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F-14s had variable swept wings that adjusted to changes in speed. Sometimes the wings failed and became stuck in the swept position. This could keep the Tomcat from landing successfully.
The boffo box office of Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 blockbuster original, has sparked renewed public interest in the legendary F-14 Tomcat. Sadly, the Super F-14 Tomcat never made it into the sky.
When the F-14s were decommissioned, carriers were left without a high-speed air-to-air platform. Although the F/A-18 Hornet arrived about a decade after the Tomcats, the latter platform has undergone a series of modernization efforts to retain its viability in the modern day.
The F-14 was designed to take on multiple enemy bogeys with the help of the back-seat radio intercept officer. It could track 24 targets at once, and the fire control computer could establish a targeting solution for six enemy fighters.
Iran’s Tomcat F-14-launched air-to-air kill occurred nearly a year before the U.S. could claim this achievement over the coast of Libya in 1981.