The F-14 Tomcat was correctly dubbed the MiG killer in it's time, it was big and could host six large long range supersonic AIM-54 missiles that would kill any nimble MiG before it could even get close to any US position, built to defend aircraft carriers in the high seas the F-14 armed with the AIM-54 could hit airborne targets dead on 100 miles away, targets including fighter jets, supersonic bombers and even cruise missiles!
However this system was expensive, and apart from selling 79 F-14's and 285 AIM-54 Phoenix missiles to the Shah's Iran, following the revolution of 1979 it was rumored throughout the west that these missile systems were disabled by the Americans before they left, neither way it was an extremely expensive loss for the United States military.
The US Navy however throughout the 1980's made no use of the deadly system, the AIM-54 wasn't mass produced at all, as it had been during the late 1970's, instead during both incidents above the Gulf of Sidra against Libyan MiG's and Sukhoi's Navy Tomcats used short range AIM-7's and AIM-9's, which meant close quarter dogfights which misses the whole point in the missiles role in the long range defense for naval aircraft carriers.
However during the 1980's the Iranians did manage to press at least 55 of their F-14's into the newly founded Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, only around six AIM-54's had been disabled by the Americans, the Iranians put the Phoenix missile into increased use throughout the first five years of the war against Iraq, in one instance in 1982 downing two Iraqi MiG-23's with just one AIM-54!
However the Iranian Tomcats had a problem with their faulty TF30 engines, although this didn't stop the IRIAF F-14's scoring over 100 air to air victories against Saddam's air force.
The US Navy in 2006 had the Tomcat fleet destroyed, the deadly AIM-54 system never got it's chance to prove its worth in the west.
The F-14 was only ever exported to Iran under the Shah, 79 were delivered between 1976 and 1979 and shortly after the Iranian Revolution and the seizure of American hostages in their embassy in Tehran, shortly afterwards the US and the west put aside the rules that govern how states behave by aiding Saddam Hussein in his bloody war against Iran and spreading propaganda one of the most famous ones to this day was the status of Iran's fleet of F-14's, which were told be sabotaged and left useless.
These lies changed from the whole IRIAF being inactive by 1984 and the air war remaining "uninteresting" according to US sources, however the post revolution Iranian air force the IRIAF had;
scored the first kill for an F-14 in September of 1980 against an Iraqi Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship using it's Vulcan cannon!
Managed to service and maintain the Tomcat's air frame and keep a hefty amount of the fleet active throughout the war, this was a big burden considering they were under complete arms embargo from most of the world and the F-14A's they had had the TF30 engines which were a problem even for the IIAF!
Shot down over 159 adversaries, and saw more air to air combat than the entire USAF and US Navy saw in the Vietnam War!
However as the US mainstream media made several claims sometimes contradicting each other, for instance in 1987 stating Iran no longer even had an air force which was followed by an engagement (one of several over the course of the war) in which a single F-14 downed a MiG-23 in plain sight and scarred off the rest!
After nearly 20 years of declaring the IRIAF dead and not a threat the US Navy had all of their F-14's destroyed to ensure Iran didn't get spare parts for their air force, proving how much of threat the US considers the "long dead" IRIAF to be!
The fifth generation of fighter jets looks like it's not going be half as good as the 4th and 4.5 generations, especially with the flop that the F-22 turned out to be, here I detail my favorite 10 warplanes of the 20th century.
10. Supermarine Spitfire
Used by the Royal Air Force in World War II the Supermarine Spitfire was truly an icon of that war, fighting in the skies over London witnessed by the general public is cut down the superior numbers of Luftwaffe planes, but superior numbers didn't mean anything against a superior fighter like the Spitfire.
It deserves a place simply on this list not because of its operational history but for the fame it acquired during the Battle of Britain in 1940!
9. Fokker D.VII
World War I didn't see much action in the sky but the Fokker was one of the most feared aircraft for the RAF and the French Air Force, impressively (for the time) it was able to dive without any fear of structural failure. It was able to climb to very high angles of attack, it had a remarkable docile stall, and it very seldom spun.
Several characteristics western aircraft didn't properly adopt for nearly the next one hundred years!
8. F-15 Eagle
The F-15 is far from my favorite plane but I do have a lot of respect for it, it's been around for quite a while now and is still one of the best fighters you can get, it is also better than the F-22 Raptor which only entered service five years ago, cheaper older and looks better.
Hell the an F-15 even managed to land after an air collision where it was left with only one wing!
7. F-4 Phantom II
A jet way ahead of its time when it was first made in 1958 the F-4 was particularly impressive for its Wild Weasel roles and its combat in Vietnam ensured it would stay in service with the United States for nearly 40 years fighting alongside other more sleeker aircraft in the Gulf War of 1991 where it was shown to be just as impressive!
6. P-51 Mustang
Although it entered World War II towards its closing stages the P-51 was big, loaded to the teeth with guns and fast, it proved to be especially effective at escorting bombers on their runs over Fortress Europe in the Second World War a minimum amount required was able enough to shoot down anything that the Germans could throw at them.
It remained in service as the best until early in the jet age when it suffered losses in the Korean War at the hands of Soviet jets.
5. Hawker Hurricane
The Spitfire was the true British ace of World War II but truth be told the war was won by the Hawker Hurricane, boasting eight machine guns it was deadly fire to play with in the skies, and plus when it got hit or damaged by enemy fire it was easy to repair since the air frame was made of wood and easier to get normal material to fix it with (unlike the Spitfire).
4. Mitsubishi Zero
A combination of excellent maneuverability and firepower proved the Zero to be a deadly threat to US planes in the Pacific in the early 1940's, later infamous for its kamikaze ('divine wind' suicide raids) attacks on US Navy ships the Zero later proved to be a simple yet ingenious design meaning it could be made in large numbers guaranteeing the Japanese (for a time) mass air superiority with superior aircraft.
3. Su-27 Flanker
This single Soviet made fighter first seen in 1983 by the west was made to compete with the American F-14's, F-15's and F-16's, it did all this and better, big it was highly maneuverable in the air and it also boasts a long 3,530 km range, heavy armament, sophisticated avionics and high agility.
So cool it's newsworthy 30 years on!
2. F-14 Tomcat
The F-14 got so high on the list because it was pretty much the worlds first super fighter, designed specially to defend aircraft carriers the F-14 paired with the AIM-54 Phoenix missile was a very impressive defense system, able to track 24 enemies with its powerful AWG-9 radar and send six missiles at six of these targets simultaneously the F-14 was truly a killer machine.
The US had a limited enough combat endurance, Iran sported a hefty amount of kills against the war with Iraq in the 1980's over a long period of endurance with no spare parts!
1. A-10 Thunderbolt II
With giant dustbin masquerading as engines, gawky wings, spindly fuselage and overall angular toughness, the Fairchild A-10 Warthog is hardly the most attractive flying machine, yet it is probably the deadliest in the ground war.
However with its combination of its 8 (at a time) AGM-65 Maverick missiles and large Avenger gattling gun (that can slice through tanks) the A-10 is an incredibly practical plane and in my opinion one of the very few planes that can do the job it was designed to do!
It'll be interesting to see the development of those above ideas in the next 100 years.
The question is put forward by the character played by Martin Sheen in the 1980 film The Final Countdown in which the super carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) is time warped back to December 6th 1941 just off the shores of Hawaii.
I enjoyed the movie for the scene in which two F-14's splash two Japanese A6M Zeroes and was eagerly awaiting the finale in which several squadrons of F-14 Tomcats and F-8 Crusaders were launched to counter the attacking strike force of Zeroes prepared to attack Pearl Harbor!
Of course at the last minute they are prepared to be time warped and abort their strike force leaving me wondering about what would have happened and how awesome it would have been!
I would assume that if they hadn't averted the strike they would've used the AIM-54 Phoenix armed F-14 Tomcats to take down at least 4 Zeroes each from long range and then close in and hunt down the remaining of them with smaller missiles and even the cannons.
Obviously the Japanese strike force of 1941 wouldn't stand a chance against a squadron of mighty AIM-54 armed F-14A Tomcats.
But could the USS Nimitz take on 1941 Japan on its own (with no support ships), remember it could have taken out the six aircraft carriers that attacked it with a single nuclear warhead dropped in the water;
Like this only dropped from a plane
Now the Nimitz (in this scenario) operating on its own would be on full alert (remember 1980 deck configuration);
A CAP of two F-14's at a time both armed with six AIM-54's while bombers escorted by other AIM-54 armed F-14's could carry out a series of nuclear esq Doolittle Raids against strategic targets (unlike the real life Doolittle raid) such as the Yokosuka naval base and other large air fields around Japan at all times of the day.
This being said we shouldn't forget the lessons we learned in history from ships such as the USS Bunker Hill since it would be hard to keep F-14's on constant rotation one being only able to hold off a guaranteed 12 interceptors, and remember Japan had at least 4,000 Zeroes alone at the time!
This is big, bigger than the colony and a 48 hour series of strikes against Japan couldn't ensure that they would not only just cripple their military and civilian infrastructure but would have had every second warship and warplane in the Imperial Japanese forces coming down on the one lone Nimitz!
That being said I would much rather have the "Old Salt" on my side.
* "Old Salt" is the nickname given to the USS Nimitz by its crew in case you're wondering what the hell I'm on about!
It seems that Bush has not attacked Iran, tensions have been rising since 2006 when it was even suggested that nukes be in such an attack since it was too big to invade!
What I always wanted to know was whether or not the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) would have posed a credible threat to USAF aircraft?
Back in the 1970's in the Shah's Iran the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) was spending millions on high technology from the United States, by 1979 the air force had over 450 modern aircraft even a match at the time for the Soviet Union, these aircraft included 120 F-4 Phantom II jets, 79 Grumman F-14 Tomcats (out of a scheduled 80) and even F-5's.
These were later transferred into the successor of that the IRIAF after the 1979 revolution, for the next year alot of these were grounded due to maintenance problems with several Tomcats, but on September 1980 after the Iraqi Air Force launched its invasion by using the IrAF to strike IRIAF aircraft on the ground they failed the main objective since most IRIAF were sheltered in concrete bunkers.
Iran launched the largest air operation in the whole Iran Iraq War and in the countries history, less than 24 hours later Operation Kaman 99 was launched, 60 F-14 Tomcats were launched to protect Iran some armed with the AIM-54 missile system, 30 F-4's then hit back at Iraqi air bases taking out 55% of it there and then.
For the rest of the war Iranian F-14's were used for protecting the Khark Island installation, over 300 air-to-air engagements against IrAF fighters, fighter-bombers, and bombers, were fought in these areas alone between 1980 and 1988.
The IrAF had acquired some French Dassault Mirage F-1's which downed a total of three Tomcats.
In Operation Desert Storm in 1991 several Iraqi planes fled to Iran to avoid being destroyed by coalition craft, these included several Mirage F1s, MiG-25 Foxbats, MiG-21 Fishbeds, MiG-27s, Su-24MK Fencer-Ds, MiG-29 Fulcrums, Su-20s, Su-22M Fitters, Su-25 Frogfoots, MiG-23s and a number of Il-76s.
Also in 1993 Russia sold Iran a number of MiG-29 Fulcrums, Iran only bought a handful of them and have not yet decommissioned the older US built F-4's and F-14's.
Ever see that movie The Final Countdown (1980), seriously its got to be one of the worst plots ever made but its still quite a good movie, it watched it because I was interested in seeing the shots of the USS Nimitz. The movie is typical eighties with the music basically turned up above any in movie audio, its about the carrier being time warped back to 6/12/41 near Hawaii and actually shows a bit with two Navy F-14 Tomcats versing two Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes, think about that for a minute.
VS
How it was actually done was quite interesting since the Zeroes really were converted AT-6 Texans but close enough in design and speed, note that for most of the fight in the movie the F-14's were going at stall speed which is visible the way the wings are out until near the end.
About three minutes of playing with the Zeroes and the F-14's preforming maneuvers like diving toward the water and pulling up at the last second, feats impossible for World War II-era planes. When they are given the order to fire the F-14's kick ass bringing down both Zeroes in less than a minute.
Pretty cool stuff but I wonder if this really did happen what it would be like, obviously the F-14 would never slow itself down to fight with a prop plane, even an F-14 that wasn't armed would probably be able to go to full speed, nearly Mach 2 and fly near the Zeroes would rip the weak plane apart without even a shot being fired.
