Grumman F-14 Tomcat

Michael Martin gives us a quick scoop on this Top Gun aircraft favorite, the F-14 Tomcat.

[AvengerII]

VF-84 Jolly Rogers was the F-14 squadron featured in the movie, The Final Countdown (1980). VF-84 appeared in at least 4 feature films until its disestablishment in 1995.
This squadron's markings (yellow and black striping) and especially the tail emblem were adopted for the hero vehicle of the Japanese animated series, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, which is better known as Robotech (The Macross Saga) in the West. The iconic vehicle of Macross was the VF-1 Valkyrie which was based on the F-14's design. (VF in this context stands for "Variable Fighter.")
The most notable Valkyrie fighter in Macross is the VF-1S (4 cannons on the robot head) variable fighter codenamed "Skull One" for obvious reasons -- it's painted up like a Jolly Rogers Tomcat. To this day, they still sell a TON of model kits and toys patterned after that fighter jet design in Japan. Skull One is one of the iconic hero mecha vehicles in Japanese science fiction series alongside the original RX-78 Gundam, Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, and the Evangelion units.
Dale Snodgrass in his Navy career flew both the F-14A and F-14B in squadron deployments and as an F-14 demo pilot. There's footage of some of his demos on YouTube including an F-14B demo flight at an air show.

[allgood]

Awesome... I saw The Final Countdown movie 40 years ago loved the movie and still do👍🇳🇿

[kcreh]

I was at the Airzoo during the Flight of the Cats. Awsome display and greatle Missed!

[SamhainBe]

My dad helped build 'em and you're spot-on, "the coolest!"

[ravenouslove]

Always love the tomcat but that crusader catches my eye

[BadGuyDennis]

I love this aircraft since the movie《The Final Countdown》and Japanese anime《Macross》.

[trevorclark]

why is the front end sitting so low? like the strut is bottomed out

[ILSRWY]

Where's the squadron tail code "A J" and just to let you know the leading edges of all flying surfaces where natural metal.

[angelortizoviedo]

Great, but ¿its a real airframe? Looks like a one big scale 1:1 model, hehe