Renegade One indicated that [the F/A-18] is able to fill the roll of the F-14 but I wonder how it can stand up with the new stealth aircraft such as the Sukhoi Pak or the Chinese J-20.
R1 talks a lot of "smack"…but I missed his specific comment on this^^^.
What he probably said was something more like: "The Tomcat was built at a unique time…with a unique emerging threat that needed a counter. The F-14 was that counter…for so long as that threat existed…and honorably morphed into something else (e.g., Bombcat) late in its life. When the times and threats changed, and the threat of massed Backfire and Blinder raids against the fleet waned, the Navy had choices to make, and for many reasons, not the least of which were affordability, maintainability, cost per flight hour, credible and very effective capability against the "now" threat environments, the Navy elected…for very understandable reasons…to go "all in" on the Hornet community (originally designed/intended as a replacement for the A-7 and F-4 aircraft…NOT the A-6 or the F-14...) with it's potential for reasonably economical upgrade and continued enhancement, as "the new normal". Hornets of all shapes and sizes seem to have carried the water for us admirably since the legacy VA and VF communities went the way of the buffalo." Or words to that effect...
Now, if there is yet an emerging "new threat" (I guess we agree there is…)…Tomcats and Intruders aren't the answer. (Oh, the humanity!) The new stuff headed to a flight line or a carrier deck near you hopefully is, in concert with the most capable airplanes and aircrews flying right now.
Hint: If you fly through 2 or 3 perfectly good missile envelopes to get into a knife fight in a phone booth with some crowd-pleasing air show aerobatic aircraft with weapons…you're going it wrong.
...in the end it comes down to the training of the pilots and I believe we have a major advantage in that category.
This^^^: "Learn it. Know it. Live it."
~Brad Hamilton