Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: mjt@super.org (Michael J. Tighe) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: F-14 Message-ID: <7636@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 21 Jun 89 02:46:22 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 42 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Michael J. Tighe >From: >>The F-14 was designed to incorporate many of the lessons learned from >>Vietnam. It was designed for ACM performance (though they did skimp >>a bit on the engines... The F-14 was designed before we learned any lessons in Vietnam. The F-14 was designed in the late 60's and the contract for it was awarded in January 1969. The plane first flew on December 21, 1970. It crashed 9 days later. The design of the F-14 was based on Grumman's experience with the F-111B and it did incorporate state of the art technology. (more titanium, better welding, solid state electronics, etc). The AWG-9 and Phoenix missile system are evidence it was not designed for ACM. The Naval Fighter Weapons School came as a result of the Ault Report in 1968. The Ault Report is where we learned our ACM lessons. The first NFWS class was held in March 1969. Also, since the air-air war didn't resume until 1972, the ACM tactics taught in NFWS were not tested in actual combat until after the F-14 was in production. >From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >They skimped on the engines in the F-14A, which was meant as an initial >interim version. The F-14B was to have had much more advanced engines. >Said engines ran into problems (both technical and financial, I think) >and the F-14B got quietly forgotten. The engines of the F-14 are an interesting story. Grumman proposed two engines for the plane, the TF-30 from the cancelled F111B, and a new advanced technology engine being jointly developed by the USAF & USN. I do not know why they chose the TF-30, but it might have been because they were already designed and ready to go. 4 of the first 13 crashes were attributed to the TF-30. On each of these crashes, the engine fan blades of the TF-30 had come off. Fixing this resulted in a cost of $800,000 per plane (over 230 planes had been delivered at the time). Another unanticipated cost was the heat the engines generated. As a result, new blast deflectors had to be designed for carrier operations.