How two F-14 Tomcats shot down two Gaddafi’s MiG-23s, On This Day in 1989
How two F-14 Tomcats shot down two Gaddafi’s MiG-23s, On This Day in 1989
U.S. Navy F-14 vs Libyan MiG-23.
After two F-14 Tomcats from the VF-41 Black Aces shot down two Su-22 Fitters on Aug. 19, 1981 and, above all, after Operation El Dorado Canyon, the air strike launched on Apr. 15, 1986, against Libya, Colonel Gaddafi and its regime went off the U.S. high priority agenda.
But in late 1988, tensions between Washington and Tripoli raised again. In fact the United States government accused Libya of building a chemical weapons plant near the town of Rabta and once again Gaddafi warned the U.S. against interfering in Libyan affairs, reiterating the threat of military actions. In response to Gaddafi’s menace, the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) and its battle group were dispatched to conduct a “freedom of navigation” exercise off the Libyan coast.
DCS World Players Recreated The First Two Air-to-Air Engagements Of The F-14 Tomcat
DCS World Players Recreated The First Two Air-to-Air Engagements Of The F-14 Tomcat
Two F-14 Tomcats as seen in DCS World. (Photo: Eagle Dynamics/Heatblur Simulations)
For the 50th anniversary of the first flight of the legendary F-14 Tomcat, we get a look at how its legacy is still carried on by aviation enthusiasts using today’s technology.
The Grumman F-14 Tomcat flew for the first time 50 years ago, on December 21, 1970. To celebrate the half-century of life of this legendary fighter aircraft and remember its legacy, we will talk about the “Turkey” (as the aircraft would be later nicknamed) first air-to-air encounters and its first air-to-air victories. The episodes we are going to recount, however, were not the first “baptism of fire” of the F-14, as the first combat deployment of the aircraft happened in 1974, when VF-1 “Wolfpack” and VF-2 “Bounty Hunters” were deployed a