[MilCom] End of the F-14A Era

[Airshowfreak5 at aol.com]

VIRGINIA BEACH — The last five of the Navy’s oldest F-14 Tomcats will head 
to the “bone yard” Sunday, retiring to the dry desert floor of Arizona to 
join 
thousands of other aging war birds. About 80 younger models of the F-14 
remain at Oceana Naval Air Station, but all will be gone by about August 
2006, 
replaced by F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets.   The “thirtysomething” 
A-model 
F-14 jets from the Checkmates of Fighter Squadron 211 will mark the beginning 
of 
the end of the Tomcat family, which totaled 632 aircraft during the past 32 
years. Cmdr. C.J. Deni, the squadron’s skipper, will lead the last flight to 
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, near Tucson, where the jets will be available 
for 
wartime recall.
    
    
“We are the last true fighter squadron in the Navy,” Deni said Wednesday as 
his five Tomcats showed off in a formation fly-by over Oceana. “There no 
longer will be any more fighter squadrons. They will be multi-mission strike 
fighters from now on.” Developed as a premier fighter for strictly an 
air-to-air 
mission to protect the carrier battle group, later versions of the F-14, 
known as 
B, C and D models, evolved in the early 1990’s to carry air-to-ground 
munitions. By the mid-1990’s, precision-guided weapons were added and the 
aircraft 
took on more of a strike mission, Deni said. However, the A-models remained a 

fighter. They were never given the global positioning system (GPS) weapons 
the 
younger models had, which better supported the battlefield commanders. Deni’s 

squadron, which retired its five other planes earlier, will now begin 
learning 
to fly and maintain the F/A-18 F Super Hornet. The entire squadron of about 
250 air crews and maintenance personnel will begin leaving in October for 
Lemoore Naval Air Station, 40 miles south of Fresno, Calif., for six months 
of 
training. Their 12 two-seat models are already waiting for them on the flight 
line, 
Deni said. When they return with the planes in late March, or early April, 
they will be known as the Checkmates of Strike/Fighter Squadron 211. While 
the 
younger Tomcat models still have plenty of life in them, Deni said they have 
become too costly to operate. In the last few months it required between 65 
to 
80 man hours of maintenance to keep an F-14 flying for just one hour. By 
comparison, the Super Hornet requires between 10 and 15 hours of maintenance 
for 
every hour of flight, he said. Senior Chief Petty Officer Vaughn Ransom has 
been 
taking care of the F-14s since 1982, working on probably 75 different planes 
over the years. He has hand-picked their maintenance crews and pulled 
solutions 
to vexing problems “out of our heads,” not computers. But he seems ready to 
let them go and join the Super Hornet community. An engine change can take 16 

to 18 hours on an F-14 if all goes well, he said. The Super Hornet’s engines 
can be replaced in less than two hours. Trouble shooting isn’t by guess work. 
It
’s simply a plug-in to a computer to find the cause. Yet, for Lt. Cmdr. Mark 
Sullivan, the squadron’s former maintenance officer, flying his plane into 
retirement will be a sad day. “We’ve always called the Tomcat the big sexy 
fighter,” Sullivan said. “I’m going to miss manning up that aircraft and 
watching 
that sight behind the boat. There is nothing more challenging than flying the 

F-14 on an aircraft carrier. “They call it 'the turkey’ because that’s kind 
of what it looks like when it comes into land. It’s ungainly. It’s big. It’s 

tough. It’s predictable.” The Tomcat was never the most forgiving plane to a 

pilot who tried to push it farther than it was intended, Sullivan said. The 
Super Hornet, while slower, won’t allow a pilot to abuse it in the same way. 
The 
Super Hornets are easier to fly than the Tomcats, Sullivan said. “And they 
should be,” he said. “They are safer to fly, but I will miss a little bit of 
the 
challenges. I had a plane that was pretty much as smart as I was. “If I am 
doing something wrong, the Super Hornet will not let you put yourself in 
extremes. It’s a little smarter than me.” Sullivan has put more than 2,000 
flight 
hours and 13 years in the Tomcat and insisted on taking his plane on the last 

flight. “I’d rather take it to the bone yard than the scrap yard, where is 
would be torn apart,” he said. “At least there they will be ready to fight 
again 
on the front line if we need them.” Oceana is expected to acquire a total of 
120 F/A-18 single-seat E and twin-seat F Super Hornets. It has 145 F/A-18 
single-seat C Hornets now.