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PFI 1969 - F-14 & F-15

By the end of the 1960s in the "main enemy" of the USSR - the United States, the Air Force and Navy aircraft were tactical planes of the second and third generation: the interceptors F-102, F-104 and F-106 fighters F-4, F-5 and F-8 fighter-bomber F-100 and F-105, attack A-4, A-6 and A-7. On arms of other countries that were part of the organization of NATO, according to the original designs were French fighters such as "Mirage-III" and new fighter "Mirage-F.1", as well as English VTOL "Harrier". In other countries in the NATO air force consisted mainly of American aircraft development.

Based on the purpose and the level of performance characteristics, analysts in the USSR determined the most powerful and modern foreign fighter aircraft to be the F-4 "Phantom II". It is interesting to note that, in contrast to the "single-purpose" fighter of the Century Series, the F-4 was originally created by McDonnell as a multipurpose carrier-based fighter, able to perform equally well as the fighter and strike missions.

In 1961 the F-4 was adopted the Fleet Air Arm, since 1963 the aircraft began to arrive, and by the US Air Force, becoming the end of the 1960s the major tactical fighter in both branches of the armed forces. Thus, in the 1960s in the US the focus was on the heavy twin-engine multi-role fighters, which were fully solve problems not only fighter escort strike aircraft and air superiority in aerial combat with enemy fighters, but also successfully applied precision strikes against ground targets.

Further, the bias towards universalization characteristic of the development period and the creation of the F-4, was expressed in the fact that, a similar scenario developed to create a new tactical fighter - the F-l11 - which was originally given as a multipurpose aircraft capable of simultaneously satisfying contradictory requirements of the US air Force and Navy aircraft. But as well known, in the original version of the creation of F-l11, the program failed, the result of which was the transformation of the multipurpose fighter source project in the fighter-bomber, designed to carry out offshore operations at extremely low altitudes.

Soon the Americans were able to try out in practice the application of the concept of multi-purpose aircraft. Combat experience gained by them in the second half of the 1960s, during the fighting in Vietnam, made a fresh look at the many questions the use of fighter aircraft. As it is known, is used in Vietnam, the best at that time an American fighter F-4 "Phantom II" due to the low efficiency of the "Sparrow" and "Sidewinder" missiles, which turned out to be ineffective.

Vietnamese pilots used fighters such as the MiG-17, which was not equipped with rocket weapons, but with greater maneuverability, in many cases successfully fought with the F-4. Systems for warning of illumination by radar in all circumstances informed the pilot of the MiG-17 of an the attack. In the transition phase to the enemy missile guidance "Sparrow", the pilot MiG-17 made a defensive maneuver which in difficult conditions thwarted the attack with a high probability.

In normal weather conditions Vietnamese pilots had seen moments of missile launch and maneuver guaranteed frustrate their guidance. In turn, against the powerful gun armament of the MiG-17, the Americans did not leave a chance of survival if it entered the zone effectively defeat. Under these circumstances, the presence of the second crew member of the F-4 did not increase its efficiency, but only led to an increase aircrew losses.

As a result, since the mid-1960s, in the United States turned the work on the creation of two new programs promising fighters: FX (future F-15) for the US Air Force and the VFX-1 (future F-14) for the Fleet Air Arm. Mindful of the lessons of the fighting in Vietnam and the Middle East, as well as error bias in favor of multifunctional fighters, this time the main purpose of the new aircraft to achieve superiority over the enemy in aerial combat was clearly defined. This is supposed to achieve in the first place by providing high maneuverability characteristics. Thus the new planes were set as "single-purpose" clean fighter. As weapons they were not even supposed to use weapons for use against ground targets.

By 1969, both of these programs from the stage of concept aircraft had taken the appearance of the full-scale development phase of the project and the construction of prototypes. It is clear that this fact could not remain unnoticed by the relevant services in the USSR, becoming a kind of "catalyst" of their interest. At the same time the main enemy for the Soviet Air Force clearly recognized is the F-15, which the US Air Force originally named fighter air superiority, and accordingly formed a concept of its application, focusing on significant improvement in all the complex technical flight and combat characteristics, including characteristics of maneuverability.

The F-14, being the carrier deck fighter, due to the performance specifics, was considered less important adversary, though, of course, that the high performance of this aircraft weapons systems did not allow the Soviets to "write off" the Tomcat. As a result, in the relevant documents of the Ministry of Defence of the USSR, these planes appeared clearly as the main potential enemy fighters advanced.