Grumman F-14 Tomcat F-14D(R)

When the US Navy decided in the late 1980s that the F-14D would be the definitive Tomcat, the plan did not rest on new aircraft alone. GlobalSecurity's figures tell the story: alongside 127 new-production F-14Ds, 400 F-14As and F-14A+s were to be modified to D configuration so that the entire fleet would fly the same model by 1998. The rebuilt aircraft were designated F-14D(R), the R standing for rebuild. The remanufacturing was carried out by Grumman and by the Naval Aviation Depot (NADEP) at Norfolk, Virginia, along the same path used to turn F-14As into F-14Bs.

The initial funding plan for converting F-14As into F-14D(R)s between 1990 and 1994 called for 6 aircraft in 1990, 12 in 1991, 24 in 1992, 48 in 1993 and 60 in 1994. It was soon scaled back to 18 in 1992, 20 in 1993 and 24 in each of 1994 and 1995, and further defence cuts wiped out almost all procurement funding for 1991 and left nothing at all for 1992 and 1993. The final blow came in mid-February 1991, when the Navy cancelled an already-funded $780 million contract for 12 remanufactured F-14s, effectively closing Super Tomcat production, new or rebuilt. The outcome, according to Wikipedia, was that only 18 F-14As were brought up to D standard as F-14D(R)s, which together with the 37 new builds made up the 55 F-14Ds the Navy ever had.

An F-14D(R) started life as an F-14A airframe built in the 1970s but left the depot with the capabilities of an F-14D. The Pratt & Whitney TF30-P-414A engines gave way to General Electric F110-GE-400s, which eliminated compressor stalls and made afterburner unnecessary for catapult launches. The analogue AN/AWG-9 radar was replaced by the digitally processed AN/APG-71, with fewer replaceable assemblies and a new antenna, receiver and processor configuration. Under the nose went the twin chin pod housing the AN/AAS-42 infrared search and track set beside the TCS camera, and the cockpit moved to digital displays with the new Naval Flight Officer armament control panel and pilot air combat manoeuvring panel, plus the Link 16 datalink and the AN/ALR-67 warning receiver.

As the National Air and Space Museum describes it, the F-14D(R) is a supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, variable-sweep strike fighter in which navigation, target acquisition, electronic countermeasures and weapons employment are divided between the pilot and the radar intercept officer (RIO). Its primary missions are precision strike against ground targets, air superiority and fleet air defence. It can deliver Mk 80-series general-purpose bombs, laser-guided bombs and JDAM while simultaneously carrying AIM-7, AIM-9 and AIM-54 missiles; the LANTIRN targeting system allows laser-guided precision strikes and battle damage assessment, the Fast Tactical Imagery (FTI) system transmits and receives targeting and reconnaissance imagery in flight, and it retains the ability to carry the TARPS reconnaissance pod, a role the Navy kept on the Tomcat after the 781 TARPS missions of the 1991 Gulf War.

The F-14D(R)s were absorbed into the F-14D squadrons with no operational distinction: they were Super Tomcats in every respect. Like the rest of the Ds they received the LANTIRN pod in the 1990s when the Tomcat's air-to-ground programme was revived, flew precision bombing missions over Afghanistan from 2001 and were upgraded in December 2005 with the ROVER III downlink to feed sensor imagery to forward air controllers on the ground. The story of one airframe illustrates the variant's full cycle. BuNo 159610 was built as an F-14A-85-GR and, serving with VF-32 aboard USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), took part in the Gulf of Sidra engagement of 4 January 1989: two F-14As on combat air patrol were alerted to a pair of Libyan MiG-23s that had taken off from Al Bumbaw airfield near Tobruk. The Tomcats locked them up with their AWG-9 radars, but this time the Floggers, carrying AA-7 Apex missiles, did not turn back; after a six- to eight-minute engagement in which the MiGs kept threatening them, they were declared hostile. The AIM-7 Sparrow fired by the lead aircraft, AC202, missed, while the Sparrow from AC207, 159610 itself, destroyed one MiG-23; the leader then downed the second with an AIM-9 Sidewinder that detonated in its tailpipe. Both Libyan pilots ejected.

In the early 1990s 159610 became one of the few Tomcats modified as an F-14D(R), and it served in that configuration until the type was withdrawn. The Navy's last Tomcats, flown by VF-31 and VF-213, made their final fly-in at NAS Oceana on 10 March 2006, and the official retirement ceremony was held there on 22 September 2006.

Transferred by the Navy, 159610 is now displayed in the Korea and Vietnam Aviation gallery of the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, with its 18.9-metre length, 19-metre unswept wingspan and 11.4-metre swept span, and the marking of its 1989 kill over Libya. It is one of the very few surviving F-14D(R)s; another, BuNo 159600, is at the Fort Worth Aviation Museum in Texas. Its museum value is twofold: it documents the only occasion on which a US Tomcat downed a fighter with a Sparrow in an engagement that ended in two victories, and it shows how the Navy tried to stretch the lives of its first-generation F-14As when the budget would not pay for the Super Tomcat it had planned.