F-14 Tomcat: One of the Most Iconic Fighters in History!
Video from the channel War Machine about Grumman F-14 Tomcat, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 18:23. Language: Portuguese. Video type: Documentary.
What it's about
Documentary in Portuguese covering the history of the F-14 Tomcat: its origins, design, combat use with the US Navy and with Iran, and its retirement.
Historical context
The TFX program, driven by Robert McNamara from 1961, sought a single aircraft for several branches. Its naval version, the F-111B, failed to meet carrier operation requirements, and Congress withdrew its funding in May 1968. The Navy then launched the VFX competition, which Grumman won in early 1969, and the prototype first flew shortly before Christmas 1970. The name Tomcat honors Admiral Thomas Connolly and continues Grumman's feline naming tradition. The first units embarked on the USS Enterprise in September 1974.
Key facts
The TF30 engines caused serious problems until the arrival, in 1987, of the F110-GE-400. The video covers the shooting down of two Libyan Su-22s over the Gulf of Sidra in August 1981 and of two Libyan MiG-23s in January 1989, the loss of an F-14 to an SA-2 missile in 1991, and the extensive use of Iranian Tomcats in the Iran-Iraq war. The last US combat mission took place in February 2006, and official retirement followed in September of that year.