Most minds, at least, of the lot would immediately turn to Top Gun film franchises when anyone mentions the F-14 Tomcat and the F/A-18 Super Hornet.
It is the case that the first Top Gun introduced its audience to the F-14; whereas its sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, was all about the F/A-18 Super Hornet.
This, of course-not just cinema history, but also a reflection of the dynamics in the changing U.S. Navy aviation.
The F-14 Tomcat, with its curved wings and two-seat cockpit, exemplified a wonderpiece of its day. Reaching Mach 2.34 with power to spare and speed to burn, however, it was not without its quirks.
Among the aircraft’s more infamous flaws were reliability and a propensity for flat spins: exactly what the original Top Gun does a poignant job of depicting when “Goose” tragically ejects into the canopy.
Today, the Navy’s workhorse is the F/A-18 Super Hornet with its fixed wings and advanced avionics. The F/A-18 is easier for carriers to land and more reliable than the F-14, which is excellent in close-quarters dogfighting.
Tom “Trots” Trotter, who was a pilot qualified in both aircraft, commented that though the F-14 was “amazingly fast,” the reliability and ease of handling of the F/A-18 made it superior in many ways.
All of its storied attributes, but perhaps where it excelled was pure speed. Here’s how Trotter recounts the experience of getting from 150 knots to 610 in less than ten seconds.
Yet, for all the speed, F-14; reliability often made its performance secondary; contrast that with the F/A-18, so reliable that the Navy says it doesn’t have to maintain a spare.
Talking dogfighting, though, is a subject where Trotter thinks the F-14 could give the F/A-18 a run for its money, but in tight, slow engagements, the F/A-18 was better.
Such agility as this makes the F/A-18 one hell of an opponent in modern aerial combat.
Then there are its dramatic appearances in media, which make this legacy richer. Recently, an old 2006 video surfaced on Twitter in which an F-14D does a high-speed pass to overtake another Tomcat; it is part of the final cruise video by Navy Fighter Squadron 31 (VF-31) and captures the raw power and the elegance of the F-14 in its final days of operation.
On 22 September 2006, the F-14 Tomcat officially ended its U.S. Navy service with a “sundown ceremony” at Naval Air Station Oceana. BuNo 164603, the same aircraft in the viral video clip, made the final flight of an F-14 in U.S. Navy service.
That jet today sits outside the Northrop Grumman plant in Bethpage, New York, as a testament to its storied history.
While there remains the cult following of the F-14, the F/A-18 is still the mainstay of the aviation serviceman in the USN. They are two planes that symbolize generations of technological improvements and strategic capabilities.