Of the 79 Grumman F Tomcats originally delivered in the s, only around 40 to 43 of the upgraded FAM are believed to be in the current inventory — and of those only 20 are believed to be fully mission capable. When the U. It is also worth noting that in , Iran even requested the 80th F that it had purchased in that was never delivered to the Islamic Revolution.
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress , which is available on Amazon. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.
I wonder if the old tomcats can outrun our modern lasers? Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Original Reporting. Privacy Policy Submissions. Connect with us. NOT a good idea. Let's add here that getting to the Merge is no sure thing either. The AIM-7F was a lousy missile. Good vectoring lets you cut the angles off the BVR phase as goes the intercept… and the French introduced this missile to the Iraqis specifically as a counter-Phoenix weapon during the Kharg Island through Marsh Fight phases of the Air Campaigns when the IQAF was suffering pretty bad Phoenix attrition over the open ground.
And the ALE installation had eight buckets vs. No velocity, height or target field data. As an EM platform, the Eagle it could literally run rings around the Tomcat, anytime it wanted to. Simply because it could exploit the vertical as nature's G to tighten the radius or increase the rate, on an as needed basis and without the 'wait for the wings to catch up! And we fought in pairs so that while you're busy putting the canopy on me, my wingman is gutting you from below the sill line.
But the reality is that an F made hamburger into Steve Canyon. Because that alpha pitch and Immelman reversal was about all that the F could bring to the merge fight table that even an F-5E could not handle. As a point of truth: the F was an abysmal ACM fighter with handling capabilities more akin to a cement truck. You could override the wing sweep to fool a novice with early play from a higher energy state at the cost of a lot of strain on the airframe and very rough handling which could lead to a snap stall but any experienced fighter pilot knows how to read threat energy better than simply going by wing sweep and as long as you can read the Tomcat's EM globals, you can beat it.
With Ease. The engine may have made it a little more sprightly. But not enough to matter. Get the best aviation news, stories and features from The Aviation Geek Club in our newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.
Log In Sign Up. The Aviation Geek Club. By Dario Leone. Share this article. This print is available in multiple sizes from AircraftProfilePrints. Dario Leone.
Dario Leone Dario Leone is an aviation, defense and military writer. Most of the 77 surviving airframes were not operational, or at least had non-functioning radars, while their crews lacked fresh training and experience.
As a result, when it came to intercepting Iraqi aircraft, F units had come to rely heavily on ground control. Within a few days of the first clashes with the Iraqis, a dozen or so Fs were back in service, flying patrols along the border. The first kill by an F was scored even before the Iran-Iraq war officially began. On September 7, , an Iraqi Mil Mi Hind helicopter an export version of the Soviet Mi attack helicopter was shot down with a mm Vulcan cannon.
Just six days later, the first AIM kill followed: Major Mohammad-Rez Attaie shot down an Iraqi MiG while he was patrolling an area over which Iraqi reconnaissance aircraft had been especially active in previous days. The most intense periods of air combat were the first two months of the war, which began September After only hours of training, I learned to pitch the nose of my Tomcat up at a degree [angle of attack] in just over a second, turn around, and acquire the opponent either with Sidewinders or the gun.
According to retired U. Air Force Colonel Ronald Bergquist, a former Middle East specialist, rather than sacrifice their fighter aircraft in combat, both air forces used their fighters as deterrents, in much the same way that the superpowers at the time used their nuclear arsenals. Unlike Israel and Egypt in , he says, Iran and Iraq in had no allies and, unable to replace their losses, had to conserve their fighters.
On the other hand, the AIM Phoenix missile was deployed only sporadically at the beginning of the war, and then more frequently in and until the lack of thermal batteries suspended the use of Phoenix missiles in The MiG was not the fighter the Iraqis had hoped for.
However, Iran contends that they currently have 24 Fs that are still operational and flight ready, with two that have been upgraded to FAMs. And even if we were to give Iran the benefit of the doubt and assume they have two-dozen functional Fs, their pilots will be woefully ill prepared for the rigors of combat. American fighter pilots are, hands down, the most heavily trained combat aviators in the world. On average, American fighter jocks see nearly twice the seat time in their respective aircraft as compared to their Chinese or Russian counterparts, let alone pilots serving in a less economically developed nation like Iran.
And because Iran lacks the means to maintain their Fs consistently, their pilots likely have next to no experience at all at the stick of the Tomcat.
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