F-14 and F/A-18E

[Piperpilot2004]

sure this question has been answered a lot on here, but does anyone know when the F-14 is going to be fully retired? I know when I took a tour of Nas Oceana over the past summer, I saw very few F-14s and a lot of F/A-18s. Even saw a few F versions..was pretty sweet but anyways, I was talking to the tour guide and he said the F-14 should be fully retired by 2006. That sucks! I know a few years ago all I saw out there where F-14s, now I dont see too many.. also my other question, whats up with the F/A-18E? The only F/A-18s I ever hear about anymore are the current ones or the F version. Dont hear a whole lot on the E version. Is the Navy gonna do away with it or is the F/A-18F taking priority since the 14 will be retired soon? just curious about this..thanks

 

[Fly Navy]

Is there much truth to the rumors/talk about E models being used for buddy tanking and F models being used more for strike rolls?

 

[Brett327]

Is there much truth to the rumors/talk about E models being used for buddy tanking and F models being used more for strike rolls?

Sounds reasonable

 

[Fly Navy]

Am I taking crazy pills, or shouldn't the older C models be being used for tanking and the new E models used for their roll?

 

[kmac]

UI- So who's going to get the tanking role? I haven't seen a prototype C-2B yet.

GO ILLINI!

 

[jarhead]

don't know how the squids are doing it, but a FAC(A) training syllabus for single seat Marine Corps Hornets is in the works, should be implemented soon. can't wait, WSO's say it can't be done by single seaters, yet air farce A-10's & F-16's have been doing it for years ....

how much more gas does the E have over the F? i'll take the extra gas anyday, IMO ... also, i talked with a SH dude a few months ago that said the next Lot of SH's will have a weapons employment switch in the back for the WSO's to use? any word on that? when that happens, who buys the bombs if they hit the wrong target? the PIC or the WSO who dropped them? hmm, i'll stick to single seat ...

oh, one last question, did they put an ILS in the SH? please tell me they did, please, and i'm not talking about a boat ILS either ....

S/F

Well, the E holds more gas, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. Mission-wise, from guys that I've talked to, FAC-A is alot more likely to happen as an F guy. I'm sure there are several more things that are easier to do with two people vice one that I just haven't seen yet. Also, you've got to look QOL-wise. Twice as many guys for the same amount of ground jobs sounds awful good to me. From some guys, it just comes down to personality, i.e.: plays well with others?

 

[A4sForever]

TANKER POSIT ... ?!?!?!?!

TANKING ??? Unless something has changed, the tankers were, pound for pound (no pun) among the most -- maybe the most -- valuable aircraft to CAG and the AirWing strike planners. You have lots of aircraft that can do lots of things, but very few dedicated tanker assets.

The F-18 (model xyz) will obviously be doing some tanking, but "buddy stores" are historically unreliable and the tanking A/C usually doesn't have a "lot" of gas to give. I have no current experience to draw on, but with what I have read on the subject of post KA-6D, post S-3 tanking, the constraints, capacities, and requirements of any available tanking platforms -- the Fleet is going to lose -- big time -- what was once considered a must have. Namely an organic, dedicated AirWing tanking capability. Perhaps the buddy store issue is part of the reason the S-3 is not being retained as an integral AirWing, dedicated tanker? And if you are going to tank someone --- that second head/pair of eyes/hands REALLY comes in handy -- especially at night. So which XYZ model of F-18 will get it done most effectively? Lots of practical, tactical problems that have to be appreciated and addressed? I am probably missing something obvious, but the future tanking plan seems to be patched together at best ... ??

A-6's passin' gas to F-14's and even passin' gas to the Frogs !!! -- 2 Super Etandards ... BTW, Frog Naval Air is very professional, in my experience. But it looks like A-6E bombers with buddy store(s) -- now where ARE those KA-6's, CAG wants to know ??

Gonna use the Air Force? I suppose this will happen more and more as the GWOT moves around and around the globe. When going to the Sand, you should have land-based AF support. How about Taiwan? North Korea? Syria? Iran? A dust-up between India and Pakistan? Probably land-based AF assets again?? But how about doing two of these scenarios at once? Probably not enough AF to do it all .... Or how about when you have to use the Carrier Battle Group's unique ability to run, hide, maneuver, hit, and run again? Or is that not going to happen any more ... ??

What is CAG going to say ... ?? :icon_rage

 

[HooverPilot]

The S-3 is just getting old and the Navy wants to move the money from S-3's over to the SuperHornet. So, it goes away. The Buddy store is absolutely reliable, the Super Hornet uses the exact same buddy store (except 1 mod so they can go faster).

Anyone who say's that tanking is merely a supplemental mission doesn't understand the tanking environment around the boat. If you are to be the recovery tanker, and recovery tanker is ALWAYs required, then you have to be a tanker first. If you cannot do the tanking mission, the powers that be will not let you do anything else. All tankers will eventually get called off another mission to provide tanking to someone. You will never get pulled off tanking to go do another mission.

I am not trying to say that the Super Hornet is going to just be a tanker, but there is a whole lot more required of a tanker than most think. Tanking will be a dedicated mission, not something you do on the way to an xyz mission. Someone who is going to be the recovery tanker has to manage just more than his gas, he must save enough gas to cover the recovery too; if that gas is in danger, you knock off the current mission to save the gas, not cancel the tanking. There is a reason that nuggets generally do not do the tanking mission in the Rhino - too much is riding on successful completion of the job. You do not have a choice but to be in the right spot on a hawk, ready to tank.

 

[SteveG75]

don't know how the squids are doing it, but a FAC(A) training syllabus for single seat Marine Corps Hornets is in the works, should be implemented soon. can't wait, WSO's say it can't be done by single seaters, yet air farce A-10's & F-16's have been doing it for years ....

how much more gas does the E have over the F? i'll take the extra gas anyday, IMO ... also, i talked with a SH dude a few months ago that said the next Lot of SH's will have a weapons employment switch in the back for the WSO's to use? any word on that? when that happens, who buys the bombs if they hit the wrong target? the PIC or the WSO who dropped them? hmm, i'll stick to single seat ...

oh, one last question, did they put an ILS in the SH? please tell me they did, please, and i'm not talking about a boat ILS either ....

S/F

Jarhead,

Don't worry about it. Marines aren't buying Super Hornets.

 

[SteveG75]

BIG gas difference between the two. That said, with the S-3 going away, someone's got to take over the job. Don't, however, read that as the Rhino being a tanker. Tanking is a supplemental, rather than a primary role.

VFA-115 flew about 40% tanker sorties last cruise. Tanking is a primary role. They had 4 or 5 jets on the roof permantly configured as "5 wet" which means 4 x 480 gal drops and a 300 gal buddy store. Of the cat with 28,000 lbs of gas which compares well with the A-6 which had 26,000.

I love hearing Hornet guys complain that the Navy's primer strike platform spends too much time tanking. Now they know what the Intruder was like. :icon_smil

 

[USN99]

This discussion has pretty much entered into the realm of tanking. But to the guy at the top who was wondering why the F-14s seemed to disappear so fast, their retirement was accelerated in order to free up Navy budgetary resources faster. Sad but true. Maintenance costs for the F-14 were high compared to any/all Hornet varieties. Sadly, these numbers got a lot of attention inside the Beltway. However, the F-14 was a very capable platform and always had air-to-ground potential. But due to budget constraints in the early 70's, this potential was not engineered into the production aircraft. Ironically, in the 90's it did come to fruition. It was a great aircraft.

OK, sorry to interrupt the tanker discussion.

 

[SteveG75]

However, the F-14 was a very capable platform and always had air-to-ground potential. But due to budget constraints in the early 70's, this potential was not engineered into the production aircraft. Ironically, in the 90's it did come to fruition.

Actually, the reason the Tomcat did not go A-G initially is that the VF community did not want continue doing that after their experience bomb-dropping in Vietnam. Grumman had already developed racks and everything (even an A-G mode of the AWG-9). The VF bubbas were more than happy to go MiG hunting while leaving the bomb dropping to the Intruders and Corsairs.

Of course, with the demise of the Intruder, the VF guys saw the writing on the wall and went A-G with the addition of the Lantirn pod. Ironically, the least capable Tomcats (F-14A's) were the first to get the pod due to avionics issues.

 

[jarhead]

Jarhead,

Don't worry about it. Marines aren't buying Super Hornets.

ahhh, a little FO pride showing eh, good to see it mate....... no worries though, we'll see. i'll bet a paycheck that the Corps will eventually buy the SH-F model because the current Hornet fleet blows due to maintenance issues, the Corps WSO community (especially at MAWTS) is pretty damn strong, and they (the WSOs) currently have no job when the JSF roles out (and that's why they don't like the FAC(A) deal with single seat Hornets) ...

the questions are out of curiosity, nothing more, and not asked to a WSO/ECMO, but to a pilot of a SH .... sir

S/F

 

[Fly Navy]

Ok, so when the Marine EA-6Bs finally die.... what are they going to do? Use Navy Super Hornets? Have the Navy do it for them? I'm very curious about this.

 

[USN99]

F-14 A-g

Actually, the reason the Tomcat did not go A-G initially is that the VF community did not want continue doing that after their experience bomb-dropping in Vietnam. Grumman had already developed racks and everything (even an A-G mode of the AWG-9). The VF bubbas were more than happy to go MiG hunting while leaving the bomb dropping to the Intruders and Corsairs.

Of course, with the demise of the Intruder, the VF guys saw the writing on the wall and went A-G with the addition of the Lantirn pod. Ironically, the least capable Tomcats (F-14A's) were the first to get the pod due to avionics issues.

Your comment about the VF bubbas wanting to avoid A-G is so ironic. I worked with a VF bubba (later became a Super CAG) who definitely saw the writing on the wall years before the rest and was a strong advocate (a lone wolf at the time) for an F-14 A-G capability.

That old VF bias against A-G flowed in parallel with a burning desire to constrain the costs of building new fighters, which at the time were the F-14 and F-15. There were forests of trees converted to newsprint arguing about the outrageous costs of building these two fighters. Of course no one wanted to blame the fiscal and monetary policies of the Carter Administration for driving inflation through the roof and thus blowing the costs of these two fine specimens through the same roof. So skipping any cost associated with getting A-G into the F-14 would have been welcome by Navy bean counters, willing to let the VF bubbas have their way. And don't forget the A-7 Mafia. They weren't going to object either. The A-6 Community wasn't going to object.

And the direct response to the rising costs of the F-15/14 was the F-16/18. And the most recent response to the costs of maintaining multiple air forces (Navy, USAF, USMC) is to modify a Hornet A-D into a SH E/F (a new airplane by any measure but it seems to have fooled the bean counters sufficiently) plus put a JSF next to it on the flight deck. Also, to shave even more money, let's "merge" USMC tac air with USN; and "mothball" the Kennedy. The CNO is quoted recently in Congressional hearings as asserting that precison strike weapons make the need for that 12th carrier to diminish. This is pure budget-speak not the lexicon of mission capabilities or requirements.

Let's face it. All seapower is shore-based, specifically in Washington DC and inside the Beltway- where the OSD Comptroller has considerable sway over all Service budgets. And to quote an old cliche, "No Bucks, No Buck Rogers".

BTW, the SH E/F is a real improvement over the Fruit Fly (A-7, set the bar low) but it can't do what the F-14 and A-6/KA-6 could do.