David Hingtgen

The F-14 has the most powerful radar. It has the longest-range missiles.

F-15's are faster.

If it's a regular Tomcat, it has less power than an F-15. If it's a Super Tomcat, they're equal.

Their manueverability is about equal I'd say, in most conditions. (F-14 is probably a bit better when slow, F-15 is probably a bit better when fast)

Recon F-8's survived into the mid-80's. But they were gone as combatants well before then.

::gets big expensive Iowa book::

Ok, it's not armor-piercing. But it's still big, metal, and pointy, and would get through any modern ship's hull.

It's based on the standard Mk13 High Capacity 1,900lb round. Your basic Mk13 shell will penetrate nearly 30 feet of steel-reinforced concrete. (the original "bunker buster") Not technically "armor piercing" but not much will stand up to it.

(Though it says it is designed to be used as an air-burst nuke, so penetration probably isn't what it's designed for).

Yup it is. And note the "French's Mustard" camo.

PS--if you saw Armour at a Franklin Mint store, then it wasn't Armour. It was the "Franklin Mint-ized" Armour.

They even changed factories--the molds are the only thing the same--it's like a real Bandai 1/55 vs the worst 1/55 Joon's--same mold, but VERY different quality.

Yup, Corgi Tornadoes are great. All Corgi is good. Some better than others, but all good. (And their F-4's and Tornadoes are REALLY good). Can't go wrong with a Corgi anything, in any scale. (Want BIG? Buy their 1/144 B-52 or 707) I *highly* recommend their F-4 (I need to snag the Sundowners one before they're all gone). Just a note: Corgis tend to include LOTS of extra parts. Be prepared to spend a while putting in the gear, gear doors, missiles, pylons, tanks, canopy, etc. (But this also means you can switch between gear up or down, canopy open/closed, fully loaded or empty pylons). Just be sure to test-fit everything. (I end up often scraping paint from gear-door posts). But they've got A+ paint and detail. They feather the camoflage and everything, and the finish is dead flat, as it should be.

I personally am waiting for Dragon's 1/72 Tomcat. But it could be a LONG wait. (But they do promise A's and B's, hopefully D's, too).

There is one more choice: Revell now makes 1/72 diecast Tomcats. F-14A's and D's. (Theirs is as accurate as most D kits--close, but not exactly). However, there are quite a few seams, and many visible screws on the bottom. But they are far more accurate than just about anything else, and your only choice for a decent Super Tomcat. I've never seen them for sale in the US, but I know they exist. I recall F-14A Jolly Rogers (of course), and a Tomcatters low-vis F-14D.

Just in case nobody else on this forum does:

I get it! LOL

Yes, I had forgotten some of the errors. Like the "Indepedance"

Actually, the ATM-54 isn't a mistake. It is a different missile than the AIM-54. No warhead, but a live motor. (So it isn't a dummy AIM-54, as dummies have no motor). It's the Air Training Missile, as opposed to the Air Interception Missile.

And the awfully-similar-to-certain-kits parts. (Honestly, your standard Monogram 1/48 generic fighter pilot with one-arm-up has been copied so many times, there's more fake ones than real ones)

And while the F-18 looks ok, the wingtip missiles ARE a huge problem with it. (Assembled Hornets are VFA-27 I think, while unassembled are VFA-195) I thought they were more like Sidewinders made the length of Sparrows. (And with no launch rail).

Never took a close look at the Harrier though, that's out there too.

F-8's were already too old to be in service by then. And F-8's are about as pure a fighter as you can get (and a gunfighter, at that). Don't expect to see an F-8 with bombs.

PS--laser-guided bombs aren't all that new. First deployed in Vietnam. A-6's used them all the time in Gulf War, but I'd have to look for a while to see if they were common in the late 70's. (F-4 and F-111 were the "favorites" for new bombs and stuff, A-6's were always last on the list)

::edit:: Yup, A-6E's wer already up to their 2nd-generation laser tracking pods by then. So the Nimitz could have certainly sent out squadrons of A-6's to launch laser-guided bombs against the Japanese fleet. (And A-6's can self-lase, one of the earliest planes to do so)

Take out the task force? No problem. Remember, with modern planes and weapons, even dumb bombs are highly accurate, many many many times more accurate than WW2 bombs. Even a dumb bomb is now launched with computers, optical signals, etc. It may not be able to guide itself, but the pilot knows EXACTLY when and where to drop it. And ships are big targets.

Also, the bombs themselves are larger, and more powerful.

Plus they carry more. One A-7 could carry as much ordnance as like 15 standard WWII divebombers. Sending out both A-7 squadrons from the air wing would be like sending out several hundred WWII planes. And the A-7's wouldn't miss nearly as much.

Carriers are designed to do ANYTHING. If you need it taken out, they have an aircraft that can do it. (Though they may not be all that good at it--which is why carriers go with a battlegroup, to fill in what it lacks)

Of course, a big part of the movie is that just the Nimitz goes back in time, not its battlegroup. Taking out other ships is at the low-end of a carrier's abilities--it's planes can do it, but they're not the best at it, and it won't happen quickly. That's what destroyers and cruisers are for--they're the ones with most of the anti-ship missiles.

Armor-piercing nuclear warhead? Iowa-class battleships had it. The good 'ol Mk 23.

Well, either the VF-2 ones have different wings, or you just can't see the hollow wings from those pics. If anyone's interested, I'll take a pic of the Sundowners one.

As for Forces of Valor: far better to snag an Armour. Forces of Valor are pretty laughed at by all collectors. They're nice toys, certainly not models, IMHO. Paint just sucks, they're super-ultra-overlined. As in, you know those Gundams (and valks) which have EVERY panel line colored with thick black lines? (As opposed to subtle, fine lines). They look like that. They are my preferred scale, but would never buy one.

PS--especially do not snag their Tornado. It's half of one, half of a another. There are two distinct types of Tornados, these pretty much have the body of one but the options/weapons of the other.

PPS---yes, I nit-pick. I spend way more time at diecastaircraft.com than here. My profiles at the various diecast model plane forums say "Nit-picking" under "hobbies". As you can imagine, I have high standards for planes, especially F-14's. But I will tell you, nobody at those forums buy Armour/FM any more, and few ever bought Forces of Valor. You can get MUCH better stuff way cheaper. Just not F-14's. There are still no GOOD F-14's, in any scale. (Except the occasional Armour produced years ago, when they were cheaper, and higher quality, and was an early F-14A painted up as an early F-14A)

I was curious too, so I looked some stuff up. Seems they're not that effective. No air=no fire. Also, no air=way weaker shock-wave (since there's nothing to compress/move/carry the wave). There's a lot of X-ray radiation, and that'll even disintegrate some things (due to heat induced by being irradiated), but there won't be much of a boom/shockwave, nor will there be a big fireball to burn everything for miles around. Basically, it'll work for things directly contacted, but there'll be no blast-effects beyond the immediate point of detonation.

(Recall that a nuke is most effective when detonated well above the ground--Earth's atmosphere is key to getting the most out of a nuke--lots of the stuff we associate with them are actually secondary effects from the atmosphere, not the actual nuclear explosion)

Armour was OK back when it was Armour. However, it was an as-built 1975 F-14A, and they'd paint it up as anything, including late-90's SUPER Tomcats--didn't even bother the change the engine nozzles, much less the more subtle things.

Now (as Franklin Mint), the price is WAAAAAY up, and quality is WAAAAAAY down. Things that were painted are now *poorly* decaled. And many small details are omitted. of course, the greatest Franklin Mint error is their baby-blue $600 USS Missouri. Sorry, but 5N Blue (Mo's deck color) is really dark blue. Opposite end of the spectrum from baby blue... (There's plenty of color photos of her deck and camoflage paint, with the surrender ceremony and all--most photographed thing in history at that point)

Wal-Mart 1/48 F-14's: There's 2 that I know of. Sundowners and Bounty Hunters. Bounty Hunters suffers same problem as Armour's--it's a 1970's A painted up as a Super Tomcat. A 2003 F-14D to be precise. But the markings/colors are decently close, even if too dark and single-toned, IMHO.

The Sundowners has big problems. The tail logo's not right. Close, but not right. Also "NT" isn't a valid code. Sundowners were NL most of the time. NT doesn't exist. Also, Sundowners never wore dark grey, ever. But at least it's an F-14A painted (sorta) like an F-14A.

The biggest problem is that the wings are hollow on the Wal-Mart ones. As in, if you turn it over, it's totally concave. The wing has an upper surface, but there's no lower surface. It's exactly as if you had a 1/48 kit, and only had the upper half of the wing. It's not just "not detailed" it flat out isn't there.

::has to go look up Zero armament (I'm better with German WWII fighters)::

A6M2 Zero has 2x20mm cannons and 2x 7.92mm machine guns. Typical but weak as WWII fighters go. 7.92mm isn't going to do much, not against the thick hide of the F-14, IMHO. Cannons--only 50 rounds total. F-14's fire 100 rounds PER SECOND. Sure, it could probably do SOME damage with its machine guns, and if it had like a 100% hit rate with its cannons, maybe take down the Tomcat. This assumes it can unload every bullet it has into it, requiring the Tomcat to just sit there for a few seconds, being fired upon again and again.

F-14's have a 20mm cannon. But it fires about 6,000rpm (6 times as fast as even the machine guns of the Zero, and like 30 times as fast as the Zero's cannons), and at a much higher muzzle velocity than the zero. And it has about 15x as much ammo for its cannon as the Zero. Also, the range of its gun is at least 3 times that of the Zero's. Basically, it has one really kick-ass gun. As opposed to several mediocre guns.

Finally, Zero's were known to have little tolerance for damage--little armor, thin armor, easy to disable with like 3 shots. And generally lightly built. (Materials shortage). They would literally be shredded by the M61A1/2, the standard gun of the F-4/14/15/16/18/22.

Would need about a 1/25th of a second burst from a Tomcat to go down.

Desert Storm: USAF took control of air-to-air. F-14's were ordered not to go after fighters unless they got VERY close. F-15's could go after anything, even outside their own radar range, directed by AWACS. Iraqi pilots ran from F-14's, not from F-15's. --If an F-14 even turned on its radar, they'd run like crazy, and the F-14's wouldn't even have a chance to get close enough to shoot. But the F-15 had no such effect, they didn't fear it, so they stayed--and got shot down. F-14's had pretty much one mission only, escorting A-6/A-7's. And even when Iraqi planes got fairly "close", F-15's were sent in. (They learned to fear the F-15 after about day 2, but by then most everything was already shot down, or escaped to Iran)

Basically, F-15's were on CAP 24/7, while F-14's were assigned to escort duty only. (And recon). Several reports of F-14's waiting for MiG's to get in range (F-14's were allowed to engage only if they got within X number of miles), when they'd see F-15's go streaking by, being allowed to chase after whatever they wanted.

For a Navy plane, most likely the H, possibly the L. The L was "new" for the Navy at that time, but it was in service. If anybody had it, it'd be VF-84. D too old at that point, not on a front-line VF-84 aircraft. The G is a possibility, but a bit old, and definitely uncommon (by sheer numbers). There were many more H's built than G's. G was kind of an "interim" H.

Anyone got a good pic of the Sidewinders in The Final Countdown?

Sadly, the Super Tomcats were supposed to be the first thing to get AMRAAM capability. Could have done 6/2 AMRAAM/Sidewinder--equal to the F-15C or F-22. Specifically, VF-111. Oh well, at least Shin's F-14A+Kai got them...

Bigger planes carry more stuff. F-14D's have long range, and a large bombload, and are very accurate. So let's replace all the proven, rather young planes with an equally-performing unproven plane that costs way way more! (And then spend a year correcting wing flutter, and then killing its range improvement by having to re-align the pylons) Tomcats can bomb with the best, and intercept with the best. No Hornet is good as an interceptor. Better close-range dogfighter, but the US as a rule likes to avoid that, and practically "snipe" enemy planes at a distance.

As it is now, the Super Hornet lost a good chunk of its "new improved" range over the regular Hornet due to the pylon modifications needed. Don't know the current range/payload specs.

Anyways, I forgot to answer Dobber's question about wing gloves.

Actually, all Tomcat's lost them. In effect. In the mid-80's, F-14A's had them locked into the retracted position, then the mechanism was removed and they were sealed over. ::edited for the 3rd time:: Ok, I'm going to go against most books and stuff. I say if an A was converted to a B or D, it'll keep them locked and sealed. But if built as a B or D, they never had them.

Why? They didn't do anything really. It wasn't worth the additional weight and maintenance. They were more effort to keep working, than they were worth. Much like an F-15 or B-1B's nozzle plates. ("Turkey feathers"). The loss of performance is considered worth the cost/risk savings. (if something jams, it's usually BAD)

Their actual design use was to move the center of lift forward, to counteract the rearward movement of the center of lift caused by going supersonic. They are canards, jusy very weak, and immobile. Why move the center of lift forwards? It'll relieve stress on the tail--when the center of lift goes back, the tail will have to provide constant downforce (more than normal) to keep the plane level. Since F-14's (and most swing-wing planes) rely 100% on the stabilators for roll/pitch control at high speed, there's that much less response/control from them for roll and pitch, since they're already being used for trim. But it seems they're not worth it. (Many possible reasons, I don't know why--either the glove vanes are ineffective, or the lift change isn't as great as thought, or the tail can easily cope with it, etc)

Display one standing on top of the pile of $20 bills saved by not buying the other.

A few things:

1. F-14's true role is fleet defense. Against bombers, and missiles. The F-14 IS designed to go after cruise missiles, or large anti-ship missiles.

2. A BIG, HUGE factor in that is speed. The F-14 is supposed to get off the carrier as fast as it possibly can, and race at Mach2+ to engage the "carrier-threatening" weapons as far from the carrier as possible. It carries the Phoenix missile so as to engage it as soon as possible, as far from the carrier as possible.

3. That said, a Super Hornet cannot do that any better at all than an F-18C, and worse than a Tomcat. You do NOT want to let the missiles get to within just a few miles, 30 secs from you carrier, and pray that your CIWS or RAM can take it down. Those are LAST-DITCH defenses. The Tomcat is your main long-range carrier defense, combined with Ticonderoga-class cruisers for mid-range defense. (And any other ship with its CIWS surrounding the carrier)

4. The best a Hornet (regular or super) is going to be able to do is race out at a slower speed, carrying shorter-ranged weapons. It's not going to get as far, as fast. Super Hornets cannot go faster, nor carry better weapons, that a regular Hornet.

5. So how exactly, is a Super Hornet better? Than either a regular Hornet, or Tomcat? *In the fleet defense role, the reason for the Tomcat's existence?*

See, the Tomcat isn't a close-range agile dogfighter. That's what we bought a whole bunch of F/A-18C's for. The Tomcat, is an interceptor. Like the F-15. F-15 isn't as agile as an F-16 in most situations--the F-16 is a dogfighter, not an interceptor. F-15's are interceptors. You don't "replace" F-15's with F-16's simply because they're more agile--they fill different roles. We generally pair our planes--F-15/16, and F-14/18. A fast, long-range interceptor, and a slower, but more agile (and cheaper) dogfighter.

So, now there's the Super Hornet. Well, we've already got our dogfighter, the regular Hornet. And we have our high-speed, long-range interceptor, which also performs fleet defense. And it's cheap. But the Super Hornet--is a regular Hornet with 2 more AMRAAM's. And it costs a LOT. So why would we replace the high-speed interceptor and the long-range Phoenix with the low-speed fighter and medium-range AMRAAM?

Since we COULD have built a whole lot of brand-new F-14D's for a lot less than new F-18E's, and converted many F-14A's to F-14D config, you can't argue they're physically old.

About the only real issue is ease of maintenance. However, a plane has to be REALLY unhandy before it's worth spending tens of millions to replace a single plane with one whose panels are easier to open.

Finally--even if you go AMRAAM vs AMRAAM, or F-14 vs F-18C, the Tomcat still has the most-powerful, longest-ranged radar of all--it can track enemy missiles farther than just about anything, and engage quicker due to superior speed. Also, an AMRAAM on an F-14 is better than an AMRAAM on an F-18, since the AMRAAM gains speed from what it is launched from---Tomcats will launch AMRAAMs at a higher speed, thus the missile can go farther, faster---thus engaging enemies farther away.

(That is a big part of how the F-22 is supposed to work--since it can supercruise a lot of the time, it'll always have that nice big boost of speed and kinetic energy to add to the AMRAAM). F-14's (and F-18's) will rarely be going that fast, but when fleet defense is the mission, they WILL be going that fast, and the F-14 is even faster than the F-22, and way faster than a Hornet. (F-18 is the slowest fighter in some 30 years, it can't do anything for the AMRAAM). (And Super Hornets aren't any faster).

Modern heatseekers don't need much at all. Heat caused by friction of the wing leading edges is what they're looking, if launched head-on. Also, while not a jet, the exhaust from a big piston engine is still definitely noticeable against the background, to a heat-seeker.

As for radar-guided missiles: Nothing creates a bigger radar return than a spinning blade. Big props like on a Zero create truly massive radar returns.

Coota--- one of the big "inventions" of the 30's and 40's was advanced high-lift devices for planes. F-14's have them, Zero's don't. F-14's have more than most any other fighter. They can go slower than a LOT of jets. (So that they can land on a carrier). There's no problem with speed. Plus, they've got swing-wings. They're always at "the right speed". WWII vs modern air combat speeds aren't all that different. You cannot dogfight supersonic.

As it is, the Su-47 is the closest thing to a YF-19. The X-29 is FSW, but shares no other useful similarities. Remember, FSW doesn't actually do that much at all. Better roll stability at extremely high AOA, and that's about it. (Man I wish the old MW forums were back online, with my 4-page mini-dissertation about what FSW really means for the YF-19) I can't remember half of what I wrote...

The thing is, the Su-47 basically has leading-edge ailerons. I haven't tried to figure out how they work yet.

FSW planes don't fly differently than regular sweep. Just be sure they've got really strong wings, and powerful engines, if you plane on going supersonic.

Su-47 wouldn't be a bad thing to copy, just I seriously doubt there's much info on it.

Overall, the YF-19 has been demonstated to have insane pitch abilities above all else (and darn good roll) (whereas the YF-21 seems to be better at rolling than pitch). Combined with high AOA stability, you might actually want to look at the F-18 as the closest "normal" plane for the YF-19 to fly like. (only much, much faster). YF-21 would be more like an F-16.

Ooh, actually I like the KAL pic the best. I can definitely get reg numbers from that observation deck.

I actually have no idea. It's been on my hard drive for years. Just a lone cutaway. No others that I know of. I'm pretty sure it was an attachment from this forum from long ago.

You'd probably be more interested if I remembered to attach it: