Here are some stories on Saturday’s event:
Navy retires F-14, the coolest of cold warriors
Navy’s ‘Top Gun’ Tomcat Fighter Jet Makes Ceremonial Final Flight
F-14 Tomcat takes sunset flight
The F-14 Tomcat Roars Off Into The Sunset
F-14 Tomcat Makes Its Final Flight
FAREWELL, TOMCATS: F-14 officially retires
A shot of an Independence Tomcat back in the day:
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A flight deck crewman prepares to signal the pilot of an F-14 Tomcat aircraft for takeoff from the aircraft carrier USS INDEPENDENCE (CV 62), during operations off the coast of Beirut, Lebanon. 6 Dec 1983
And Tom’s old friends the Rooskies:
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An air-to-air right side view of a[n] F-14 Tomcat aircraft from Fighter Squadron 51 (VF-51) as it intercepts a Soviet Tu-95 Bear-A/B aircraft. 15 Oct 1979
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I’m surprised none of those articles mention that those jets can transform into giant fighting robots or fight in space.
I remember a day when we used to retire fighters with hardly a glance back because everyone was more excited about the airplane replacing it than they were sad about the one retiring. My how our once mighty defense industry has fallen.
Soviet F-14 Tomcat aircraft from Fighter Squadron 51 (VF-51)’ Soviet F-14 eh? I know commies liked to reverse engineer our aircraft- but intercepting their own aircraft with copied planes!
Whoa! I didn’t even notice that, Steve. I just copied and pasted from a DoD site. I will fix.