The Associated Press March 11, 2006
Navy's 'Top Gun' Jets Complete Final Combat Mission
VIRGINIA BEACH, March 11 (AP) — There will be no more dogfights for the F-14 Tomcat.
The Navy's last two F-14 squadrons came home on Friday, ending the final combat deployment of the cold war-era, two-seater fighter jet with moveable, swept-back wings that was glamorized in the 1986 movie "Top Gun."
All 22 Tomcats of Fighter Squadrons VF-213 and VF-31 soared together in a wedge formation over the Oceana Naval Air Station as a crowd of hundreds cheered. Once the planes landed, family, friends and fellow sailors rushed on to the tarmac to welcome the returning fliers. Some wore T-shirts reading "Tomcats Forever," and a banner proclaimed "Last Fly-In, Baby!"
The F-14's had been aboard the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which was to return Saturday to the nearby Norfolk Naval Station after a six-month deployment. They were part of the carrier's air wing, which logged more than 30,000 flight hours and delivered 52 bombs and air-to-ground missiles to support troops on the ground in Iraq, the Navy said.
The Navy is replacing the aging F-14's with the F/A-18 Super Hornets, in part because Super Hornets are easier to maintain, said Chief Petty Officer Blane Fike, a member of the crew that maintains the F-14's of Squadron VF-31. The Tomcat requires 50 to 60 maintenance hours for every hour it flies, while the Super Hornet needs 10 to 15 maintenance hours per flight hour, he said.
Lt. Blake Coleman, an F-14 pilot, said that he knew the switch would mean less work for the crew, but that he would miss the Tomcat nonetheless.
"I'd fly a Tomcat forever if I could," Lieutenant Coleman said. "It's a pilot's airplane."
Bruce Doyle, a 63-year-old retired radar intercept officer, was also sad to see the Tomcats go. He belonged to one of the first squadrons to fly F-14's, which the Navy first received in 1972, and he said he flew in an F-14 during the evacuation of Saigon in the Vietnam War.
"I was there for the first ones and I wanted to come be here for the last ones," Mr. Doyle said at Friday's homecoming. "It's an awesome airplane with capabilities that are mind-blowing."
John Pike, a military analyst, said the Tomcat was on the short list of "airplanes that have defined the air age."
The supersonic F-14 originally was intended to defend American aircraft carriers from Soviet bombers carrying long-range cruise missiles, said Mr. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a research center on security issues based in Alexandria, Va.
After the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Navy "made some effort to turn the thing into a Bombcat, but it was not designed as a bomb hauler," Mr. Pike said.
The pilots of VF-213, called Blacklions, will begin the transition to Super Hornets almost immediately. The Tomcatters of VF-31 will continue flying F-14's until September, then begin switching to Super Hornets in October. Until then, the F-14's of VF-31 will remain operational and could be recalled to duty if necessary, said Mike Maus, a Navy spokesman.
© Copyright 2006, The Associated Press
