re: F-14 Tomcat Photos

Highly recommend this YouTube channel for those who enjoy F-14 stories and insights;

Ward Carroll

Good stuff dude. I wanted to be a pilot but my eyes wouldn’t let me

Operational in 1974 and still looks like it could shoot down any enemy planes today.

Relative of mine was shot down in an F-14 and spent ~6 years as a guest of the Viet Cong. Unspeakable torture. Came back and retired as a Wing Commander as a Colonel.

Said the F-14 was like 'flying a barn door with two rocket engines attached to it'.

Hated John "song bird" McCain too.

Damn, what a pretty plane though.

Whoo, she is a tomcat.

Was the F-14 strictly a Navy bird? Did any other branches have the Tomcat? I've always associated them with the Navy due to Top Gun and then reading through this thread it seems like everyone with any personal experience with them are all Navy guys.

Duel afterburners at night.

I was on the Independence. We had VF-21 and VF-154 squadrons with Tomcats. I loved those fighters. HUGE engines. My first encounter with the sound barrier was when we had an airshow off the coast of Darwin Australia. They had multiple practices and in one there was a F-14 that came parallel with the flight deck almost at a stall. He hit the afterburners and I honestly thought the plane exploded. I had no idea how bad arse they were until that day. It went from like 500 mph to mach 1.5 in like 2 seconds and was gone.

I never felt too much love to the FA-18 like I did the Tomcat. It was just special. VF-154 Tomcats had the camera pod. I had a PH friend attached to their squadron who had some awesome pics.