The Grumman F-14 Tomcat in combat

Great American combat aircraft

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat in combat 1972-2006

The roots of the F-14 Tomcat, one of the most respected fighter aircraft of the last few decades, can be found in the tradition of inter-service rivalry that exists between the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy. Until the early 1960s, the vastly different technical and mission requirements of these two branches of the military had dictated the purchase of very dissimilar aircraft types. The soaring cost of fighter procurement led the Kennedy administration to ignore this reality and require the development of a single airplane, capable of satisfying both the Air Force and the Navy. This controversial brainchild of Defence Secretary Robert McNamara was known as the TFX, for Tactical Fighter, Experimental. The TFX became two airplanes : the F-111A, which served the Air Force well, and the F-111B, which was a complete failure for the Navy. By June of 1968, vindicated at last, the U.S. Navy was allowed to launch its own competition for a modern, carrier-based fighter, the VFX. Grumman, a long-standing builder of superb Navy airplanes, won the VFX contract in January 1969. The first F-14 was in the air within two years - the beginning of a spectacular success story known as the Tomcat.