Last flight for 'Top Gun' jets
By Sonja Barisic
Associated Press
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. | In the end, it took two F-14 Tomcats to make the ceremonial final flight of the Navy's dogfighting "Top Gun" fighter, which is retiring 36 years after the first prototype of the jet took to the sky.
Pilot Lt. Cmdr. David Faehnle and radar intercept officer Lt. Cmdr. Robert Gentry gave a final salute Friday from inside their cockpit before aircraft No. 102 taxied down the runway and out of sight at Oceana Naval Air Station.
The plane that actually took off as thousands applauded and whistled, however, was aircraft No. 107, with Lt. Cmdr. Chris Richard at the controls and radar intercept officer Lt. Mike Petronis in the back seat.
The first jet had a slight mechanical problem with a generator, Gentry said later in a phone interview. So the second jet, which was on standby at the end of the runway, flew in its place, he said.
"Of course on a beautiful day it's always disappointing not to go flying, but there's a rhyme and a reason for everything, I suppose," Gentry said. "It's a ceremonial last flight, and it's important that we got an aircraft up symbolizing the great, proud history of the Tomcat and the Tomcat community."
Before the flight, Adm. John Nathman, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command and a former F-14 pilot, said the retiring jet with moveable, swept-back wings was "sometimes tough to fly" and tough to fix - but it also was tough in a fight.
"The legacy of this aircraft is not the Top Gun movie," Nathman told about 3,000 invited guests - including former aviators, mechanics and builders - during the ceremony. "The legacy of the F-14 is found in America's commitment to win the Cold War."
Built by what was then Grumman Aircraft Corp., the F-14 had its first flight in 1970 and joined the Navy fleet two years later. The jet originally was intended to defend U.S. aircraft carriers from Soviet bombers carrying long-range cruise missiles, and its dogfighting capabilities were glamorized in the 1986 Tom Cruise movie Top Gun.
The F-14 helped protect Marine helicopters evacuating Saigon in 1975, dropped bombs in Bosnia in the 90s and supported ground troops in Iraq as recently as this year. The Navy's last 22 deployed F-14 aircraft came home to Oceana with two squadrons on March 11; one squadron continued flying the Tomcat until this month.
The F-14 is being replaced with the newer F/A-18 Super Hornet attack fighter, which takes less time to maintain, said Andres Velarde, an aviation machinist's mate who was part of the last Tomcat squadron.
"It's a great jet that we're losing, but it's time for a new era," said Velarde, 24, of Garfield, N.J.
Gentry likened retiring the Tomcat to "losing a member of the family."
"It's a bittersweet moment to look and realize that pretty soon you won't be flying that aircraft," he said. "There are few aircraft that elicit such a strong bond between the air crew and the maintainers and the people who build them."
Retired Navy pilot Harry Milner flew 57 aircraft models during his career, but the F-14 - on which he also trained Iranian pilots - was among his favorite.
"It's big, it's powerful. Just looking at it, it commands respect," said Milner, 72, who came up from Rockledge, Fla., for the ceremony. "That airplane will fly under incredible conditions."
Some of the last F-14s have been placed in war reserve at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz.; others are going to museums such as the Virginia Aviation Museum in Richmond.
Mike Boehme, the museum's executive director, expects the
F-14 to be a big draw when it goes on display soon after being stripped of its engines and electronic gear.
About 100 people showed up just to watch the fighter's arrival earlier this month.
"When you look at the publicity the aircraft has had ... it's held a premier role in many of the military stories that have been on TV and also in the movies," Boehme said. "There's a certain mystique about it."
).
