By William C. Barto, Historian, Grumman Memorial Park
In this installment of Tomcat Tales we will discuss briefly the third pre-production F-14. Several things make this particular Tomcat significant. First, it is the oldest surviving F-14 in the world. Second, it is currently on display at our sister museum, the Cradle of Aviation at Mitchel Field, Long Island.
 photo courtesy of the Grumman History Center |
No. 3 first flew on December 28, 1971 with Grumman Test Pilots Don Evans (pilot) and Dennis Romano (Weapon Systems Officer). Operating out of the Grumman Flight Test Facility at Calverton, New York, No 3 was primarily used for determining the entire structural envelope for the F-14 and investigating certain flight characteristics under extreme conditions. |
| One of these was in response to concerns raised by the US Navy regarding asymmetrical wing sweep. No. 3 is best remembered for photo shown at right. A series of flight tests were conducted from December 19, 1985 to February 28, 1986. Grumman's Chief Test Pilot, Chuck Sewell, conducted several trials with the right wing locked in the forward position of 20 degrees, and positioned the left wing at 35, 50, 60 and 68 degrees of sweep in flight. 60 degrees was determined as the maximum for landing. In the event of an operational in-flight malfunction, Sewell found the aircraft to be acceptable for carrier landings in this configuration. |  photo courtesy of the Grumman History Center |
 photo by William Barto
|
Tomcat No. 3 flew for the last time in 1990. Acquired by the Cradle of Aviation Museum in 1995, No. 3 is shown here on display in Hangar 2. It is also interesting to note that Tom Gwynne, Vice President for External Relations for the “Cradle”, and Grumman Test Pilot No. 72, flew No. 3 on several occasions. |
F-14B, Aircraft No. 7, BuNo. 157986 |
|||||
|
By William C. Barto, Historian, Grumman Memorial Park
|
|||||
|
This installment of Tomcat Tales concerns itself with the seventh pre-production F-14. This Tomcat was designated F-14B and became the engine test-bed for evaluating the various alternative power plants being considered to replace the interim Pratt & Whitney TF30 series engines. |
|||||
|
|
No. 7 first flew on September 9, 1973 with Grumman Test Pilots Joe Burke (pilot) and Roger Ferguson (Weapon Systems Officer). It was equipped with the Pratt & Whitney F401-PW-400 engines. Tests with the F401 engine were not satisfactory and at the conclusion of the flight test program, the F-14B was put into storage at Calverton. |
||||
|
No. 7 was taken out of storage in early 1981 and two General Electric F101DFE (Derivative Fighter Engines) were installed. On July 14, 1981, the first test flight took place. Test pilots discovered that the F-14B could accelerate from Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.8 in just 90 seconds and could launch from a catapult without the use of afterburners. With 65,000 lbs of thrust, the F101DFE engines produced enough power to give the F-14 a thrust to weight ratio of |
|
||||
|
approximately one to one. Though far more successful than the F401 trails, the Navy decided to terminate the test program in September1981. Once again No. 7 went back into storage. A few years later, in July 1984, it was out of storage again and two General Electric F110-GE-400 engines were installed. Test flights began shortly thereafter on what was to become known as the Super Tomcat. This time the tests proved highly successful and led to the production in March 1987 of the F-14A (PLUS), essentially an “A” model with the General Electric F110 series engines (and redesignated F-14B in May 1991), to the highly improved and updated F-14D produced until 1992. |
|||||
|
Today the Super Tomcat is in the custody of our sister museum, the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, located at Pier 86 in Manhattan. Shown here on the carrier’s flight deck, No. 7 sits proudly in New York Harbor as a testament to the skills and determination of Grumman Aerospace in the continuing effort to improve the F-14 Tomcat. |
|
|
|||
|
|
photo courtesy of Torsten Anft |
||||
