Why was the F-14 retired?

They desperately need them both. The KC-135s are approaching the end of their airframe life, and it's going to take 10+ years to get the new tankers in service. But they need to have something besides MC-130s for jamming, or borrowing EA-6Bs from the Navy for SEAD.

hmm. I don't know where you got your information about the F-15 but it is here for many years to come and is no where near retirement. The F-14 was getting too difficult to replace parts for and the main fuselage needed major work if not a complete replacement. The turnaround time for an F-14 was at least 18 hours while it only takes the F-18 Hornet 10 hours and can be updated and or fixed with off the shelf parts. Hope that satisfies your inquery.
P.S. I'm not knocking the F-14 Tomcat, it was by far one the greatest naval fighters in the history of mankind bar none. I salute all F-14 crews and technicians for all their fantastic work on a great fighter/interceptor. I salute the mighty F-14 Tomcat!

Yeah, the stupidity of the EF-111 retirement cannot be over stated. As maintenance intensive as they could be, they were invaluable and if you count the cost of the increased wear and tear on the Prowler fleet any savings by early retirement of the Raven are illusory.

And I feel in many ways this is a simillar situation with the F-14. In fact to draw a link between the F-111 and F-14 an alternative strategy would have been to retire early models of the F-16 and F-18 and put saved monies towards rebuilds of the the former two. Given that they shared heritage power plants and were simillar in size it may have been possible for the USAF and USN to collaborate on buys of common items like engines and radars if bought off the shelf. Infact many legacy items could have been borrowed from the F-22 like the F-119 and APG-77. This would have afforded the respective services much larger airframes to "plug and play" with, and given the rediscovery in the last ten years of combat persisitence, (more gas and more bombs equalls better results) an ultimately more efficient airframe system than squadron after squadron of supposedly cheap small/medium fighters.

Infact it would still be possible to pull the Ravens out of storage and reactivate them. I believe this has been proposed a number of times and there was even a discussion about 3-4 yrs back of operating a joint squadron of reactivated EF's with the RAAF, given that they are still operating them.

But then contractors wouldn't be able to sell bucket loads of shiny new over priced jets would they?

LEE.

[edit on 7-4-2007 by thebozeian]

[edit on 7-4-2007 by thebozeian]

I know it's off topic but since it was brought up...

The USAF has no one but itself to blame for it's loss of any significant and survivable EW capability. Ever since, to some extent since the Gulf War, USAF fighters have had to rely on navy dedicated jamming aircraft. This was highlighted in the Balkans where given the threat from SAM's Navy jammers escorted almost everyone. Since then the Navy will commision the EA-18G which in some respects will be better suited for the role than the Prowler, advanced avionics, better radar, a more high performance airframe etc... The USAF on the other hand is stuck in development hell, with ideas such as the EB-52 SOJ (scaled down from the original idea), EC-130 and retrofitted (E)F-15E's being tossed around.

The problem with this is that if you have a few "EB-52's" you are limited in your capacity to deploy and use them on a large scale. Furthermore, the B-52 is not the ideal airframe you want acting in this role with next generation SAM's hitting the front lines. As for retrofitting some F-15E's, good, but you still run into some of the same problems. Unless you're going to purchase new F-15E's from Boeing you will reduce your dedicated Strike Eagle fleet and have a small EW force. The only way this could work is if they use it in combination with a large upgraded EC-130 fleet (or something similar) for example.

There is another area in which USAF better start thinking about, Wild Weasels. The F-16 fleet will eventually be retired, with the F-35's coming online they better start developing HARM's and other systems capable of being put on the F-35.

However having said all that there are several things that do not get mentioned enough, modern AESA radars already possess significant electronic attack capability. With more upgrades in combination with EA pods and an advanced EW suite 5th generation fighters like the F-22 and F-35 might help the USAF offset some of it's shortcomings. While not powerful enough to be dedicated stand off jammers they are much more numerous, LO and possess more advanced sensors. On a tactical level they can be very effective in combination with a limited and dedicated USAF jammer. Also, given a net centric view of the role you could link all of the dedicated SIGINT/ELIT assets such as the RC-135, E-8, E-3, ERJ-145 ACS, NATO AGS, Global Hawk and possible future X-47B and other UAV's with the dedicated jammers (EA-18G, EB-52*,EA-15E* EC-130*) and dedicated strike aircraft (F-35, F-22, F/A-18 Super Hornet, F-16 Wild Weasels). This too could enhance electronic warfare capabilities. Unfortunately for the US it will get worse before it gets better...

Personally I'd tell them to buy some Growlers but that's just me, not to mention it's USAF blasphemy (Navy jets...).

Related Links

Where Next With Electronic Attack?
EA-18G Program: The USA's Electronic Growler
Will F-35, F-22 Also Play EW Role?
F-35 Electronic Warfare Suite: More Than Self-Protection
Electronic Attack Role Next Upgrade For Raptor Radar
AESA Electronic Attack (PDF)
Navy Details New Super Hornet Capabilities
UAV Electronic Warfare (PDF)

[edit on 7-4-2007 by WestPoint23]

Personally I'd like to bring in the new UCAV's as jammer plateforms to go on the same missions as manned f-22's and f-35's just to test the feild etc. The only difference for a bombing mission is that you drop a bomb. The EM mission field is more or less the same as the bombing one and would be as I said an awesome place to test the machines.

How can you guys got so many reason?
In my view, the only reason is that dicisionmaker is stupid, nothing more

Of course we have the TOP GUN and Tom Clancy memories of the F-14, but a member said it was a technical dinosaur. It is true. Of course the F-14 is a good fighter, but everything ends. In France we have a plane called Mirage2000, a once technical marvel, capable of carrying nuclear warheads on a long range, but it's getting old and the French Air Forces are gonna retire it gradually to set the new fighter, the Rafale, which has been completed a few years ago. Nostalgically, air lovers will be sorry for the Mirage, but it's old. Old, old, old. And the best way to win a war is to have the best equipment, right ? So, let's say goodbye to the F-14. Just keep the poster on the wall !

Lots of good points there Matt. Your right in looking at it simply some times.

As others have said, the F-14 was getting old and it's origional mission dissapered with the end of the Cold War.

The F-14 was origionally concieve to replace the F-4 as a Fleet Defense interceptor in the 1970's. The need for the plane arose when US intelligence realized that the sovites were putting supersonic anti-ship cruise misslies on the TU-142 Bear F naval patrol bombers. These newer missiles were longer range then the prieveous generation of Soviet anti-ship missiles, which allowed the bombers to stay out of reach of the F-4's while launching their attacks. To counter the new threat the Navy developed the AWG-9/AIM-54 radar and missile system. The origional idea was to mount the system on a Navy vresion of the F-111. However, the F-111 was to heavy for safe carrier operations. To correct this the F-14 Tomcat was built around the AWG-9/AIM-54 weapon system as an interceptor aircraft and fleet defense fighter. Years later, after the cold war ended, the theat of Bear-F's attacking the fleet from the air disappeared, making the now aging F-14 obsolete in it's origional mission. As others have said, this fact, combined with the F/A-18's better gorund attack capibility made the F-14 an unessacary expense for the navy. Also, as the fleet ages, it becomes more expensive to maintain and upgrade.

While Many of us (me included) hated to see the ledgendary F-14 go, it was well past it's prime. The fact that it was becoming obsolete added to the pressure. It was only a matter of time before the F-14 like it predecessor the F-4, took it's place in the pages of history.

Tim

Do you believe that the F-14 tomcat, would have been suited for dogfighting? I believe that it was. That is one reason why that I think that it should have stayed.

Originally posted by galm 1
Do you believe that the F-14 tomcat, would have been suited for dogfighting? I believe that it was. That is one reason why that I think that it should have stayed.

If your basing that statement on the movies I'd take it back if I was you. It did have some dogfighting capabilities but nothing like the 15, 16 or 18. It was closer to an interceptor then a dogfighter and its weapons were built for that role of BVR (beyond visual range) combat. It was a great plane and I'm not saying it sucked because the F-14 did prove it could play a number of roles. In some ways I think of the F-22 as what the F-14 and F-15 could of been with a bit more tech etc which is the way it should be.

Had the money been spent on new build Tomcats(i.e. the Super Tomcat/Tomcat 21), it would've been viable to keep them in the fleet, but they(the old ones) were serious hanger queens compared to the Hornets. New build modern Tomcats would've been superior to the Super Hornets though(greater range, payload, speed). The F-14D with the targeting pods and A2G avionics were very capable aircraft, very similar to the F-15Es in capabilities.

Even a "Super Tomcat" would not be able to compare with the Block II Hornet, raw performance specs are overrated, IMO. Give me an APG-79, AMRAAM-D and a RCS optimized airframe any day... that's not to say that the Hornet (any version) couldn't hand the F-14 it's behind in ACM all day long.

[edit on 9-4-2007 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by galm 1
The F-14 Tomcat is a great fighter. I will admit that it is falling apart, but it is a classic. It would cost a lot of money to upgrade the jet, but the point is that it can still be upgrade to a certain point. I think that it should be retiered, but in about 2 years to get the F/A-18 force fully operational on all aircraft carriers.

what was the f14s combat record?
why was it such a great aircraft? Its seems to me that it is Hollywood that had made it a great aircraft

Originally posted by galm 1
Do you believe that the F-14 tomcat, would have been suited for dogfighting? I believe that it was. That is one reason why that I think that it should have stayed.

Originally posted by Canada_EH
If your basing that statement on the movies I'd take it back if I was you. It did have some dogfighting capabilities but nothing like the 15, 16 or 18. It was closer to an interceptor then a dogfighter and its weapons were built for that role of BVR (beyond visual range) combat.

Guys, the F-14 was design as an Interceptor for the US Navy. The purpose of the F-14, as I said before was to replace the F-4 in the fleet defense role (read Interceptor). It was first concieved when the Nave realized that the F-4 could not counter the newest generation of anti-ship cruise missiles. They often called it a Fleet Air Defense Fighter, because it's job was to protect the Carrier battle groups from air attack.

Canada_EH is right in his assessment of the F-14. the reason they trained the pilots to fight Migs is because US Naval Strategists realised the Soviets were planning to use a new generation of Migs to escort their bombers, therfore the F-14 needed to be able to engadge the Migs if needed to get to the bombers.

The F-14 can dogfight if it needs to, but if your looking for a dogfight, it wouldn't be your first pick!

Tim

Originally posted by Ghost01
The F-14 can dogfight if it needs to, but if your looking for a dogfight, it wouldn't be your first pick!

If you're looking for a dogfight with an F-14 against a decent pilot in a late series Soviet fighter, good luck! Lets leave it out of that realm...

Originally posted by WestPoint23

Originally posted by Ghost01
The F-14 can dogfight if it needs to, but if your looking for a dogfight, it wouldn't be your first pick!

If you're looking for a dogfight with an F-14 against a decent pilot in a late series Soviet fighter, good luck! Lets leave it out of that realm...

I believe after the past 3 posts thats the point. The F-14 was not designed as a dogfighter like the F-16 was. Much the same as my point that the B-1 was not designed as a stealth. Both planes had to adapt to those enviorments and adopt some of the requirements.

Originally posted by galm 1
I believe that the F-14 should not have been retired for at least a couple of years.

Why?

the best fighters of the USAF, are being fased out by the F/A-22, F-35 JSF, F/A-18 Hornet.

F-14s were never flown by the USAF, and F-18s will never be.

I was wasn't just talking about the F-14. I know that the F-14 is for Naval use. The F/A-18 is flown by Naval pilots also, but I was also talking about it's USAF sibilings, like the F-15.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Even a "Super Tomcat" would not be able to compare with the Block II Hornet, raw performance specs are overrated, IMO. Give me an APG-79, AMRAAM-D and a RCS optimized airframe any day... that's not to say that the Hornet (any version) couldn't hand the F-14 it's behind in ACM all day long.

[edit on 9-4-2007 by WestPoint23]

But how much more in terms of avionics could you fit into the F-14 though, and if they'd been armed with the AAAM, that'd be a very potent A2A platform- (you can fit a much bigger AESA in the nose of the F-14). All that's hypothetical, but the range and payload would still be superior in any event.