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thedrifter
03-11-06, 08:12 AM
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Navy jet was 'pilot's joy' Aging F-14 Tomcat is being retired; hundreds cheer as they fly into Oceana for the last time
BY BILL GEROUX
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Saturday, March 11, 2006

VIRGINIA BEACH The F-14 Tomcat, the sleek Navy fighter jet Tom Cruise introduced to the general public in "Top Gun," flew home from combat yesterday for the last time.

The Navy's last 22 remaining Tomcats, evenly divided into two squadrons, thundered into Oceana Naval Air Station as part of the returning battle group of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. The Roosevelt's six-month deployment was the last for the aging Tomcats, which are being replaced by new F/A-18 Super Hornets.

"The Tomcat is part of who I am," said Cmdr. Rick LaBranche, commanding officer of Tomcat squadron VF-31, after climbing out of his cockpit onto the tarmac. "When you think of naval aviation, you think of the Tomcat. I'm extremely sorry to see it go, but I think this is necessary."

The Tomcats arrived in a giant wedge formation to cheers from hundreds of spectators. Former F-14 pilots in the crowd spoke fondly of the Tomcat's blazing maximum speed -- which the Navy says is classified but the nonprofit Tomcat Association says is 1,544 mph -- and what a kick it was to fly.

"It's a blue-collar, seat-of-the-pants kind of airplane, a pilot's joy," said Lt. Steve Djunaedi. "And it's a sweet-looking plane."

But aircraft mechanics in attendance agreed the 36-year-old Tomcat had become a constant challenge to keep in the air. Chief Petty Officer Blane Fike, an aviation electronics technician for VF-31, said Tomcats in recent years have required an average of 50 to 60 maintenance hours for every hour in flight. The ratio for the new Super Hornets is about 10-to-1.

The Tomcats, built by Grumman Aerospace Corp., entered the sea service toward the end of the Vietnam War, gradually phasing out the F-4 Phantom.

Tomcats were designed primarily for aerial dogfights with America's Cold War adversaries, and during the 1980s Tomcat pilots shot down several Libyan jets. The 1986 movie "Top Gun," starring Cruise as a reckless Tomcat pilot, is very loosely based on such encounters.

But by the 1990s few opponents were willing to engage U.S. jets in dogfights, and the Navy retrofitted the Tomcats with a laser targeting system and other improvements to expand their air-to-ground strike capabilities and prolong their service.

Carrier-based Tomcats helped to drive Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991; to suppress Serbian forces in Kosovo in 1999; to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001; and to topple Saddam in 2003.

In the past six months, Tomcats from squadrons VF-31 and VF-213 flew off the Norfolk-based Roosevelt in the Arabian Gulf to provide air support to coalition forces against the insurgents in Iraq.

One Tomcat pilot, Lt. Blake Coleman, said planes in the squadron typically flew six-hour missions, patrolling the skies over Baghdad and Mosul. They would scour the desert for suspicious vehicles or people, he said, and would fire missiles or drop bombs on targets pinpointed by ground forces.

LaBranche, the VF-31 commanding officer, said the Tomcats were still adding new gizmos on their last deployment, including a system that allowed aviators to share their aerial views of the battlefield with commanders of ground forces.

But the Tomcats' time was up. A Navy spokesman, Mike Maus, said fliers in VF-213 would transfer almost immediately into new Super Hornets, which are slower and heavier than Tomcats but contain far more efficient avionics systems, can carry more ordnance, and have a longer range.

VF-31 will keep flying Tomcats at home through September, staying ready in case of an emergency callback, before switching to Super Hornets.

Some of the Tomcats will go into mothballs at the military aircraft "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, Maus said. Others will be donated to museums; some will be destroyed.

"No time for tears," read a sign at the Tomcat hangar yesterday, "Tomcats have rocked for 36 years."

The Tomcats' final homecoming was part of a larger three-day homecoming of roughly 7,500 sailors and Marines from the Roosevelt battle group to Hampton Roads. The crowd at Oceana was mostly family members. Several said they appreciated the significance of the Tomcats' last deployment but were mostly excited about being reunited with their loved ones.

A veteran Tomcat pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Chris Richard, said the end of the Tomcat era "is obviously bittersweet. But I'm very, very happy to be back home with my family."


Contact staff writer Bill Geroux at wgeroux@timesdispatch.com or (757) 625-1358.

Ellie