Never understood all the Tomcat love

[jeroen_R90S]

Once met a (former) RNLAF F-104 and F-16 pilot, though it's been quite a few years he told me how they would practice near Italy against F-14s. This was pre-MLU, so no AIM-120s for the RNLAF back then (mid 1990s)

He told me he would keep the (simulated) missiles from the F-14s at 3 or 9 o'clock and they would nearly always break lock (AIM-7) or run out of energy if done well (AIM-54). (his words, I know little about this stuff, I think he called it "beaming" if I remember correctly?). As the distance closed up the F-16s would have the advantage.

Seems like a pretty daring tactic, letting the other guys shoot first...

 

Otherwise I'm totally unqualified to say something about aircraft, having flown myself airsick in small aircraft several times

 

Jeroen

[eoyguy]

2 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

I think that’s Pete’s biggest gripe:  He was dancing a wicked tango with the prettiest girl in the room while everyone else was gushing over the big girl who could barely waltz.  I get it and I can’t dance at all.

The F-16 the "prettiest girls in the room"? hardly, and not in the top 5 IMO,  counting non-US aircraft.  Ill still take the F-14 all day long for looks over anything flown in the last 50 years. You can have the skinny minnie with chicken legs.  I'll take Sofia Bergara anytime over, at best, cracked out Kate Moss.

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by eoyguy

[JeepsGunsTanks]

41 minutes ago, John1 said:

Easy Pete, I'm just regurgitating the interviews of pilots and RIO's who flew the D.   They all acknowledged the failings of the A but seemed to think that the D model was everything the original aircraft should have been.  I guess it comes down to just being in love with whatever aircraft that you are flying. 

 

Do find it surprising that the Navy opted not to equip the B/D models with AIM-120, guess they figured that with the "Peace Dividend" they could save some $, plus they would never have a peer threat that made this missile necessary.   As long as you are just going up against third world Su-22's, no need for any high-end weaponry. 

 

Legend has it, (cause I can't remember the book it's from) that a group of savvy F-14 people used the money slated to get the AIM-120 working on the F-14 to lash together the Laser Pod that turned the Tomcat into at least a credible ground attack aircraft. They had even gone so far as testing the missle with the airframe. It was a wiring and interface issue. In the long run, the bombing gear was more useful. BVR missiles have rarely been useable BVR, even when we were at war in Vietnam. 

 

The real question about the F-35, is, will it be the last US manned fighter?  That squishy thing that can't take Gs and takes up space seems to be less and less useful with the ability to remote pilot and IA. 

[eoyguy]

Air Force pilot 2030

Edited November 18, 2023 by eoyguy

[Alex]

1 hour ago, eoyguy said:

The F-16 the "prettiest girls in the room"? hardly, and not in the top 5 IMO,  counting non-US aircraft.  Ill still take the F-14 all day long for looks over anything flown in the last 50 years. You can have the skinny minnie with chicken legs.  I'll take Sofia Bergara anytime over, at best, cracked out Kate Moss.

 

I dunno, I always thought that the F-16 was a great looking aircraft.  Until those conformal fuel tanks.  Blech.  I know that they totally outperform drop tanks from the aerodynamic perspective, but aesthetically, meh.

[Alex]

1 hour ago, JeepsGunsTanks said:

 

 

The real question about the F-35, is, will it be the last US manned fighter?  That squishy thing that can't take Gs and takes up space seems to be less and less useful with the ability to remote pilot and IA. 

The next one after the F-35 will be the last manned fighter.  And it will deploy with multiple AI-piloted wingmen (wing bots?) per human driven craft.

[Bill Cross]

The news here, gents, is we build pieces of modeling art and not real planes. The Tomcat builds up in our scale into a HELLUVA lovely model. My Mirage III-J got aced out in a show by a fully-loaded F-14, it was big, bad and beautiful.

 

Doesn't matter if it was really a turkey. And remember, Ben Franklin wanted turkeys and not the eagle to be our national symbol because they're smarter than eagles.

[Mark P]

But....this thread isnt about how the aircraft looks. It is about its actual ability in its assigned role. In that regard, I stand by my original post that for most of the Tomcats life it wasnt paired up with a great powerplant.

 

Mark Proulx

Edited November 18, 2023 by Mark P

[Pete Fleischmann]

2 minutes ago, Mark P said:

But....this thread isnt about how the aircraft looks. It is about its actual ability in its assigned role.

 

Mark Proulx

Exactly.

[Pete Fleischmann]

2 hours ago, JeepsGunsTanks said:

 BVR missiles have rarely been useable BVR, even when we were at war in Vietnam. 

 

 

In what air combat universe are you living in? Western air forces (including Israel) have many BVR kills. I personally know 3 separate USAF fighter pilots with BVR kills- guys I flew with and drink beer with. 
seriously where you guys come up with these ideas?
 

As a side note, I was about >< this close to getting the first AMRAAM kill ever during Southern Watch over Iraq, but that’s a story for another day. Nordo got the first one about 3 weeks later.

[Pete Fleischmann]

3 hours ago, jeroen_R90S said:

Once met a (former) RNLAF F-104 and F-16 pilot, though it's been quite a few years he told me how they would practice near Italy against F-14s. This was pre-MLU, so no AIM-120s for the RNLAF back then (mid 1990s)

He told me he would keep the (simulated) missiles from the F-14s at 3 or 9 o'clock and they would nearly always break lock (AIM-7) or run out of energy if done well (AIM-54). (his words, I know little about this stuff, I think he called it "beaming" if I remember correctly?). As the distance closed up the F-16s would have the advantage.

Seems like a pretty daring tactic, letting the other guys shoot first...

 

Otherwise I'm totally unqualified to say something about aircraft, having flown myself airsick in small aircraft several times

 

Jeroen

this is a beam maneuver- more often referred to a “notch” and was used against a SAR shooting threat.

If flown correctly, you are actually fighting the CW illuminator of the threat radar. By putting the threat radar “on the beam”, you exploit the low airspeed threshold detect of the threat radar, by decreasing the Vc to the point where the threat radar drops you and the SAR missile in the air goes stupid because you are too slow according to its algorithm. To stay in this radar notch takes precise timing and SA. The Notch will trash the threat radars lock only. When you pitch back hot into the threat you will expose yourself, but now at a range inside BVR with awareness of where the bandit should be and you with a position of advantage.

 

Used to do this against AIM-7 shooters all the time in the early days of the F-16 when we were heaters and gun only. 
 

P

[John1]

1 hour ago, Mark P said:

But....this thread isnt about how the aircraft looks. It is about its actual ability in its assigned role. 

If that’s the case then I’ll posit we’ve gone way OT and that the F-14 (in all its versions) was actually a raging success.    The Tomcat wasnt designed as a “fighter”, it was designed as a carrier capable, fleet defense interceptor.   It’s mission was to fly long-range CAP missions and shoot down Bears and Badgers (and later Backfires) before they could get close enough to launch their school bus-sized anti-ship missiles at the carriers.  Mixing it up with F-16’s really wasn’t a priority.   

[Oldbaldguy]

15 minutes ago, John1 said:

Mixing it up with F-16’s really wasn’t a priority.   

Tell that to any fighter pilot of any stripe.  Any that refuse to rise to the challenge should be flying rubber dogshit out of Hong Kong.

[John1]

1 hour ago, Oldbaldguy said:

Tell that to any fighter pilot of any stripe.  Any that refuse to rise to the challenge should be flying rubber dogshit out of Hong Kong.

I'm sure they did their best but at the end of the day, their jet was designed for a completely different mission.  

[Juggernut]

Hey Pete, what's the lower limit of BVR vs. heater range?  Where does heater range stop and BVR begin if that makes sense?  Not even sure if it's a hard number either....  I thought it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 11-15 miles but I ask because I just don't know.  I know that at least one of the MiG kills in Desert Storm was done with an AIM-7 (probably more than one but don't have either my references or my memory handy at the moment).  I think the guy I'm talking about is Steve Tate (1st FG F-15C driver; Capt. at the time if my memory isn't totally shot) and was flying CAP on the first night of the war.  I have his account on video and I think he launched at a 15 mile range and saw the fireball at around 10-11 miles.  Again, not entirely sure of the final distance.  I'd definitely call that BVR; even when I was young and could test out better than 20/20, I don't know if I could've seen that jet at 11 miles and certainly not at night.