Blaze1

Tank50us, I hope you have an NBC grade bunker in close proximity available to you.

Yep, that's what I've been saying.

Here is a link to that article which was published in Naval Aviation News January 1982. HB have known about that article for a long time, but it still leaves unanswered questions about the -54C's guidance methods.

That's not the document HB is using for confirmation.

Ah, okay.

Southerbear, I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say "...they wanted to release the normal F-14A/B manual...". To whom did they want to release the normal F-14A/B manual, so are we talking about the FOIA process here or general access for those requiring the manual for their jobs? The F-14 has always had an unclassified (but ITAR controlled, when ITAR became a thing) NATOPS e.g NAVAIR 01-F14AAA-1 (for the F-14A) and NAVAIR 01-F14AAD-1 (for the F-14D) and a classified confidential NATOPS supplement e.g NAVAIR 01-F14AAA-1A (for the F-14A) and NAVAIR 01-F14AAD-1A (for the F-14D). So the -1A manuals aren't new relative to -1's, they have always been the supplementary documents. Classifying documents is expensive and can make learning more difficult for the crew, as access would be restricted to "The Vault", so that's part of the reason as I understand to have the separate volumes.

I must admit that I'm glad it was re-bumped, because it's an interesting topic.

Thanks for that info WobblyFlops, as I wasn't aware of the associations or lack-thereof some of the developers had with manufacturers.

Not really. I think most of us know this. Heatblur were given leeway to create an F-14A/B sim, so if the technical data did become available for the 'D', there's a strong possibility (in my opinion) they'd be given the opportunity again to develop another excellent simulation.

So to be clear, the unredacted manual is still classified confidential due to IRST, while the redacted version is unclassified but falls foul of ITAR and this was specifically mentioned by the Navy in their official correspondence to you and or your friend?

That bomb looks like a 1000lb'er to me.

While I agree with the general principle of what you're saying shagrat, it doesn't apply to the example I described. The US government generally considers articles in the US public domain as having been exported due the lack of control over such items. In that earlier post where I cited previous experience, if the documents were available to US citizens exclusively, it would have required them to submit identification proving their nationality and that wasn't the case. It was available to all nationalities. If you managed to make and F-14D in your backyard (ignoring any law on arms) and sold it, copyright may be the issue rather than anything else.

If you're referring to the -1A, there's no distinction made between commercial and none commercial matters. The technical data is simply export controlled.

Well isn't that a stroke of good fortune! Because the thread has moved on from "Why can't HB do an F-14D sim".

Some of that reasoning may be flawed.