lunaticfringe

That's not tactics- that's having a natural head start based on airfield position versus coalition CAP locations. If you never come out of burner under such terms, escape is a foregone conclusion. It's also important to remember that the Iraqis had already dealt with the F-14 for a decade by the time of the first Gulf War; they knew exactly what they were up against, and so took the option of "the devil they didn't know"- that tells you how fearful they were of the Tomcat, given that they openly refused to take it on, and ran every time they were confronted during the conflict. You might want to have a conversation with Pitts and Tollini on that matter, GG.

Your own fronted licensing dollars. If you're willing to pay Paramount substantially up front, and issue them a piece of any additional income taken from the product, they'll talk to you. The point isn't that ED has a "small" customer base- it's that they don't have that sort of income to spend on such ancillary licensing. No IP holder is ever going to refuse money if it functions in parallel with their aims and operations, so long as it doesn't intentionally act to degrade the value of said IP.

Paramount doesn't give a rats ass about "customer base" size. Dangle a large enough contract out in front of them, and they'll let you stick a TOP GUN logo on a line of sex toys to reenact Quentin Tarantino's wet dreams between Maverick, Goose, Slider, and Iceman, akin to that Shiny Vampire Fanfiction movie out now.

Brother's knowledge of aviation history is disturbingly lacking to make such pronouncements, no?

Not getting into specifics, but I'm just going to say that a 100+ lb proximity warhead can make up for a lot of MISS.

The book has been out of print for a decade- they're *all* used, and have been hovering between the $120-200 price point for the last five years.

It is a big subject, and others (such as David Adamy in his 101, 201, and 301 series) have already pared down into bite-sized examples. http://www.amazon.com/Ew-101-Electronic-Warfare-Library/dp/1580531695/ I've spent the time to go beyond that and understand the lower level interactions going on. Problem is, those books already explain what you would want to know better than I (or anyone else here, for that matter) can do. So why try?

Nope. Research the methods of countermeasures and you'll understand why.

1880588137

Bio's book is indeed very good. And fun fact- his pilot pal in the tale- "Jaws" Winnefeld, is currently an Admiral, and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (3rd highest in command of the United States Armed Forces, behind the CinC and Demspey).

For details: F-14: Shipborne Superfighter (done by John Lake and the crew of World Air Power Journal) is considered the most definitive single source, and you pay for that on the secondary market. Repeats some of what's covered in World Air Power Journal issue 7 (which had the F-14 as focus aircraft), but a depth of other material. Add International Air Power Review issue 3 (authored by same crew) and you've got early-mid and late all pretty well covered. Grumman F-14 Tomcat - Leading US Navy Fleet Fighter by Dennis Jenkins (part of the Aerofax series). Later book with some more of the technical details of the program as a whole. Grumman F-14 by James Perry Stevenson. Older (late 70s), but had a data set for the time that was still borderline-classified and got the author (editor of the NFWS' TOPGUN Journal) in trouble. Tomcat! The Grumman F-14 Story by RADM Paul T. Gilchrist, USN (RET). More "inside baseball" type stores of the early to mid period of the aircraft. Janes - How to Fly the F-14 Tomcat by David Rockwell. Has a couple of issues, but is generally a good explanation of how the Tomcat was used operationally. And of course, 01-F14AAA-1 and 01-F14AAD-1 for under the hood, and 01-F14AAA-1.1 and 01-F14AAP-1.1 for performance. For pictures: DACO Uncovering the F-14 The Cutting Edge by CJ Heatley III - early photo album of the F-14, along with other Navy aircraft, with the images produced by an F-14 pilot (and former 4477th' attached MiG-driver- !). Tomcat Alley by David Brown Grumman F-14 Tomcat: Bye Bye Baby by Dave Parsons, George Hall, and Bob Lawson. Photos and reminiscences of the jet. Fortunate to have gotten one of the 712 (BUNO-sequence matched) limited edition copies a few years back from Mr. Halls widow. There's a few more out there, but those are my favorites.

The F-5, no. An A-4E/F/M? Yeah, you've got a big part of that envelope you do *not* want to play with him on his terms. Snort'll tell you, now that he's flying A-4Ks with Draken International: give that airframe AIM-9X, and he'd kill Raptors all day long. Heinemann's hot rod is no joke with a good motor and functional slats. As for what to watch? Class is in session.

So lemme get this straight: you believe it is completely acceptable to trade in patent fabrications because a film made expressly as a work of fiction is "trashy"? Boy, you've never seen Iron Eagle, Firebirds, Les Chevaliers du Ciel or Blue Tornado, have you? Are you sure you weren't a Zampolit in a past life? Seriously- you're willing to walk into an argument with pure propaganda and lodge insults at people based on your opinion of entertainment. That is *insane*, to a Yefim Gordon "the Fitter was almost within firing parameters on the Tomcat in the turn" degree. You'll have to excuse me for saying, but given your propensity for hyperbole, what makes you think you are qualified to state what qualifies as a "simple thing"? NAVAIR is only "part" of the needed documentation? Every bit of the information required is going to have the NAVAIR prefix in the title- the dozens upon dozens of volumes. And frankly, having provided some significant material to Leatherneck, and had some of it be duplicates of information they already had in hand, I think you're going to find yourself at a loss as to what they actually have or need.

They strapped them on, but the MIM-23 functions on a completely different wavelength than the AWG-9 can generate, so it was unsuccessful. Chalk it up to about as useful as the Sageh. (BTW: the MIM-23 HAWK has the greatest acronym for anything in the history of acronyms...)

Upload the images to your post in advanced mode instead, so long as they're <1mb.

I have a former coder from the relevant NAVAIR program office as a pal, who is now with the Flight Vehicle Performance group as my source. It had the bus (which covers the onboard handling of the weapon), which means that between the AN/AWG-15F or H-versions, the solve is likely in there, although Fairchild (and DTIC.mil) aren't talking contents, and I don't have later B manuals enough for software to the F and/or H updates to see the change orders (which, if the symbology isn't included, it's going to drop hints). Even that, unfortunately, wouldn't necessarily show what we want, because there are plenty of modes on the -14A that weren't illustrated in the AAA-1, but we know to have been there (all of the A/G stuff)- those come up in tech materials that I've not seen available as of yet. I have, however, left a message with my guy and we'll see when he's back in the office on Monday if he can provide the relevant details. Pretty much. By the time you get to AMRAAM qualification, you've got three sets of jets in the fleet: AWG-9 w/AWG-15 (pre -F) AWG-9 w/AWG-15 (-F or -H) APG-71 By the time you start talking unit cost for upgrades to all remaining As to get common, plus -1553B standardized, rails across the fleet, you're looking at diminishing returns. Then you start looking at numbers of Bs and Ds, deciding if that is worth the capability when they already have the money spent on Phoenix C rounds (because at this point, C is still outranging AMRAAM A/B, and Sparrow range overlaps the latter two). You're not building anymore airframes, so you can't decrease the cost by larger volumes, and you're really seeing a timeline come together for its end of service life (2010 or less). Thus, its easier to buy into systems you can field across the entire fleet for a lower cost with a higher probability of use, because you're just waiting on the F/A-18E/F to become available as the real replacement to the A-6.

As illustrated, the best performance the MiG-23 can generate is so consistently poor that it is always forced to play on its opponents terms: at 5000', the F-14 isn't going to fight at 550 knots; he's going to decelerate to corner on the bandit with a nautical mile wide circle and stuff a Sidewinder in his face one circle. The only performance margin you can find is the one he wouldn't bother with- reason being that the MiG can't generate a better radius *or* rate than the F-14 can sticking by its own terms. Both airframes fight their fight at said altitude, all the Flogger is doing is generating separation for that aforementioned heater. While I give you props for coming on back, you are welcome to keep dreaming.

That, as you state, is *your opinion*. *Your* opinion is not the same as everyone else's, nor does it have more validity than anyone else's. What fascinates me is that questions such as this are asked in meetings at real (ergo, not "hobby") developers all the time- "what airplane is going to make me the most money?", yet asking them out loud draws ire. I have to ask- have any of you griping about the question ever done market research for anything, or based your business around such research? If a developer gathers data that shows a particular type isn't going to bring in a solid amount of return for the investment, they're not going to make it. Period. Their dollars are better spent creating things that will sell, because their resources to invest in products (ie, payroll, associates, and time) are finite. Which means that- taken in the context of reality, it's your opinion that's rather dumb.

1987. Right after the Norwegian P-3 had that run in with the Flanker. A few days later a pair of F-14s shadowed another P-3, flying the same profile that caused the Su-27s to come up the first time. Tomcats broke the formation prior to the merge to announce their presence, both sides continued their intercepts, and the F-14s were behind the Flankers inside of half a minute. As to this extra weight/optimized argument: 1. Again, weight doesn't matter like you think it does. If your wing area is large, you're covered. One thing that most have never seen is Grumman's equation for the area of the Tomcat (confirmed by NASA through their studies): they qualified two thirds of the body area (443 ft^2, so 292.4 ft^2) as additional wing based on the design of the pancake, and the amount of additional body lift it provides. Thus, the "reference" wing area, fully extended (565 ft^2) is 50 percent short- fully extended, the area carrying the F-14 is actually 857.38 ft^2, bringing a 57k Tomcat down to a wing loading of 66.48 lbs/ft^2. That's your sustained energy. It's even funnier, because in contrast to foxbat's earlier claims, the F-14's loading is *always* less than the MiG-23 based on exposed wing plus body lift. 2. Optimization- to what end? Being optimized for the slow speed radius/rate fight is no less a valid design choice than being optimized for high speed/energy. If I choose to sit inside your turn circle all day, you have to sacrifice position to extend out and start over. Advantage: me. And let's be very clear: from the period of 1972/1974, all the way into the mid-1990s, there were only two operational communities on the planet generating over 300 flight hours per year, with all of their training time dedicated to ACM: the F-15A/C, and the F-14. Everybody else either had less than half of those hours, or were doing most of their business on the ranges for air to ground (yes, I mean you- F-16s and F/A-18s and MiGs). The machine can make up for some of this- it can't make up for everything. And the opposite is also true- experience makes up far more for perceived deficiencies than not. Thus, it's really laughable when folks sit around and say "oh, this airplane should always win" or "that plane will be in a bad way"- there are very few people who do the air to air role exclusively, and most of those don't get the hours (and haven't since the collapse of the Soviet Union); the few that do need not give a damn about what the perceived penalties they pay against the competition, because they've worked through the eventualities far more than the other guy. In other news, I see our resident Flogger fan doesn't actually want to play stat lines- sad, because I really wanted to get into the 300 flight hours/year, all ACM based, against the 125 flight hours/year argument. It'd be especially funny, considering that a LT out of the RAG would have as many hours halfway through his third year as a newly minted pilot officer 1C would have in six-plus. From there, it just gets more embarrassing in the balance of forces.

I can definitely respect that. Don't tell anybody, but I'm actually the same way over the F-16- it's been done so many times that it doesn't interest me. I think a lot of folks want it based on familiarity- even more so than its multi-role capability, whereas its familiarity removes all interest I have. Want to give me a small-mouth F-16 Block 30 (the F-16N), we can talk, because it has one purpose, and one purpose alone, and it ain't multi-role, and it's not even "real" ACM- but it would fit perfectly with the Nevada map. But anything else? Count me out.

Any particular reason? Just wondering- the Crusader is generally pretty popular (until you find out the Colt feed installation was a real joke, making the whole "Last of the Gunfighters" meme pretty useless...)

What was interesting was that the issues were solved, and the software was loaded up to the fleet B and Ds (if my NAVAIR guy was online I'd tell you the revision), 1997 if I remember correctly. Operationally, it wasn't put into practice because the squadrons weren't provided the matching LAU. By the time the testing was done, and the software made available, budgets for continued F-14 updates were being further limited. Now get yourself into a near-peer hot war, and you might find a Greyhound bringing resupply with the new toys, but you weren't going to get it otherwise.

If you're in the US and want to talk about getting the A+/D, send PM. The line concerning operation of devices is at the bottom of the page, rather than both bottom and top. F-14A+/D as shown is the *not* operation pages. Like I was saying- wanted to show legitimacy to the extent of information available. :D Almost verbatim- almost completely verbatim, now that you mention it.

Especially since at wings aft, he's got nowhere near the available G to defend against the Phoenix. This is a hilarious conversation when you think about it- a fanboy with no data calling others fanboys, stating they have no data. Except I do. Guess it comes from being raised not to talk unless the capability is there to back it up.

I'll show you just a *fraction* of my data (as I own both 01-F14AAA-1.1 *and* 01-F14AAP-1.1 in hard copy), let's see some of yours, Foxbat. And don't give me typical Soviet-era hand-waving garbage they fed their aircrews (such as I can find from here): http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/ussr/mikoyangurevitch/mig-23/5379todo.html Or a comparable laugher from the -23ML (which underlines what an embarrassing statement you've made) here: http://web.archive.org/web/20120406214900/http://backfiretu-22m.tripod.com/id16.html There is no combination of data that you can find on God's green earth that will present the MiG-23 as a more maneuverable combatant at ACM than the F-14, in any configuration. None. The instability at high CL at wings forward in all versions of the Flogger (produced by the aforementioned center of pressure ahead of center of gravity, thereby generating negative static margin- and if you don't know that that does to stability, you can leave this conversation right now) precluded employment of maximum G in the one configuration it *might* have been respectable. The MiG-23 does *one* thing: it runs, even when you don't want it to. You're done, fanboy. Fini. сделано. Busted.