The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is a twinjet fighter aircraft that was developed by Grumman on 21 December 1970 in a test flight and introduced on 22 September 1974 to the US Navy. It became the primary air superiority fighter of the US Navy during the 1970s and 1980s and one of the standard planes at the Top Gun academy. It was later replaced by the F/A-18 Hornet in the United States, but it remained the main fighter of the IRIAF of Iran.
History[]
The Grumman F-14 Tomcat was a supersonic twinjet that was first tested in flight on 21 December 1970, and on 22 September 1974 it was introduced to the US Navy. It became the Navy's predominant air superiority fighter, and was introduced to the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of the Kingdom of Iran as a part of the alliance between the United States and Iran. Many Tomcats remained in service in Iran even after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and were used against Iraq and the USA. The US Navy made the F-14 one of their major planes used at the Top Gun academy in Miramar, California, and it was used excessively in the 1970s and 1980s. F-14 Tomcats fought in clashes with enemies over the Indian Ocean in 1986, including an encounter with a squadron of North Korean pilots and in a series of May 1986 engagements with the rogue Soviet fleet of Admiral Dimitri Devonovich. The F-14 Tomcat also clashed with the IRIAF of Iran and other enemies, and was a highly-maneuverable plane. However, it was eventually replaced by the F/A-18 Hornet in the US Navy, and by 2014 Iran was the only country employing the plane in its services.