Why Was The F-14 Retired?

The F-14 Tomcat was retired from service in 22 September 2006, after more than 30 years of operation in the United States Navy.

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[UniversalMarcus]

Personally, I think they mothballed the F-14 waaay too prematurely. Look at the B-52! First flight was in 1952! (I wonder if they planned that?😅) Anyway, point is the B-52, 71 years old, is STILL IN SERVICE to this day! Why? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, as they say. Over the years, they just updated it with the latest and greatest and that’s all you have to do to keep a 71 y/o plane “state of the art!” The B-52 does what it does, and it’s good. Damn good. Leave the B-2s parked. If stealth isn’t ABDOLUTELY needed, which is rare nowadays, sure the F-117, which really should be called the A-117, cuz that thing is no dogfighter, whether it’s a fight from afar and line of sight, or up close, that thing would stand no chance in a dogfight with a Mig-29 or an SU-27. The pilot is barely flying, with the flight surfaces always being tweaked up and down by the computer, because look at it! It’s like trying to fly a pyramid! All great fighters that we know of today share something in common: you feed them speed, the plane goes through the air (and that’s the problem with wind tunnels: They’ll give you some good basic data, but a wind tunnel is no perfect analogy of real world cuz the situation is backward! Wind tunnel: Air being blown at a model that’s stationary. Real world, it’s the other way around! Wind tunnel, you’re studying nice smooth air presented to the leading edges of the model, bring out that smoke stick, & everyone is all “Oooh look at the flow!😍” But next time you’re in a car, stick your hand out. What’s happening is not smooth flow, you can feel it. What’s happening is layer after layer of air having no choice but to envelop or wrap itself around the wings.

Anyway, I’m gonna try to walk that tangent back to the F-14. So, back to stealth first. It’s like yeah, the plane gives a radar return/signature the size that a bee would…we it’s like, computers are amazing nowadays to the point where we we have to try our hardest to resist pushing the “on switch” for Artificial General Intelligence, because in a fraction of a second, that self-aware sentient “being” you just created won’t follow ground rules like GPT-4 AIs do. AGI, in a fraction of a fraction of a second will figure, “Earth dies. Humans die. I die…Humans die, Earth lives, and I live.” Just gotta hope some mad scientist isn’t gonna make one, and then it’s that joke, “Some scientists turn on an AGI, and the first thing they ask of it is, ‘Is there a God?’ And the AGI responds, ‘Well there is one now.” Okay, my eyes are getting tired. Bullet points. A single 71 year old B-52 can do the job of a dozen B-2s. “Oh, you can carry like 16 munitions internally, aw how cute. Who’s a little cute B-2, you are, you are”😂 B-52 “Guess what kid? I can can carry the payload of 12 of you😐.” Sketchy situation? Well have escorts fly with it. And the F-14 (And I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I’m guessing a few squadrons-worth of 14s are being kept air worthy just in case. Some people who don’t know any better and watch Top Gun: Maverick and they just eat up the idea that it’s an “old plane.” Please kiddies, the adults are speaking. You bought the film’s depiction of it as an “old plane” hook, line, and sinker, but guess what? The F-14, F-15, F-16, and F-18 ALL CAME OUT IN THE 1970’s! It’s called Wikipedia, it’s not that expensive😅 Officially, the last role it played was as a low level recon platform during the early years of the “Forever Wars” after 9/11. Why? Look at those monster huge engines. They would go in, wings swept, very supersonic, 📸📸📸📸, to quick for anyone to grap a shoulder fired SAM, and either fly back around in an arc to the carrier, or rub it in the enemy’s face a bit, come about and same thing: very supersonic right over the enemy, especially when talking Afghanistan, where the only anti-aircraft weapons they had were the stingers we sold them in the ‘80s (whoops), anyway that 14 can fly right back over the same area, 📸📸📸📸📸, thank you, here’s another sonic boom for you, sorry about the windows shattering…oh wait, that’s right, caves don’t have windows, I forgot, and yeah, go ahead and try with that stinger kid, that’s one less stinger we sold you, and by the time you’re ready to get a shot off, it’s like poof, the F-14, is gone…already feet wet and lining up to land. Suffice it to say, I think it was a budget issue (we didn’t buy these F-35s for nothing) that prematurely grounded it. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes back, considering current global affairs and with the 14 being the only plane that can carry the big ol’ AIM-54 Phoenix missile that can reach out and touch enemy aircraft out to 100 miles.😏 So yeah, despite appearances, I don’t think the 14 has flown its last combat mission…

[samhesser]

Thank you for your service to our Nation.

[persian-]

It was really one of the best fighters in history

[stephen]

F 14 ! Huge Legs ! All kind of jamming pods 😅 .