LAST
TIME, BABY!
LAST
TIME, BABY!
On 19 Jun 06 I hit the big 60 barrier with a bang. Fortunately, when breaking 60 (and unlike Mach busting in an early subsonic jet), your controls don't unexpectedly reverse, you don't experience terminal yaw-coupling effects, and you don't end up inverted on a flat spin trajectory to infinity. Still, that isn't to say that it's fun, by any means. Being 60 practically guarantees that the AARP will be beating a path to your door, regardless of whether you still feel like a teenager or not. It also means being automatically given senior rates at restaurants by young wait-persons, regardless of the fact that your ego still thinks its in charge of a righteous Sierra Hotel (that's "shit hot" to you non military aviation types) stud with a set of Titanium plated brass balls. Alas, the fleeting joys of youthful self mis-perceptions!
At any rate, this year, despite being" my year" (the
Lunar Year of the Dog), has gotten off to a little less promising start than I
had expected. It began with the discovery that I had bilateral cataracts that
needed attention. I am convinced they were the result of 35 years spent working
around high intensity fluoroscopy imaging systems in cardiac cath labs, since we
weren't always required to wear leaded protective glasses (despite having
routinely worn 35 pound wrap-around leaded aprons). This May I had the right eye
operated upon, but still have the left eye remaining to take care of. The result
of this has
been
that my ability to endure prolonged staring at computer VDTs without excessive
fatigue has been significantly compromised. This in turn has impacted my ability
to keep my monthly website rants on schedule, since my day job with the
California State Treasurer's Office also requires a full day of computer use.
After a typical day at the office, my eyes simply aren't willing to endure a
further X number of additional PC hours. Hopefully this will be resolved soon,
when the remaining eye is taken care of.
I suppose the big news here has been the receipt by our air museum (now named 'The Aerospace Museum of California'--formerly the McClellan AFB Air Museum) of one of the last Grumman F-14D Tomcats. Our bird, flown out to us from NAS Oceana after a last deployment with Navy fighter squadron VF-213 on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, is aircraft VF-210. After nearly 30 years of service with the Navy as a formidable front-line fighter, the last F-14 Tomcats are now finally all retired. Also significant is the fact that with the bowing out of the last Tomcat, the Navy no longer has any Grumman designed aircraft in active service. To those who know and well recall former years of Naval Aviation history, such a fact is almost inconceivable, due to the tremendous impact Grumman Aviation has had on Naval air operations for over 75 years.
Aviation
buffs of all colors and persuasions know that the Tomcat is one great big bundle
of formidable air combat capability. As if to substantiate its lethal reputation
for clearing airspace of bad guys, just standing on the ground next to one
parked on the ramp is a remarkable experience alone, for the Tomcat is one big
aircraft! At a length of about 61 feet and a loaded weight varying between
61,000 and 72,000 pounds (depending upon armament and fuel), it towers over an
individual. The image above, taken viewing forward from between the twin-tails
on our bird, serves to demonstrate this fact a bit. Details of its
articulated variable sweep wing (an improved version of that used on the FB-111
Aardvark, formerly AKA "TFX") may be noted in the photograph and man,
that's a lot of wing acreage! While we're on the subject of variable sweep wings
(the Tomcat's automatically adjust themselves in flight, according to the speed
and performance parameters at any given moment), you may recall that the first
real experimentation on variable sweep wings was done by German aeronautical
engineers at the RLM in the late 30s and earl 40s. One of the Reich's advanced
jet projects late in the war was the Messerschmitt P1101, which only reached an
unflown and partly completed prototype status in mid 1945. You may also
recall
that the captured Me-P1101 prototype was brought to the US and built up into the
experimental variable wing sweep Bell X-5, which provided the NACA (in the early
50s) with its first real close-up look at what variable sweep wings could do to
enhance the performance of a jet aircraft. It was from flight research gathered
on the Bell X-5 that the Vietnam Era Secretary of Defense MacNamara's
controversial "TFX" (Tactical Fighter Experimental) proposal was advanced as a
one-aircraft-does-it-all concept for both USAF and USN applications. As aviation
historians know, the F-111B (the Navy's version of the TFX) fell flat on its
face, virtually stillborn as it were, while the F-111A went on to overcome its
formidable teething problems to become the Us Air Force's superb swing-wing
FB-111 strategic fighter-bomber. The Tomcat inherited its advanced automatic
wing-sweep system from these early precursors.
While the "Super-Tomcat" (D model) was a very
sophisticated aircraft, capable of tracking multiple targets and attacking them
simultaneously with its Phoenix missiles from as far as 200 miles away, it
was also a very effort-intensive machine, requiring a significant number of
hours of maintenance for each hour of flight. The F-14D was additionally a very
costly aircraft, both to purchase and to fly. Perhaps even more significant, the
Grumman Company's bitter feud with the Navy and the Defense Department
eventually resulted in its succumbing to the same sort of intensely politicised
combat that the Northrop Aircraft Company fell victim to (with its YB-49
Flying Wing); the eventual fallout of that was a decision by the Secretary
of the Navy to forsake further Grumman aircraft in pursuit of another
'one-aircraft-does-it-all' concept, the General Dynamics F/A-18E/F "Super
Hornet".
Despite it's fuel capacity and war-load limitations, the Super Hornet today carries out both attack and fighter roles for the Navy, as the last of the great aerial gunfighters, the F-14 Tomcat, retires permanently. The Hornet's ability to perform all war-fighting tasks with equal proficiency is still a hotly debated and much contested issue, despite the fact that all arguments are now moot with the Navy's irrevocable decision to retire the F-14 and assign its fleet protection duties to the Super Hornet.
These facts notwithstanding, the Tomcat's place in history is assured--not least by the fact that it was the real 'star' of the well-known movie, 'TOP GUN', back in the mid-80s. We at the Aerospace Museum of California are, as you may imagine, quite pleased to have been given our own example of the type, VF-210, to include in our collection of aircraft.
One
fact that is frequently lost on the American public is that back in the days of
the Iranian Shah, before the declaration of the 'Islamic Republic of Iran' was
proclaimed, about 88 F-14A Tomcats were sold to that nation. When the Shah's
monarchy fell to the Islamic fundamentalists in the late 70s, those very capable
aircraft became potential antagonists to the US. Although Iranian ground
maintenance quality has probably resulted in the loss of a number of them to
operational use, there are still reportedly a small number that remain
air-worthy today. These Tomcats reportedly downed at least 50 or more Iraqi MiGs
during the Iran/Iraq War and are today used by the Iranians as a sort of
tactical 'AWACS' system (it is reported), due to the still formidable nature of
their offensive avionics suites.
When our museum bird was flown out to us a few weeks
ago, a selected few of us helped the Navy ground crew comply with the requisite
'demil' procedures applicable to our acceptance of the aircraft for our
collection. Regrettably, we had to give the ejection seats back to the Navy,
since they can still use these NACES seats for their new Super Hornets (with
some slight mods), but the positive aspect of this was that I had the chance to
learn how to remove the seats from the aircraft, disassemble them, and remove
the pyrotechnics (under the supervision of their egress expert).
The NACES
(Naval Aircrew Common
Ejection Seat) system is a remarkable advance over earlier US Navy seats like
the F-4 Phantom II's Mk. 7 types, with most of the multi-mode escape functions
governed by a microprocessor unit and programmed software each seat carries on
board. Each of the F-14D's two NACES seats, furthermore, is disassembled and
rather easily removed from the aircraft is three main sub assemblies, rather
than intact, as was the requirement with earlier Martin-Baker seats. Although
the basic NACES seat is essentially common to all Navy aircraft, there are small
differences that differentiate those used in the Tomcat from those used in the
Hornet.
We also helped the Navy crew removed both engines from the aircraft, a process that was an education in itself, and other 'sensitive' parts of the aircraft (such as sophisticated avionics packages and the bird's rotary cannon) were also retrieved for shipment back to the Navy's depot. Our aircraft (VF-210) is a 'Black Lions' squadron bird and had the distinction of having flown a number of operational missions over Iraq from the deck of the Teddy Roosevelt on its last Westpac Cruise as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
An insightful pilot once observed that the airplane a pilot likes most is the airplane he flew most in and while that may very well be true as a general principal, there's no contesting the plain truth of the fact that the Tomcat will be sorely missed by a wide range of aviation people--from military aviators all the way to non-flying aviation buffs. Simply put, it was a spectacular performer, a fast and hot fighter aircraft, and just a plainly impressive mainstay of most US Navy carrier operations for almost 30 years.
As we head into Sacramento's invariably hot summer, it is nice to know that we will be able to share the fascinating history of US Navy Tomcats with our museum visitors in the months ahead.
Stay well, citizens! Cheers, DocBoink. June 2006.