F-14 Tomcat fleet retired
The F-14 Tomcat fleet was retired today
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It sparkled people's imagination with its aggressive looks, it impressed them with its size and shocked them with the tremendous noise of its huge engines. Later on, the image of Tom Cruise in the cockpit, fighting "the evil ones" was to remain forever imprinted in common memory. | |
Pilot lt. cmdr. David Faehnle and radar intercept officer lt. cmdr. Robert Gentry gave a final salute from inside their cockpit before aircraft 102 taxied down the runway and out of sight for the final flight of the F-14, during the retirement ceremony. However, the plane that actually took off as thousands applauded and whistled, was tail 107, flown by lt. cmdr. Chris Richard and intercept officer lt. Mike Petronis. Tail 102 had technical problems during the take-off procedure so the back-up aircraft 107 made the last flight. "This is a common occurence with the F-14", stated Mike Maus, a US Navy spokesman, underlining one of the disadvantages of the F-14 today. |
F-14 Tomcat |
The availability of the F-14 in Iran today is believed to be close to zero aircraft. It is also widely believed by analysts that once the US had retired its fleet, it has now become impossible for Iran to maintain the few F-14's which were still flying until recently, since they have already cannibalized most of the aircraft and procuring spare parts illegally from the US has now become impossible. |
22nd of september 2006
©2006 Sorin A Crasmarelu
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