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Few aircraft of the Cold War era have attained such cult status and adoration among those that flew it, wanted to fly it or kept it flying as the mighty Grumman F-14 Tomcat.
The jet was the final fighter created by the Grumman Aircraft Corporation and it had a reputation for being a tenacious interceptor that proved its durability in combat.
With the thawing of the Cold War in the late 1980s, the Tomcat community was faced with a stark choice. Turn the aircraft into a multirole strike fighter platform, or retain the fighter mission only and face almost certain extinction.
In a mere five years, the F-14 transitioned from guarding against improbable Cold War scenarios to becoming the LANTIRN-equipped, self-escorting strike fighter of choice.
With its two-seat cockpit, substantial payload and superior speed, range and recovery capabilities compared to the F/A-18 Hornet, the F-14 transformed into the formidable “Bombcat.”
Its contribution in Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF, 2001–02) and Iraqi Freedom I–IV (OIF, 2003–06) proved its worth.
As told by Tony Holmes in his book F-14 “Bombcat”: The US Navy’s Ultimate Precision Bomber, the rules of engagement (ROE) governing whether Tomcat crews could employ ordnance while in Iraq during OIF was strictly adhered to throughout the war. The possibility of inflicting collateral damage to military personnel, civilians and property was paramount in the minds of Tomcat crews.
Cdr Rick LaBranche, VF-31 CO was philosophical about expending ordnance during the course of Tomcatters’ myriad OIF IV missions over the beach;
‘Whether we dropped bombs on the insurgents or simply scared them away by our physical presence in the area, saving the lives of our troops meant we had achieved our stated aim while in-theater.
‘I derived great satisfaction from providing protection to our forces on the ground in Iraq. Flying such missions gave my squadron, and the air wing overall, a real purpose in life, and motivated us to maintain the increased op tempo that became the norm during the course of the [2005-06] deployment [the Tomcat’s final operational deployment]. You could hear in the tone of the JTACs’ voices when we checked in over Iraq that they were pleased to see us back overhead.
‘On one occasion when we returned to the line after a port call, during our first mission back over the beach one of the JTACs came up on the radio and told us “we missed you”! Such a call was a first for me. We were visited by a group of JTACs from Mosul in early January 2006, and thein comments were truly heart-warming for the squadron. They told us that they felt far safer when they had Tomcats overhead. Their remarks left me feeling very proud of my occupation, and thankful that I was flying such a capable jet in-theater.
‘Although I did not get to drop a bomb in anger during the cruise, I did not feel as though I had failed in my mission when I chopped out of the NAG. Far from it, in fact, as I derived plenty of mission satisfaction performing show-of-force flybys and simply being overhead the troops providing a physical presence that helped to keep the bad guys’ heads down.
‘One of my cruise highlights was chasing down insurgents fleeing from an al-Qaeda cell meeting that had been interrupted by an Army Stryker patrol in the desert west of Baghdad. I spotted an SUV [sports utility vehicle] fleeing from the scene at about 120mph [193km/h] along a nearby road, and it was up to my RIO and I to get the vehicle to turn around, as the Strykers could not keep up with it. I flew right past the SUV at low altitude and then banked across the road directly in front of it. The driver quickly made a 180-degree turn once he saw us looming above him!
‘On another mission, we received a report that one of our Strykers had hit an IED in the road and had been blown on to its back. My wingman and I subsequently provided high cover for the rescue effort that saw ambulances driven in to help take out the wounded.
‘Very few of our sorties into Iraq were benign in nature. Virtually every time we flew over the beach we were told to go and provide surveillance in an area where insurgent activity had been reported, and we generally found something thanks to the Tomcat having the best sensors in-theater for this type of mission at that time. Sadly, we also regularly received calls asking us to provide aerial cover in the aftermath of an incident involving the insurgency, where our troops on the ground had been attacked.
‘The Tomcat also proved to be an excellent platform for show-of-force fly-bys, and I performed just such a pass in the aftermath of an IED explosion in the middle of a city. We dropped down to low altitude, pinned the wings back, opened the throttles and accelerated downtown. At nearly 63ft in length, a Tomcat with its wings folded back doing 600+ knots [1,111km/h] at less than 3,000ft tended to get people’s attention very quickly. You had to be constantly on the lookout for small arms fire, shoulder-launched SAMs and RPGs when making these passes.
LaBranche concluded:
‘On one such flyby we were engaged by no fewer than seven RPGs that were fired simultaneously at us as we were circling over an urban area. They certainly got my attention, and proved once again that you cannot get complacent or too comfortable when patrolling over Iraq. As a matter of routine, I always pumped out chaff and flares on these show-of-force fly-bys, as I was not going to wait for my enemy to shoot an infrared heat-seeking missile before I reacted -I may not have seen it until it was too late.’
F-14 “Bombcat”: The US Navy’s Ultimate Precision Bomber is published by Key Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo credit: NATHAN LAIRD, USN and Staff Sgt. Ezekiel Kitandwe, U.S. Marine Corps
F-14 Tomcat
