F-14 and F/A-18E

[AirRyan]

But you wouldn't need as much fuel for all those Super Bugs if they got the range out of them as the GE powered Tomcats or better yet, A-6E Intruders could!

3.5m pounds of fuel transferred is not nescessarily a statistic that impresses me much at all when I'm talking about what is suppossed to be the Navy's #1 fighterjet! :icon_king

Oh how times have changed! I remember when VF pilots scoffed at A/G ops, imagine their joy at tanking!

 

[Brett327]

All I am saying is that the Super Hornet is not giving the Navy a full return on the taxpayers money as say the F-14 did during it's lifetime, especially in the service of the IRIAF against Iraq, or giving the respective service a level of advancement in superiority/performance like what the F-22 gives the Air Force, or even what the F-14/F-15 did over the F-4 when they came online.

Jesus Christ! Could your posts be any longer?

You're comparing apples to oranges here buddy. You like the oranges because they're sweet and juicy, while some of my friends and I like the apples for their tartness and shiny appearance. To continue the metaphor, my friends and I are experienced orchard owners and professional businessmen, and, although you might have read an interesting article or two about the orchard business, at the end of the day, you're just there to pick the fruit. Enjoy!

Keeping it real,

Brett

 

[Punk]

AirRyan, by any chance do you happen to work for or have a portfolio made up of GE stock?

 

[TurnandBurn55]

Oh how times have changed! I remember when VF pilots scoffed at A/G ops, imagine their joy at tanking!

And you know what this is called?

"It's not 1985, anymore".

Life sure was good when fighter guys only did fighter things, attack guys only did attack things, and refueling guys only did refueling things... wasn't it?

Post-CW defense spending. If Congress won't buy us a million different aircraft, each to perform their own specialized roles, then we have to make do with fewer airframes to perform a wider variety of different missions.

The Air Force solution is to spend $200M+ on a really cool-looking plane which can carry all of two JDAMs. Why? Because of a Cold War obsession that fighter guys just do fighter things and maybe drop a few bombs for show. Then they thrown on a few million more so they can call it the F/"A"-22 because cool people fly F/A-something

Call me crazy, but THAT's a "fiasco".

I do find it funny, though, that you bash the Rhino because it won't be exported anywhere Remind me again how many Intruders and Tomcats were sold overseas?

 

[skidkid]

Tomcats to Iran (there was a good idea)
And noone go the Intruder becasue it was way too capable to trust in some other nations hands

 

[TurnandBurn55]

Tomcats to Iran (there was a good idea)
And noone go the Intruder becasue it was way too capable to trust in some other nations hands

And Tomcats really only made it to Iran only because we needed to offset to skyrocketing price... and keep Grumman's head out of the water. The Navy did a head-to-head flyoff against the F-15 before the Shah... only way we beat them was stripping the Tomcat down on fuel to mins so they could outperform the Eagle. The Chair Force got so pissed they whined to the FAA to violate the F-14 pilots for 'buzzing the crowd'...

Anyways, point being that a plane's export value is not a de facto sign of its worth. The Hornet got sold to far more countries than the Tomcat. Hell, the T-34 flies in some foreign Air Forces :icon_tong

 

[A4sForever]

Jesus Christ! Could your posts be any longer?

You're comparing apples to oranges here buddy. You like the oranges because they're sweet and juicy, while some of my friends and I like the apples for their tartness and shiny appearance. To continue the metaphor..... Enjoy!
Keeping it real,

Brett

Ho-Ho ... I love it !!

I also like apples (from Wenatchee or Yakima), oranges (from Florida) and metaphors (from ... ?) ... I do not know where they are from, but I think they put them in my drinks @ the Royal Hawaiian Mai-Tai' Bar.

I think I'll have one (or three -- a man's got to know his limits) while I rest my eyes.
ALO-O-O-O-HA !!!

P.S. .. where do you think the A-6 picture was taken ??

 

[A4sForever]

Tomcats to Iran (there was a good idea)
And noone go the Intruder becasue it was way too capable to trust in some other nations hands

The A-6 almost went overseas sales ... the Israeilis looked at a "ground attack" version of the A-6 --- they would have skipped the DIANE computer and radar (don't need "all-weather" over the Jewish State or Syria or Egypt they figured) and put 4 30mm cannons in the nose -- plus whatever on the wings and belly. A mean machine for close-in work ....

 

[A4sForever]

Life sure was good when fighter guys only did fighter things, attack guys only did attack things, and refueling guys only did refueling things... wasn't it?

Huh ?? Fighters only did ... and attack only did ... ?? Ever hear of a place called Vietnam, guys ?? Or WW2? Or Korea? Or the Cold War? Or the Fleet? Or when the Russkies run you out of fighters in "Bear Country"?? Ever see F-4's with bombs and Rockeye? A-6's and A-7's with 'Winders? Fighter and attack did it -- does it all -- both ways, back and forth, left and right, up and down, in and out. Sorry, I am getting excited ....

I do not know where some of you boys get your perspective or information --- those who forget history and what actually went down are doomed to re-learn it's lessons again and again.

EDIT: I should have mentioned ... at least "they" are dumbing it down for everyone and only providing ONE fighter/attack platform. So you-all will HAVE to "do it all" ... that's progress (?). Master of none -- jack-of-all (?).

 

[AirRyan]

Hey, I thought this was a Tomcat/Rhino thread, what's wrong with a little healthy discourse? :icon_tong

Maybe it's all this recent trend of being politically correct, but I do remember when F-4's could still drop bombs without having to resort to redesignation of their entire squadron to VFA, but as far as the VA A-6 squads were concerned, they never even had so much as a gun!

My point is that the Navy let themselves get screwed by politics (read Dick Cheney) and are still paying for it. Think about this in terms of what is going on with the F-22 right now. The Navy requested and was approved by Congress for 392 new build F-14D's but the SECDEF (Cheney) came in and axed the program at just 32 or so new build Tomcats. He also cut the Osprey but the Marines got that program back online but the Navy brass succumbed to the politics.

Cheney evidently was so pissed with Grumman that he ordered the tooling destroyed (but it's supposedly wasn't and is still in climate controlled storage in AMARC at DM,) which only rank of something fishy. For all the money wasted into the development of the Super Hornet, which became an entirely brand new design just happening to resemble a legacy Hornet, the Navy could have fulfilled their original 392 F-14D order, had them all upgraded to Bombcat status and perhaps beyond (Quickstrike,) had plenty of parts to keep them all airborne, and still had money left over to have put towards the F-35C or who knows what. Your right, it's all history now but that doesn't mean it was the best decision or the right choice

From the recount of the Tomcat/Eagle fly off for the Shah, Admiral Gilchrist certainly made it sound like it was way more than just the lower fuel load that sold the Tomcat over the Eagle. Keep in mind, the PW F401 was still being intended, or at least hoped to be installed into the Tomcat because the TF30 was never meant as anything other than a placeholder until PW caught up with the level of tech that Grumman had pushed the envelope to, so I think the Shah would have known that the plane was not flying with the engines it was designed for, (kind of like current F-15C engines in a new F22 if you will - a fighter jet is only as good as the engine you stick in it.)

In reality the entire fly off was really a mute point - the Shah wanted the Tomcat's Phoenix missile and thereby the Eagle/Sparrow never really had a chance to being selected. In fact, Iran never even ordered Sparrows at first because they were all about the Phoenix!

 

[SteveG75]

Time to chime in. (Back for the bar with a big margarita in me, TAD to Norfolk).

Anyway, lets see if I can catch up.

A4S FOREVER: Would that be a picture of A-6's at Cubi? I can wish but never made it there.

Shah wanted Phoenix because of the Russian MiG-25R overflights. Lots of stuff coming out now about the effectiveness of the Tomcat in the Iran-Iraq war. A lot of the Iranian AF kills were credited to Republican Guard SAM units for political reasons. However, the consensus is that the Iranian Tomcats got lots of kills including 40+ with the Phoenix.

A-6's: Heck if we still had them, I could go single bubble, 18.7 on gas with 22 500lb JDAM. The truth is that the Rhino is the best platform we can buy right now to keep Naval Air in the fight. Same thing with the EA-18G. Two men may not be as effective as four and it may fly like a pig all loaded out with pods but at least it will be airborne which I cannot guarantee with a Prowler despite the best efforts of our troops (God bless them).

All right, the alcohol is burning off. The truth is that the Rhino is what we have and it will at least keep Naval Air in the fight through our careers and then we can all show up at Hook in 15 years and make fun of the UCAV guys.

 

[AirRyan]

UCAV drivers, I can't beleive they even waste the JET-A on training those guys!

 

[TurnandBurn55]

I do not know where some of you boys get your perspective or information --- those who forget history and what actually went down are doomed to re-learn it's lessons again and again.[/B]
ll HAVE to "do it all" ... that's progress (?). Master of none -- jack-of-all (?).

What do I need to relearn here? Thought I was the one trying to argue in favor of the idea that fighter guys shouldn't think of strike, refueling, or recon as 'beneath' them...

The point, however, is that one never judged an A-6 primarily on its ability to shoot down MiGs... and, until very recently, nor did one judge an F-14 on how well it struck ground targets. Their 'heavy lifting' from the get-go was primarily strike and air superiority, respectively...

The flip side is that one shouldn't ignore the Rhino's non-air superiority abilities as 'accessory' simply because it's a 'fighter'. It's other roles are integral to the air wing. Progress? Maybe not... reality? Certainly.

But if you can convince the powers that be in Washington to bring back a bomb-truck like the A-6, I'll jump in the right seat Won't be holding my breath, though

 

[TurnandBurn55]

From the recount of the Tomcat/Eagle fly off for the Shah, Admiral Gilchrist certainly made it sound like it was way more than just the lower fuel load that sold the Tomcat over the Eagle.

Damnit, it was an good story, true or not!! And it made fun of the Chair Force for being sore losers! :icon_tong

I certainly wouldn't be complaining if we had bought onto more F-14Ds or any of the other variants... yet either way, we'd be looking into upgrades for the F/A-18 simply due to the fuel restrictions. Whether it was a choice of one over the other is an interesting question (I tend to doubt it), but what really put us in a bind was the mismanagement and cancellation of the A-12 program...

After all the jabbering about missing A-6, I haven't heard so much as a whiff of wanting another dedicated strike platform...

 

[Fly Navy]

Watch out for those kumquats. They're deadly.