Grumman F-14 Tomcat: Bye - Bye Baby...!: Images & Reminiscences From 35 Years of Active Service Paperback – July 17, 2011

I had to get this book - just finished reading F-15 engaged and had to see if there was a F-14 pilot's view of air-air combat against the Eagle. Short answer, no. But the photo's here are truly magnificent. To see this cat dirty, worn, faded--not some polished museum piece (which it is unfortunately now) is awe inspiring. The photos and stories make this book a must have.This book is an excellent, highly emotional farewell to the F-14 Tomcat (aka "Turkey") told from the perspective of the `maintainers' the RIO's (Guy in Back) and of course the pilots. These stories are emotional, a witness to the camaraderie of theTomcat community. Humor, brushes with death, the thrill and fear of trying to land on a carrier at night are well told. I would have loved chapters and chapters more.Of particular interest to me were the views of pilots who flew the F-8 Crusaders and F-4 Phantoms before switching over to the F-14. All agree the early models were under powered, there were problems with reliability and parts, but once the kinks worked out, a versatile, awkwardly beautiful and capable plane emerged.For technical information & history of the Tomcat, look elsewhere. For the heart & soul of this machine (yeah - they do have them) this is an excellent choice. Highly recommended addition for your collection.

Though the book I purchased is used. The Book is in great condition. This is a must have book for all you F-14 TOMCAT lovers. The pictures are superb. You'll love it.

This is a tremedous piece of work on what was probably the Navy's most iconic aircraft of the post-Vietnam period. Parsons and Hall found an incredible array of pictures from a variety of names that anyone who follows carrier aircraft will recognize- Lawson, Twomey, Heatley, Potts and Carlson, just to name a few. They matched the photography with comments and insights from the aviators that flew the type through the Tomcat's long and distinguished history. What you read includes the high points as well as the warts and a lot of "insider info" you won't find anywhere else. This isn't a nuts-and-bolts, detail freak kind of book- but will certainly, in the long run, remain one of the best efforts on the type produced.Rick

Reading this book will make you cry at the Pentagon Politics that cost the Navy Grummans magnificent Tomcat! Said to be too expensive to keep operating, the Pentagon was afraid of losing new toys F22 and F35 aircraft. The Cats replacment of the F18 Hornet was a pitiful choice. In fact, the Hornet hasn't got enough legs to run down the street to CircleK to get a gallon of milk without stopping for gas on the way.They are now stuck with F18 Hornets that just can't do the job of the aircraft they replaced. Thank Dick Cheney for the too expensive to produce F22s. And the F35 is a piece of junk that cannot even meet its own criteria for operations unless the standards are dumbed down! I had to put the book down as it kept making me so sad at the demise of the aircraft that could do it all better than anything else, even when matched against todays supposedly superior aircraft. Truly, as the retirement patch said, Hornets by mandate, Tomcats by choice. And these pilots in the book show exactly why.

I loved this book the pictures are just breath taking and the stories go from simply hilarious to scary and bone chilling,every good thing that everyone has said about it is true. It is a magnificent Tribute for the Tomcat. I only find 2 things hard for the newbie/non-military educated out there that makes me not to give it 5 stars. First the pictures have difficult captions to read, you have to tilt your head or the book to read them and they don't explain that much what is happening on the picture, the year it was taken or what squadron is shown. Second I have read for my young age of 21 a lot of military aviation books and magazines but if you don't know a lot of the naval aviation terminologies it will be challenging for some (it kinda got challenging to understand some terms and stuff), it should have included a glossary with the terms more explained. Nonetheless is an AWESOME!!! Book if you love the Tomcat you HAVE to have this book.

Ive always believed cops and fighter pilots shared something in common. You dont know how it feels unless you've felt that trickle of sweat running down your back during a high speed pursuit or chasing boogies over foreign skies, the chase is the name of the game.From running up stairs in the projects to flying at night with ghosts you never know whats going to happen. This book is beautiful to flip through or read the raw, undiluted tales from the pilots themselves. One pilot said " he waited till his knees stopped shaking before he got of the plane after a hop". Ive waited too. Its nice to hear that.

This book is fantastic! I loved reading the RIO and pilot comments, the plane captain impressions, and the photography is tremendous. So much of it was stuff I hadn't seen before, and I thought I had seen everything. This jet is why I got my pilot's certificate. Granted, I'm just a VFR guy, but this was what I wanted to fly since about 1978.

This book is exactly what it says, images and reminiscences about the F-14 Tomcat. There are the sort of stories that I imagine pilots tell each other about their experiences. There are lots of dramatic pictures, and a few first-person anecdotes about flying or fixing the Tomcat, along with some short comments about it by the men and women who flew it.

This book is full of pictures and histories of pilots who flew this Grumman marvel. Recommended or all who love this plane.

È un buon libro di fotografie ma più che dettagli tecnici ci sono le storie personali dei piloti. Sarebbe stata interessante una edizione italiana. Sicuramente un buon libro per quel prezzo.

Like so many other kids, I fell in love with the Tomcat after watching Top Gun. The F-14 was truly an amazing plane. With its big swing wings, it could present different shapes and attitudes. Beyond that, it landed on a carrier (that's always cool), carried the biggest radar going, and had fire-and-forget Pheonix missiles with a range of over 100km. Truly, it was a cool jet. It didn't see a lot of service in the hands of the US Navy, but ironically, the Iranians used it to good effect against the Iraqi's in the 80s. Which is perhaps my only complaint about this book. There are no comments from any Iranian pilots, past or present, included in this book.What is included are comments, quotes, and stories from former Tomcat pilots, RIOs, and maintenance personnel. The comments are arranged in chapters that cover a rough topic, such as the introduction of the jet, flying it in ACM, turning it into a bomber, disasters, night landings, pilot nicknames, and more. The quotes range from exciting, to insightful, to wistful, to funny. All in all, there's a good range. None of the quotes are longer than about half a page, so you shouldn't expect any long or detailed information from this book. Just some interesting reminiscences to go along with the pictures.And the pictures are fabulous. Taken by three of the best aerial photographers in the world, there's pictures of As, Bs, and Ds, on and off the boat, wings swept, wings out, different loads, different settings, etc. They really are very nice pictures and certainly match the quality of any other Tomcat pictures I've seen out there. So if you're a fan of the F-14, this is a great book for you. Otherwise, it's a little specialized for just a general aviation audience. I still like the big 'Cat, so I'm giving this book five stars.

I've been fascinated by military aviation since a young age and have numerous books on the subject. This fantastic tribute to the F-14 is one of my favourites. It's difficult to say what makes certain aircraft stand out from the crowd but some, the Spitfire and Concorde spring to mind, seize the imagination and become icons. The Tomcat is no different and had a legion of admirers even before it found wider fame as the star of the movie Top Gun.This book was published to mark the Tomcat's retirement from service with the US Navy, although in one of aviation's great ironies it continues in service with the Iranian Air Force. The stunning photography within the book is its greatest selling point but I also thoroughly enjoyed reading the stories and reminiscences which can be found throughout. Some of these are anonymous but others come from some of the real legends of the Tomcat community like Monroe Smith and Joe Satrapa. These have been very well edited in such a way that they tell, anecdotally, the story of the Tomcat's service career from its troubled entry to service in the early 1970's, to the F-14A's years as a fleet defence fighter, the introduction of the more powerful B and D versions of the aircraft and its eventual use as a long range strike fighter. All of these stories are informative, some are quite poignant, many are very funny.However, what makes this book really special is the photography. Some of the best in the business such as Tom Twomey, C J Heatley and the late George Hall (amongst others) have contributed images showing the Tomcat in the air, on the ground and on aircraft carrier decks. They put you in the cockpit or give you the sense of raw power as a Tomcat sits in zone five afterburner waiting to be unleashed from the steam catapult. The sheer quality of the images, many of which I had never seen before, have taken me back to this book time and time again, noticing something new each time. I really can't recommend this book highly enough. If you're a fan of the Tomcat, aerial photography or military aviation in general then this deserves a place on your bookshelf.

Ein Buch als Goldgrube für jeden F- 14 Tomcatfan und alle an Luft- und Raumfahrt interessierten.Alle F-14 Versionen wie F-14 A , F- 14 B (A +)sowie die F-14 D Super Tomcat werden gezeigt.Der Unterschied zwischen der F-14 A und der F-14 B Tomcat ist der: stärkere Triebwerke und die Möglichkeit erstmals Luft - Bodewaffen( Ungelenkte Bomben und Raketen, sowie Lenkwaffen wie die Lasergelenkte AGM-65 Maverick-Missile einzusetzen ),da ja die F-14 Tomcat ein Abfangjäger war mit 6 AIM-154 Phoenix -Missile ( Reichweite pro Phoenixrakete 400 Km, radargesteuert fire-and forget,4 Mach im Luftkampf.Als Mittelstreckenrakete wurde die AIM-7 Sparrow eingesetzt, die den Nachteil hatte das das Ziel mit dem Bordradar "beleuchtet" bis zum Einschlag werden musste.Die AIM-7 Sparrow hatte eine Reichweite bis 95 Km.Im Nahbereich im Luftkampf kam die AIM-9M/L Sidewinder mit Infrarotwärmesuchkopf mit einer Reichweite von 10 Km und / oder die Bordkanone zum Einsatz.Alle F-14 Versionen ( F-14 A/B(A+),D waren von der Größe und Spannweite alle gleich, nur die F-14 D Super Tomcats die Anfang der Neunziger Jahre (1991-1992) gebaut wurden,hatten ein Sichtsystem (doppelt) unter der Radarnase und ein noch stärkeres Treibwerk.Die ersten F-14 Tomcats flogen bereits zum Ende das Vietnamkrieges,am Anfang der 80er Jahre kamen die F-14 B die nicht alle bisherigen F-14 A - Staffeln ersetzen konnten, und so wurden etliche ältereF-14 Tomcats auf F-14 B - Standart als F-14 A+ umgerüstet.Später kamen die F-14 Super Tomcat wie schon erwähnt in den 90'er Jahren,es wurden leider nur 31 Stück gebaut bei Grumman Aircraft and Space Corp. in New York,später heisst die Firma Northrop - Grumman, da viele U.S.Rüstungskonzerne ende der 90'er Jahre zusammengehen mussten wie Rockwell-Collins, Lockheed-Martin.Einige anderere Konzerne hatten nicht soviel Glück wie McDonnellDouglas oderHoward Hughes die an der Börse kaputt gemacht wurden und fast pleite vonBoeing geschluckt wurden.Weitere von der U.S.Navy geplante F-14 D wurden vom U.S.Präsident Bill Clinton zugunsten der F-18 C/D Hornet gestrichen.Der gleiche Präsident hatte später (1996) alle Superaufklärer der U.S.Air Force, die SR-71 Blackbird außerdienst gestellt, das U.S. Militär war damals sauer, genau wie bis heute! Dann wurden die die Boeing F-18 E/F Super Hornets in dienst gestellt die die F-14 Tomcatstaffeln nun langsam ersetzten.Im Jahre 2004 wurden alle Longrange AIM-154-Phoenixraketen außerdienstgestellt, später ende des Jahres 2006 war die letzte F-14 außerdienstgetellt und alle F-14 Versionen werden bei AMARC verschrottet um zuverhindern ( Anordnung vom U.S.Präsident Bush jr.) das keine Teile den Iran erreichen.Das ist das traurige Ende der im bestensinne legendären F-14 Tomcat, die viele Rekorde bis heute hält : 1.)Flottenluftschutz,2.)Unterstützung der Bodentruppen und U.S.Spezialeinheiten auf der ganzen Welt mit z.B.Panzerabwehrraketen.3.)Konnte die F-14 ( Alle Versionen ) genau wie die F-15 Eagle 2 ASAT-Missiles tragen und abschießen gegen feindliche Satelliten im Weltraum, im Erdnahen Orbit wohlgemerkt.Diese Superlativen/Fähigkeiten können die BoeingF-18 E/F Hornet nicht erreichen oder toppen , trotz Stealtheigenschaft.Ich werde die F-14 Tomcat vermissen,hier zum Abschluß alle Mottos allerF-14 Tomcat-Versionen :F-14 A Tomcat:"Anytime Baby !" F-14 B Tomcat:"No Escort Required!"F-14 D Tomcat:"Go Ahead Make My Day!"