetings from Dominican Republic 🇩🇴 Mike Guardia excelent video and documentary of f-15 eagle vs f-14 tomcat in the combat air simulated en el us naval miramar also of missile with systems electroptic in the exercise
Hear hear! 👍
It was a big mistake for the F-14 guys to cede the long range shots. I was a Tomcat guy and almost every time we fought F-15s, 16s, 18s, F-5s, etc were were almost always hamstrung with "no Phoenix" rules, or forced into a range that was only 40 miles. Sure, going to the merge and short range shots are more fun, but if you have a big stick, use your big stick. And I'm not talking about half the time, or even most of the time. We rarely (90%) used Phoenix in "tactical" air-air training, and when we did it was often limited to one long-range shot with no kill removal.
Did it ever work in practice? I remember AF friends commenting on how bad it actually was and the few times fired in combat, didn't work. Sad to think Iranians were the only successful users IF you believe their own records.
That's what the Iranians did: "use the big stick."
Unfortunately, the phoenix was useless against those airframes. The phoenix was great against the non maneuvering bomber aircraft for which it was designed, but one good turn from a fighter type aircraft and the missile was defeated.
It really was bad. As an Eagle driver, we totally discounted it as a threat.
1975 - Shows how far ahead they were and are in their thinking as to the shape of future air combat and technologies. Makes you shudder to think what's under the bench waiting to appear on the scene today and as to how it will alter the face of air combat.
Very Good video.
The computer generated view of the fight in real time is for me the most interesting part, I had no Idea it was available that early in the 70', I thought it was 80' technology.
The US was so far ahead of everybody else then....
Tons of people in the comments don't understand this video, but the part at @10:10 is most important. The F-14's radar and avionics suite was really bad at BVR IFF, and coupling this with long range weapons was stupid. This is why none of them flew air dominance sorties starting in 1991. The Visual ID requirements, maintenance costs, poor stall/spin characteristics, and randomly exploding mid-flight is why the F-14 was retired, and it's never coming back while we still buy New F-15s today.
Well, I think the real crux is that F14, unlike F15, wasn't an air superiority fighter. It was a long range fleet defense interceptor. In this primary role, it simply didn't need complex integrated IFF capability. So within that context, as was designed, coupling long range weapons to long range radar with good enough IFF for that purpose totally makes sense. What wouldn't make sense would be to push it into air dominance role in an environment that it wasn't designed for. Indeed, F15 was much better suited for that, because that was exactly what it was designed for.
This was ultimately solved with F14D, but as you correctly point out, there was ton of other reasons why it simply didn't make sense to keep F14 in service. It's a gorgeous plane, but it's entire concept was outdated at that point.
F-15- истребитель завоевания господства в воздухе, а F-14- перехватчик бомбардировщиков на дальних дистанциях. Этим все сказано. F-15 - вне конкуренции! Он лучший!
All true but they would have kept them if it wasnt for $. Hence the Hornet, which was the replacement, was quickly upgraded to the much bigger super hornet, while all the mission specific airframes were retired
@@jyy9624
Tomcat was doomed long before the end of cold war and start of budget cuts. It badly needed fielding outside USN for future influx of funds for upgrades and sharing the cost of additional platform development. You can draw a similar line with Raptor. It will be retired way before fighter it was supposed to replace is gone.
the Tomcat seems to have been slightly ahead of its time.
Now it’s in the scrap heap, and the Eagle is still flying
Why is there F15 in the title???? Its an f14 and F5 video...........
1.) Mike great video, thnx. But are you sure it was produced in 1975?
Great video! Falcon is my FIL. Awesome to see him in this!
Not much of a comparison. More like an all F-14 video. Still very informative. A jewel from the past.
This is a good F-14 Training Video, but there is no "vs" F-15. Its all F-14.
I hope radio audio quality has improved substantially since 1975.
Wow!
Was this a hidden gem from that early AIM-9L period! There must have been relief when the AMRAAM finally came on line, and the finicky Sparrow was fazed out.
Thank You!
This is where the AIM-9L came from. AIM-9E2, AIM-9G, and AIM-9P were proliferated in the US fleet at the time. AIM-9G was a Helmet-Cued missile as well starting with the F-4J VTAS. If you look at this video at 1:34, 6:45, 10:17, and 19:05, you will see Helmet-Cueing System helmets. These were one of the things tested in AIMVAL that rarely get any mention. The helmets you see in this video were far more advanced than the older Helmets used in the F-4J VTAS program, which was pretty hush-hush.
Aimval aceval was not f14 vs f15. But f14/15 vs f5s as red air. It says this in the fist 60 seconds. There were unofficial fights of f15 vs 14 but they were strictly forbidden. If you can find Hosers book he talks about it or log into the tomcat association forums. Hoser Satrapa himself recounted many stories from this before his passing.
The entire point of this evaluation was High Cost but Low Numbers vs Low Cost High Numbers.
Quality vs Quantity.
And the justification for the F-16 Program was to pump up the numbers at a significantly lower cost than the F-15.
Are you sure that this was from 1975? The F-15 did not go operational until 1976, per Wikipedia.
ACEVAL/AIMVAL was from 1974 to 1978 using pre-production F-15A's and production F-14A's. McDonnell Douglas had contractors on site to help the F-15 crews, but they had been flying the F-15A since 1972 while the F-14A was already a "mature" product.
F-14 Crews sporting VTAS II helmet-mounted cueing system back in 74
You caught that too. A lot of people don’t know about it.
(paraphrase) F-14 pilot: "We had to get within that lethal environment(within the F-5E's all aspect heater WEZ) in order to satisfy the test's requirement for Visual Identification(VID) prior to weapons engagement."
If they only knew just how real this test's parameters would be in regards to the F-14A & B service some 15 years later during Desert Storm. The Rules Of Engagement(ROE) that the F-14 fought under required a VID prior to weapons engagement. this was due to a variety of reasons, one of them being the Tomcat's Identify-Friend or Foe (IFF) equipment wasn't robust enough for unlimited Beyond Visual Range(BVR) engagements. Constant upgrade support for the F-15 left the Eagle superior in this arena. During ACEVAL-AIMVAL- the big jets(-14 & -15) would easily get a Sparrow shot off, but because they were Semi-Active missiles requiring RADAR illumination from the firing aircraft until warhead detonation-thus limiting the firing jet's maneuvering, the smaller, Red Team F-5 would snap off an all-aspect heat seeking/fire/forget missile thus resulting in a mutual kill of both jets. Having MiGs and F-14/15 killing each other at 1:1 ratios is far from ideal for the Blue team.
The TCS Camera magnifies at 10x
VID restrictions were part of all of the air tasking ROE in Desert Storm, not just for the F-14... NCTR was seen as horribly unreliable, as was IFF transponder codes. Combine that with USAF controlling air tasking over the AO and shock, the USAF assets got a lot of play time while Navy jets stayed out in the Gulf providing FAD/CAP to the boats... which was kind of their role to begin with.
@@Whiskey11Gaming There was also the attempted shoot-down of an A-6E by an F-14A crew early in the air war, which relegated that unit to Fleet Defense over the Red Sea around the Carrier. USAF E-3A operator intervened to get them to check-fire and likely saved lives that night from fratricide. AWG-9 sucked over land. APG-63 is superb over land when it comes to look-down/shoot-down, and was about 10 years ahead of the power curve compared to AWG-9 since AWG-9 development was rooted in the 3rd Generation.
@@LRRPFco52 I take it that the AN/APG-71 of the D Tomcats was considered a significant upgrade?
The entire plot of Top Gun movie right here :)
To me comparing these 2 in their orignal plan is like comparing night and day...the F-14 originally designed to fly ahead of the fleet and shoot down attack aircraft before they got anywhere near the ships and the F-15 designed as a dogfighter..to take the fight to enemy fighters and get down and dirty with them.
It's a bit of a misnomer to say the F-14 wasn't designed to get down and dirty with enemy fighters... it was an air superiority fighter which happened to be carrier based and had unique requirements set upon it. It has the tightest turn radius of any of the US 4th Gen Aircraft (F-14 through F/A-18) and the turn rate to match an F-16C at 1.5g less. That's not an atribute of a single purpose aircraft.
While the F-15's air superiority legs would ultimately be flexed in the 90's, it was used almost exclusively as an interceptor in North America prior to that, and limited to single target engagements only using the AIM-7. When the AIM-120 came out, the F-15 was able to flex it's wings a bit more.
Both aircraft are VERY capable, and it really comes down, cliche as it is, to the person flying it. A famous example was a 2v2 F-14A vs F-15C at Nellis in which a famous picture of an F-15 in the gun pipper of an F-14A HUD was taken... the F-14As took on two F-15C's in BFM and won... Joe "Hoser" Satrapa was a hell of a pilot, and his exploits were well known. That particular image from that incident almost cost McDonnell Douglas the Japanese F-15 contract.
@@Whiskey11Gaming F-14 was fleet air defense and air superiority, so it had to beat the Bear and Badger, their cruise missiles, and the MiG-21.
F-15 was primarily a forward-based air superiority fighter in USAFE and PACAF, as well as the NORAD mission set taking over as we phased out the F-106s in ADC. For every F-15 in an F-14 HUD, there were about 4x F-14s getting simulated guns. F-15 FWS guys didn’t mess around in BVR or BFM, and were extremely cutthroat. Fight pilots being what they are will not come back and accurately relay the overall stats of the BFM sorties. When TOPGUN needed competent instructors to run their F-16N initial Radar training, they hand-selected F-15C FWS patch wearers to go through an accelerated F-16 conversion with them at Luke, then come to Miramar and teach how to imply the Radar the way F-15C guys were known for on the BVR timeline. USN had no experience with this because up until that time, it was all 2-men crews who had fighters with a capable BVR Radar and the pilots weren’t driving the Radar.
They never should have retired the Tomcat. With modernization it would still be a very capable aircraft today. Imagine a modernized Tomcat at 60,000 feet going Mach 2, firing AIM-260s guided in by data link. Or, better yet, modernized versions of the Phoenix dropping down from space at Mach ridiculous.
13:50 "If the AIM-7 had been a launch-and-leave missile or if he could have been able to fire his AIM-54 missile, which is launch-and-leave, the situation would have been entirely different." Emphasizes just how important full active RADAR homing missiles, ie AIM-120 really is. active guidance, great range while fitting within the confines of the AIM-7 silhouette and weighing approx. 150 pounds less. Heck you can even mount the things on the wingtips stations of f-16s and WITHIN the confines of Raptors and Lightning-2s. Hornet vs. Tomcat "encounters" changed substantially once AIM-120 reached the fleet in the early 90's. USAF officially adopting it in late 1991, post Desert Storm.
The AIM-120 was slated for F-14 integration. In fact, it was early F-14A's at China Lake which helped develop the Track While Scan capabilities of the AIM-120A since the F-14 was uniquely capable at the time of supporting such a fire mode. There are even videos of AIM-120A's being launched from an F-14A. Had politics, mostly Dick Cheney, not destroyed the F-14D modernization, the F-14D would still be on carriers today, only now being replaced by F-35C's. An F-14D with AIM-120's mounted conformally like the AIM-7 was is going to be one slick and formidable fighter, never mind AIM-9X/JHMCS added to that list.
@@Whiskey11GamingExactly right 👍.
They should have kept updating them just like the F-15 EX.
@@Whiskey11Gaming F-14D test pilots said they had unforeseen aerodynamic problems with the AIM-120 during separation tests. The thing that really destroyed the F-14 fleet modernization was the MMH/FH required to keep it flying and the 2 crew requirement. Great platform for expanding the mission sets, but hampered by the complexity of the FLCS, the outdated wiring harness architecture, hydraulic leaks, structural issues especially with the landing gear that weren’t identified until later in its service life, brakes always failing, etc.
All of this represented significant risk to the Navy that was seen at the DoD level and cut into O&M costs for the whole fleet. That’s why they leaned to the Super Bug.
Charlie Slammers didn't come into being until 1996 if memory serves. And A's and B's were nowhere near as capable. By the time anyone had any meaningful quantities of C AMRAAMs, the F-14 was relegated to mud moving duties.
The Tomcat was a beast of a plane. And boy was she beautiful. She had it all. What a shame we had to do away with her because of the regime change in Iran. She was gone way before her time.
It was Chaney, not the Pentagon that killed the Tomcat. She was a danger to his pox faced baby: Hornet; which failed all it's trials and never exceeded at anything.
the naval carrier borne F-14C Tomcat multi role all weather interceptor was one of the finest variable-sweep winged fighter jet by far . . .
Is that Hoser Satrapa at 12:05?
"WINGMAN HAS TALLY"
"LEADER HAS TALLY"
"THAT'S IT BOYS. FIGHT'S ON, GO GET 'EM"
A long range weapon isn’t of much use when rules of engagement (ROE) require visual confirmation of enemy targets. Additionally, having to request permission to fire adds an additional level of complication that reduces the effective employment of weapon systems.
This was a great video from the 1970’s, it showed how we were training for a future conflict with the Soviets. But it seemed to have some biased towards the F-14 in its maintenance requirements. After the USSR fill the Navy was fairly quick to retire the Tomcat. Also, during the first Gulf war in 1991, the Eagles proved to be even more reliable than the Airforce even believed. Not to mention their kill ratio. But I’ll skip the whole thing in this video about identity before shooting? Geez!
It also has an internally mounted, tactical electronic-warfare system, "identification friend or foe" system, electronic countermeasures set and a central digital computer.
Nice, did you copy this from Wikipedia? Why don't you tell me why you think it's better?I disagree with your opinion but the F-15 and F-14 are my favorite aircraft of all time. In my opinion the Tomcat is a superior aircraft.
@@jiceBERG F-15 Eagle victory in combat air dogfight 104-0 a record of superiority air 😎👍
@@jiceBERG in conclution f-15 is superior a Tomcat for much perfect
@@luisangelotanoencarnacion2826 So what does this have to do with comparisons between the Navy and Airforce? If you're going to include all the international F-15 victories, why not include the F-14 victories for Iran?
@luisangelotanoencarnacion2826
Pretty easy to get lopsided scores when you are going up against an unwilling or incompetent opponent and only have sources from the winning side.
The F-14 and F-15 get out radius by an F/A-18, and the F-14 and F-15 get out rated by the F-16. And that is according to their real life Energy Maneuverability diagrams.
If it had the correct engines that it was designed for.. It was more then a match for an F-15
It did better in AIMEVAL/ACEVAL than the F-15 and getting a 2:1 advantage. Having said that, the engines it was designed for cane a decade later in F-14 B/D
@@KLRGT500KR also, they excluded Aim54 for F14 during ACEVAL/AIMEVAL.
@@KLRGT500KREarly F-15's were also hamstrung by no flares or chaff. I imagine this made a big difference in fox-2 fights.
The purpose of those tests was to buy new planes…
i cant help but feel that someone needs to do an edited version of this video but with dangerzone and mighty wings as background music
The best two aircrafts made!!!
Sort of wondering why it looks like the F-14 (or maybe an F-15, but same missile) at 3:28 is guiding 3 AIM-7Fs at one time.
Probably because of the failure rate of the sparrow. (As this is 1975, and it was known for a less than stellar reputation in Vietnam)
@@VonHoffnung True, but it looked odd since they can only guide one at a time and none of them (might be a display resolution thing though) looked like they'd gone stupid.
It's at the same target so it's nothing special.
@@1978dcn Ehh... the AIM-7 isn't locked to a single launch like you'd expect. Yes, you can only launch on one target, but the missile is looking at returns from the radar off of that one aircraft, so multiple AIM-7's being supported isn't impossible since it's not receiving anything from the launching aircraft directly. It's not like it is receiving mid course guidance via datalink to get on target, it's merely intercepting via radar reflections and thus is not limited in the number of missiles you could theoretically launch and support. That is in stark contrast to the AIM-54, of which only six could be supported (probably because only six could be carried :P) due to lack of additional channels to support the mid course guidance updates.
@@Whiskey11Gaming Ha! Glad to see your reply. I Was messing with DCS's F-14A the other day and accidentally Fox-1-ed two AIM-7s and both guided... first thing I thought was 'oh crap, I posted a comment saying this can't happen, didn't I?'.. Happy to see I was corrected when I came back just now. Your explanation was great, thanks. I've read a LOT about Tomcats since I was a kid but it's funny how much more you can learn by actually employing em, even in a sim.
Did the F-15s still have their turkey feathers in '75 ? They looked awesome that way. Less so with them removed.
Yup. During Functional Check Flights at high speeds, the outer sections ripped off due to a unique aerodynamic drag condition. They stopped installing them after that and went with the nozzle configuration most have seen throughout the F-15’s history.
Turkey feathers?
@@pike100 Yes, the feathered panels that used to surround the variable diameter exhaust nozzles. Look at the exhaust nozzles of the new F-15EX in the below video at the twenty-two second mark. It has turkey feathers. ua-cam.com/video/S1FiruA5tEk/v-deo.html
@@LRRPFco52
Took some 30 years to figure out how they can stick together and yet reduce some of DI down the line.
Finally. Every fan on both sides gets a video to settle the argument.
And agter watching, we stick to our opinions before we saw this video.
When was this video made?? I'm thinking the 1960?? Anyone?
the missile knows where it is because it knows where it isn't...
When I hear this narrator or a similar timber and inflections, I know it's going to be a good documentary! Just imagining the actual capabilities of a modern day F-18 Super Hornet, F-16, F-22 and F-35 with modern computing and super fuzed bombs!
Two of my favourite aeroplanes👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
The F14 has the edge for sexiness 😅😂
Didnt get to Vegas (Nellis) until 1984. Wonder what Vegas was like in 1975.
I feel sorry for those guys out at Nellis wearing all that heavy flight gear! I live in Las Vegas where Nellis AFB is located and it gets damn hot out here in the summer. Like easily 120-130 over the blacktop. It must be awful wearing that stuff before getting in the airplane.
I was a top gun instructor in 1986. The Top Cat was a miserable flying experience. Constantly breaking down, horrific cockpit, annoying WSO’s always nattering on about their girlfriends etc.
When the documentary Top Gun came out I couldn’t believe the take on the F-14! Made it out to be invincible 😂😂
anyone else notice no markings on any of the tomcats? while i love the Tomcat even though i was USAF i belive this video to lean heavy on the cat.. vs the eagle.. and it was a Grumman produced video.
When was this film shot!!!
Tks for Sharing
Interesting. There wasn't really to much comparison between the F-14's and F-15's in the video.
No Phoenix ? 5:31.
Gee, im glad this video touched on the F15.
Maybe I am wrong, but from the colour scheme, it does look like from the 1980s.
Awesome 👍✈️
Is the F14 high Coast mentenanc
Would have been great to see the two compete after the Tomcat got the same engines as the Eagle
Obviously a Navy promo !
Mooi! I have never seen that helmet (@1.39) or an F-14 with a fake canopy painted on it. Plus what the pilots are saying is very important.
They talk of their new and improved "launch and leave IR missiles" (the AIM-9L) and its ability to take on enemy targets more easily than before. Today, the AIM-9X can be fired from the F-35 in ANY direction, even if the enemy target is behind it. I think the F-15EX might have the same capability. (I might be wrong.)
There is no year shown exactly wegen this movie was produced, But Program was flown until 1978.
Interesting is, that the F-14s show the All grey Camouflage, used regularly only from 1981 or so onwards.... And they seem to have no national insignia.
Anytime, baby!
The f-14 had a huge vantage as it was a perfect standoff aircraft, being using the phoenix missile that allowed it to destroy any aircraft it came up against, shame it's no longer being used and the UK had the option of buying them but the UK kept on with the tornado project instead, but this is now in past history as they are now no longer in service
You never ever leave your wingman.
Tomcat was the name for the original F4 in WWII. But the Air Force decided it sounded to risque for the time and settled on Wildcat instead.
The Air Force never flew Wildcats.. it was a Navy airplane from the start
Also, there was no Airforce during WW2, it was the Army Air Corps (and they did not fly wildcats either) the US Airforce only became a seperate Service on 18 September 1947.
What?
The message is clear - dogfight capability in a fighter has to be secondary (in design) in modern warfare. a 3 mission suvival rate at the merge is an unacceptable loss rate. They did it before all aspect weapons because they had to.
It's very striking how they emphasise the importance of standoff or beyond visual range capability as being the key thing.
Nearly 50 years ago. And yet people even now question (just for example) the F-35 because it might not be quite the best-ever thing in a dogfight.
Half a century!
@@villiamo3861 it’s a matter of concept. Or would be unwise to field an army of snipers and then have the strategy rely in that they will never get closer than 1/2 k. In war there are no absolutes. During Korea and Vietnam the air force thought the same, to the point where US though they were so superior air capable due to better missiles that for a time they even abandoned autocoannons in the F4 thinking hat missiles would keep bandits away. They were wrong, and learned a tough lesson. That’s why literally top gun was founded.
Informative documentary coverage video about characteristics of F-14 tomcat aircraft's 7:35 & F-15 aircraft....video introduced comparative evaluating of two excellent USA 🇺🇸 designed aircraft's...focused on TV 📺 technology enemy airplanes ✈️ identify in long ranges in F-14
..thank you( 19:58 )( Mike Guardia) channel for sharing
outmanouvering the F-5, a much smaller fighter... quite impressive
Not really the F-5 cant outmaneuver pretty much anything
The title should be F-14 vs F-5, not F-15.
They were great birds we were cutting maintenance hours to flight hours big time
It's so weird seeing F-14s take off from the ground and not a carrier.
12:50 fascinating! How the f-14 Not able to use a launch and leave missile like the Phoenix, had to track its semi-active sparrow missile all the way into the target coming head on, and so by the time they had to witness the tracking of the missile into the target, in this case an F5, you have five was already in the envelope to shoot and aim nine short range sidewinder at it which is a launch and leave missile. The F5 tiger would be destroyed but it would also take down the multi-million dollar tomcat as well, which as the narrator says is unacceptable. Given the numerical superiority of the Warsaw pact, we would need a much better kill to lost ratio than that
•’FUN FACT (well, maybe not so much for Navy fans)’• after the failed F-111B project, the Navy actually looked at getting the “F-15N” model Eagle because of it’s speed, maneuvering, and range. But the Eagle would have to be redesigned for Navy carrier uses (removing the Eagle’s radar and replacing it with the ones to work with the Phoenix missiles, changing the landing gear, etc) and wasn’t worth the cost. So the (clears throat) “settled” on the F-14!
....but I would have loved to have seen the F-15 sea eagle too !
There was a plan at one point to offer a navalized version of the F-16 (F-16N) as well.
That doesn't make any sense since the F-14 was selected as the Navy's aircraft before the program which lead to the F-15 had finalized it's choice on the F-15. The F-15N was entertained about as much as the ADCOM F-14 was entertained... the Navy concluded that a USAF aircraft forced to be modified for carrier use, would be significantly heavier and perform worse than a dedicated design. Similarly, the USAF looked at the F-14 and determined it was too heavily built for their needs. Add in a little of "not another US Navy Jet in the USAF" mentality and you get the F-15.
@@spydude38It would require triple the airframe upgrades compared to the land based versions. One shot airplane.
Yeah but just look at that Tomcat. It's a fkn beast. It looks great!
Imagine if they'd kept Tomcats modernized up to today, and with adaptive cycles. Eagles are amazing, Cats are on a higher level.
The F-14 need reborn in new generation. New technology with simple & economic maintenance
In my opinion a multi-mission avionics system sets the F-15 apart from other fighter aircraft. It includes a head-up display, advanced radar, inertial navigation system, flight instruments, ultrahigh frequency communications, tactical navigation system and instrument landing system.
In aimval aceval the f14 ended up with the highest kill ratio. They also had integrated TCS for and early VID. The eagles countered by bolting rifles scopes to the instrument coming. There were also unofficial 2 f15 vs 1 f14 engagements. The f14 won. Both services sent there best crews. I imagine the difference is cultural. The navy has more room to do what they want and come up with ideas, back then anyway.
@@tomhull4387 Desert Storm proved the opposite. The Turkey’s TCS was not good enough. The Eagles integrated IFF sensors were what was needed to operate in the airspace that featured planes from multiple allied forces. Due to this the F-15 was tasked the air dominance mission and took 32 of the 41 air to air kills. The Turkey was relegated to CAPs over the water and got one measly kill of a helicopter.
@@ejnavarro I think the Tomcat also had weaker/inferior RHAW/RWR gear at the time, compared to the Eagle, so it wasn't as survivable over Iraq as the Eagle was.
There is nothing about a multi-mission avionics set which sets the F-15 apart... in fact, the F-15A through D in US service lack all Air to Ground modes, which made it particularly SINGLE mission focused. It wouldn't be until the F-15E, in US service, that the Eagle saw those A2G modes utilized. Lots of F-15C stories from GWOT of pilots having to guess using manual gun modes to support troops on the ground and strafe targets.
What DID hamper the F-15 early on was the lack of an Active Radar Homing missile. Something the F-14 had, and as a result, the F-14 actually was a better option for the USAF for the role the F-15 performed, which was bomber intercepts over Canada... but the USAF didn't want another Navy jet.
That's not to say the F-15 isn't a great jet, it certainly is... but had the USAF looked at the requirements objectively, the F-14 would have been their fighter, and the F-15 would have been a footnote in the history books.
It's also important to point out the F-15 lacked fighter to fighter datalink, and datalink in general, until the early 2000's in the F-15C/D fleet. The F-15A/B never got it. The F-14A had Datalink (Link4) in the 1970s and while it was seriously limited, it was something. The F-14D getting Link16/JTIDS in the 90's was huge too. Add in IRST on the F-14D, and you have quite the technology demonstrator.
In fact, it was the F-14 which laid the ground work for the AIM-120 and Track While Scan multi target engagement modes of all other US aircraft. The AIM-120A cut it's teeth being launched from F-14A's at China Lake before TWS modes were added to the F-16 and F-15.
@@ejnavarro Ironic that the USAF was put in charge of air tasking and determined what was and wasn't the ROE... they set out requiring two forms of challenging before labeling bogey's (ambiguous, but probably hostile) as bandits (hostiles). This could be accomplished through NCTR and IFF Transponders, but it could also be done via VID. In fact, VID was effectively mandated dude to numerous near friendly fire incidents... the USAF determined the unreliability of NCTR and left them with little choice but to let non VID target's escape if radar contact was the only form of identification because of the lack of reliability of NCTR. The Tomcat is UNIQUELY capable in the VID arena due to being the only jet in the air outside of F-4E's and F-4G's in the AO, to have a TCS pod (the F-4E's and F-4G's had the same pod, incidentally). So yeah, the USAF forced F-14's to stay out over the ocean on FAD and prevented F/A-18's from being used as CAP due to lack of IFF Transponder interrogation (but they had NCTR!) when they ended up restricting their OWN aircraft to require VID or NCTR + IFF Transponder code identification before engaging.
For further reading google: "Joint Operations in the Gulf War, An Allison Analysis" by USAF Maj. P. Mason Carpenter.
It's a publicly available document which outlines the air tasking during Desert Storm and the limitations imposed on coalition aircraft. If you search for Visual Identification you'll find the sections which I reference above.
Time11:25. Goose, mav, viper and ice
FINALLY! An epic Cat x Eagle dogfight flick!
They didn't actually dogfight each other.
GOLD
At that time, F14 Tomcat slaughtered F15 very easily. Tomcat was really a legend.
Beautifull planes/ birds...........is all can sey👌🙂
Tomcat I like...a bit more👍
The F-15 Eagle is king !