The F-14 Tomcat: The Retro Rockstar

When other fighter aircraft had to fight tooth and nail for their reputation, the F-14 Tomcat simply popped its collar and confidently strutted its way into the hall of fame. This aircraft is defined by being cool, actually no, it defines cool.
In the 1980's, the only things that mattered were looks and attitude, as if the whole decade was a popularity contest; and Grumman had just made an aircraft that had both factors off the charts. So get out your best neon lights and put on your favorite acid washed jeans and I'll show you the story behind the Coolest Cat to ever fly.
Special thanks to the Grissom Air Museum for making this video possible:
www.grissomairmuseum.com/
Support them if you can!
www.grissomairmuseum.com/supp...
Video games used:
Ace Combat 4, 5, Zero, and Assault Horizon
Strike Fighters 2: North Atlantic
Tom Clancy's HAWX 2
Battlefield 3
On VJ Day, I uploaded our first video. I was so happy with the response I got from everyone. Today, on Pearl Harbor remembrance day, I'm hoping this video is even more refined and entertaining. If you're reading the description this far in, your support means a lot to me.
Oh also I know I said future videos would be shorter in the first one, I don't know how I did it, but yeah I know, this one is somehow even longer, next one will be shorter, I promise.
#topgun #topgunmaverick

[@Shadowace724]

My Uncle was on the Nimitz during the 1981 incident. The crew had shirts that had Tomcats 2 Libya 0 on them. I begged him for 1 but never got it. He was the Master Chief of Armements on the carrier. He was also in the Final Countdown.

[@shockwaveairhistory]

The definition of the cool uncle

[@coyotehinderstein37]

love the new video keep em comin i got the bell on

[@shockwaveairhistory]

Good man, and more are in the works, don't you worry

[@bldbar118]

Thanks for the video. Appreciate all the work put into editing; you could even get away with less. The content is good enough to stand without as many bells and whistles. I love how it looks too, great comparison to a starfighter, and appreciated learning how much of the lift comes from the body vs the wings. Keep on enjoying the planes and we'll keep on enjoying the videos. :)

[@shockwaveairhistory]

This might come as a shock but I actually intended this video to be shorter than the P-40 video hah, got carried away while scripting I guess. I've got the next script all but done, currently working to shave it down to 20 minutes or less (edit) oh and thanks for the appreciation towards the effort, glad to see the extra time in the editing room wasn't wasted lol

[@whitephoenix4230]

Okay...I found you out of random recommendations on F-14 documentaries and I must say, you have the profession of a documentary maker in of yourself. But what I've noticed is also nice, not only do you have the knowledge and have studied everything about the amazing bird, but you using Ace Combat and HAWX footage because games are one way the Tomcat is remaining alive and well besides a slow physical death in Iran due to part shortages and age. You've earned a subscriber. Keep it up.

[@shockwaveairhistory]

I was really disappointed to find out Project Wingman released like days after I uploaded cause I absolutely would have used that footage

[@jim874]

Hopefully you can get some more content out. Great work and all. Hard to tell a story about an aircraft that really didn't have that much combat history and a lot of movie time. But it is what it is and you did a great job. Hope you don't give up. You keep doing work like this and you'll grow your channel.

[@shockwaveairhistory]

I might make the videos but it's the audience that makes this channel work. I'll be thinking of you viewers as I polish up the script for the next video I've got

[@jim874]

@@shockwaveairhistory Thanks

[@matthewmariani1430]

awesome video. can't wait for the next one

[@shockwaveairhistory]

Next one is in the works, will be extra fun

[@pimpinwithgriffin3716]

your channel is so fire

[@shockwaveairhistory]

I aim to entertain

[@xenaguy01]

I was USN in 1968-1972, just prior to F-14's appearance. Sorry I missed it. USN really screwed up replacing it with the F-18 variant. The 24 Tomcats US carriers . . . err, . . . carried in the 70s/80s could easily outfight/outgun the 30-40 Hornets/Super Hornets carried since the late 90s. From what I hear, the E-6/E-7 combo was better at ground attack, too.

[@johndoe-dn2ku]

Congratulations on a seriously great video. Thank you Sir. Best of luck on future videos!

[@shockwaveairhistory]

Hope to see you there 👌

[@johndoe-dn2ku]

@@shockwaveairhistory sure Will!

[@av_oid]

Awesome video. Found you from the P40 video then looked at your other stuff. Add hashtag #topgun to title :).

[@shockwaveairhistory]

Always appreciate people who stick around for more than 1 video lol, I don't know how much attention KZbin will give an 2.5 year old video but ya know what, I'll give it a whirl

[@aaronfranklin3199]

Like your videos man . I think you should lose cartoon part though. The dogs cool though 😁 this is just my opinion keep the videos coming and I’ll keep watching!

[@shockwaveairhistory]

imageproxy.ifunny.co/crop:x-20,resize:640x,quality:90x75/images/50971aca3936d7d5b948c15c87bae95ac51f5f1085f4126c9614e6377caac484_1.jpg Sincerely, - Jimbo

[@bennybenitez2461]

Wow they left the TCS camera installed

[@shockwaveairhistory]

Definitely didn't have to google what that was, cause I'm just a smart guy like that.

[@lazylime8046]

There is *so much* misinformation in this video, holy hoot.

[@shockwaveairhistory]

If you'd like to point out examples, I do look to improve my research, generally speaking I get most of my info off of wikipedia and if it seems off, I'll cross reference it

[@lazylime8046]

@@shockwaveairhistory Frequently meshing the models from 1974, 1976, b, and ignoring the 90s upgrades of the a's models while somehow also putting them front and center was confusing as hell, as well as confusing the armament used on each model during each year, not taking into account sustained turning capabilities and instead focusing on pure tight-turning rates with no regard for energy balancing...I actually ended up accidentally really upsetting my friend who sent me this video because I kept pointing out the inaccuracies...I'm working on a project that's at 39 pages now detailing many, many, many late 3rd gen and early 4th gen aircraft if you want a sneak peek - also, the A model of the Tomcat was always gen 3.5+, as it couldn't supercruise, did not have a super advanced radar (the AWG-9 was built on very old architecture and was severely limited due to this), couldn't dogfight, couldn't multi-role due to never being equipped with bombs or any guided weaponry until the 90s right before it got decommissioned...you get the idea. Almost all of the F-14's feats and awe are from straight-up propaganda, with the A-10A being equally guilty of this.

[@shockwaveairhistory]

(Lot's of text warning because I genuinely enjoy this type of discussion) To address the "front and center" aspect of the different models, the main thing is finding relevant footage to display at relevant moments, and when it comes to 20th century military hardware, there's often not enough of it to fit perfectly in for many instances of a script. Especially when the visual differences between models is so minuscule. When it comes to the exact and intricate details regarding flight performance... That's not what this channel is about. If you want to read off a flight manual, there's plenty of other places to get that type of content. Unless it's a truly stand out statistic, I don't find things like "energy balancing" or "best rate of climb vs. best angle of climb" to be very interesting as it kind of just ends up being a bunch of numbers on a chart. I want to excite people about aviation stories, not lecture them on how different altitudes affected pitch rates and things like that. As for the Tomcat being Gen 3.5 vs 4, well I find supercruise and dogfighting ability to be... restrictive (?) figures to measure by. There are only a handful aircraft in history to supercruise. Many of them limited production. As for dogfighting, well gen 4 really went hard on missile combat *Especially in the BVR aspect. Not to be Mr. Dogfighting is Dead but you have to admit, the successes of long range missiles against air targets has proven far more effective than dogfighting ability ever since F-4's facing Fishbeds in Vietnam. So to call the F-14 "not gen 4" because it can't supercruise and has bleeds energy in a turn feels.... harsh. I actually have a video discussing the intricacies of fighter generations and how their loose definitions can lead to weird results, I'm interested in that essay you've got, maybe that discussion would peak your interests. Not to mention it was labeled as the 1st Gen 4 fighter. So naturally it wouldn't have all the bells and whistles like a Eurofighter does. As for ground striking ability, while I understand why it never got good equipment to do that, given how much effort went into making it a dedicated interceptor, it certainly would have helped it's case when decommissioning given how much real estate the plane has. Like I say in the video, it certainly has the lifting ability to serve a multirole's job. I wish. I try not to be a beacon of propaganda, for example I hark on the F-86's claimed 10:1 K/D as being untrue it that video, but at the same time, like I said, I want to thrill the audience. I became interested in aviation because of how it excited me, not because of on paper statistics. Of course the Tomcat couldn't "pop the brakes and he'll fly right by" in reality, but the story of a Tomcat pilot beating a Hornet pilot in a turn fight because he sneakily dumped his fuel to reduce mass is both true and exhilarating. On a final note, like I said earlier, I do most of my research off easily available sources, and almost always that means exact or direct documentation is off the table. 1. I have a day job, I can't be reading entire flight manuals so I can be slightly more technically correct about a statement most people won't think about. 2. Doing that would be expensive. If I bought all the best documents, manuals, archive footage, memoirs of relevant parties, and historian analyses relevant to a video, I'd be $500 in the hole every production. So sometimes I can't figure out the exact time-to-reach-takeoff-speed or who exactly was the combat controller during a certain engagement or I have to use footage of a P-51D when a P-51H is being discussed, but those are the sacrifices I have to make in order to make a production that's interesting to listen to and watch.

[@lazylime8046]

@@shockwaveairhistory There are tons of tools you can use to find out more about this stuff without spending any money - a lot of declassified material has been popping up over the last few years, so that's a great start. The F-14's not gen 4 because its radar was very easy to notch and really only had a superb range and was pulse-doppler, but that really bad notching knocks it down a few pegs (ignoring its horrific reliability), as well as its engines being wholly terrible - every TF30 model besides the F-111F's TF30-P-100's during the 70s and 80s was entirely awful, and this model only beats the others due to output at all airspeeds, but the cost led to that model being replaced by the P-109 in the 90s. And fighter generations in the west are defined by the technology *and* effectiveness in all forms of aerial engagements. So taking out one of those and ignoring half of the other can't exactly be taken that seriously. My project's at 44 pages now, and will be publicly available once I write the pages detailing every model of almost every A2A missile used on mainline fighters and interceptors in the 60s-90s.

[@shockwaveairhistory]

I do wish I could have found more time to discuss the details of the ASF-14 which would have been a good way to highlight the F-14's shortcomings by discussing the improvements proposed in the Super Tomcat, but that video was already beyond longer than it should have been. Unfortunately no matter how much work I put in, there's going to be 2 things, 1. Something I say that's just outright incorrect that somehow slipped it's way onto my script and passed through my fact checking. 2. There will be a detail that someone was really excited to hear about and I don't mention. While I've gotten at least 1 thing in every video, my goal has always and will always be to entertain, even if I have to apologize something after the fact. Thankfully I don't think I've made any truly experience ruining errors, just slip ups in the details.