【Military sub-plane】 Author: E=mc²
I believe that Tom Cruise fans will not be unfamiliar with the F-14 "Tomcat" fighter, in the movie "Top Gun", AtangGe is flying this fighter jet to make a big splash, and the plane and Atangge have left a deep impression on fans. In reality, the F-14's handsome appearance and powerful performance attracted a large number of fans, but just when it was in its "prime", it suddenly retired, which amazed countless fans. Today, let's take a look at the secret of this "tomcat".
The F-14 Tomcat Fighter is a supersonic air superiority and long-range interceptor carrier-based fighter used by the U.S. Navy. Twin engines, variable swept wings and twin tails, and two-seat configurations were contracted by Grumman to develop and manufacture them, specializing in fleet defense tasks centered on aircraft carriers.
In 1956, a TU-16 bomber with an AS-1 missile appeared over the western Barents Sea. TU-16 can launch a range of up to 100 kmAS-1 missiles at a speed of 700 km / h, and at this time the configuration of the US Navy aircraft carrier is still F-4 and AIM-7, the AIM-7 range at that time is only 10 km, can not be intercepted at all, the US military was threatened, asked to develop a carrier-based fighter that can launch long-range air-to-air missiles, the original idea was F-111 carrier-based F-111B and AIM-54 such a combination, but the F-111B weighed 35 tons - As a carrier-based aircraft, the U.S. military had to step down from the project, and later, the successor of the F-111B, the 303E program, stood out and was selected by the U.S. Navy as the F-14.
The 303E program inherits the F-111B's variable swept wings, Hughes' AWG-9 fire control radar, the AIM-54 Undead Bird, and Pratt & Whitney's TF-30-P-412 engine. Grumman's engineers believe that the variable swept wing is very suitable for carrier-based fighters, with a large swept angle when flying at high speed, small resistance, and good acceleration; small swept angle at low speed, a large wing spread chord ratio, and safe take-off and landing of the aircraft carrier.
In January 1969, at the request of the Navy, the 303E program was improved including nozzles, engine pod position, fuselage length, wing area, and aspect ratio, the biggest of which was the transformation of the original single vertical tail into a double vertical tail design in March 1969. At this point, the handsome "tomcat" that many military fans fell for was finalized.
In 1972, the production F-14A rolled off the production line, in 1974 it was equipped with troops, and was deployed to the CVN-65 enterprise aircraft carrier.
The F-14A's nose tilted slightly downwards to facilitate aerodynamics and the pilot's field of view, while the bubble-type cockpit used increased the windward area; the flight cockpit was arranged in a longitudinal column, with the pilot in front and the Radar Intercept Officer-RIO in the rear. The back of the machine is tilted backwards at a small angle and then merged parallel to the main body. The fuselage adopts air intake on both sides of the fuselage, and adopts the miter-cut rectangular air intakes that were popular at that time. The unique wing sleeve and swept-back wings, combined with full-motion horizontal tail and double-hanging tail, give the F-14A its shape. According to the theory of the bureau seat: high appearance = strong combat strength, then what about the air combat ability of a male cat with such a high appearance.
The F-14's wing swept back angle can be varied from 20° to 68°, with a maximum change speed of 7° per second, automatically controlled by the Flight Computer (Central Air Data Computer ( CADC), the wings can achieve the best lift-to-drag ratio at any altitude and speed, making the F-14 have amazing high speed and steering capabilities.
The F-14's rear fuselage is flat and the longitudinal direction is a wing-like lift profile, so that the rear fuselage can also produce partial lift. In addition, two ventral fins are also provided under the engine nacelle. The F-14's dual vertical tails are slightly tilted outwards, improving directional stability at high angles of attack and reducing the effects of fuselage turbulence.
Such a beautiful aerodynamic shape necessarily requires a strong heart.
▲TF-30
The F-14A's prototype, the XF-14A, used two Pratt & Whitney TF-30-P-412 engines, and its prototype was the JTF-10A for the civilian market, which proved to be not a good option.
Due to the large engine compartment spacing of the F-14, it is particularly dangerous at high angles of attack, because they are prone to asymmetrical thrust, which makes it very difficult for the F-14 to enter an uncontrollable tail rotor and change out.
Due to many problems with the original engine, the Department of Defense began purchasing GM's F110-GE-400 engine and installing it on the F-14A+ (later renamed F-14B in 1991). These engines solve reliability problems, providing nearly 30% more thrust. Subsequent F-14Ds and reproduced F-14As also used F110-GE-400 engines.
The United States once had the F-14 and the F-15 confrontation, the result of which was that the F-15 was hit to the point of suspecting that the "plane" was born, and the Navy's tomcats beat the Air Force's eagles into the sky, basically in the low-altitude and low-speed areas - high altitude is the world of the F-15. A pilot who has flown the F-14 before said that at an altitude of 6,096 meters, the performance of the F-14 is clearly not in line with its large size. Thanks to Hollywood, the F-14's handsome posture during dog fights is admired by the world, but in the simulated confrontation, the "shooting down" of the F-15 is more of a combination of AWG-9 and AIM-54.
・F110-GE-400
At the heart of the F-14 weapon system is the AN/AWG-9 pulse Doppler radar produced by Hughes, and the rest of the airborne equipment includes advanced modern electronics such as the AN/AWG-15 fire control system, the AN/ASW-27B data transmission system, and the CP-1050/A central atmospheric data computer. On the F-14D, about 60 percent of the analog equipment was replaced with digital, and a new AN/APG-71 radar was installed, which has single pulse angle tracking, digital scan control, target recognition, and air combat effect evaluation capabilities.
▲AWG-9
▲AWG-9 display
AWG-9 fire control radar has a maximum power of 10kW, the operation is based on the X-band, built-in friend or foe identification function, using a planar array radar antenna antenna to scan the angle of 65 degrees on each side, each complete scan needs to be scanned 8 times from top to bottom from left to right, a total of 13 seconds. Target targets 120-140 km against fighters. It can simultaneously track 24 targets within 90 km and simultaneously guide aimed at 6 of them by guiding aim-54 Undead Bird long-range air-to-air missiles. When used, the radar officer operates the AWG-9 to switch back and forth between pulse (low pulse repetition rate) mode and pulse Doppler (high pulse repetition rate) mode to avoid radar limitations.
▲AIM-54
The AIM-54 "Undead Bird" air-to-air missile (AIM-54 Phoenix) is the world's first active radar-guided air-to-air missile, which can also use semi-active radar guidance in addition to active radar guidance. Using a close-in fuze and a high-explosive fragment warhead, the warhead has a killing radius of 15.2m. The AIM-54 is calibrated by the AWG-9 radar in Track While Scan mode before launch, and after launch, the missile will fly to an altitude of 24,240 meters to advance in the most energy-saving flight path. During the flight, the F-14 continuously scans the target in simultaneous tracking mode, and the missile itself flies under inertial guidance and receives new information about the target in a semi-active radar-guided mode. When about 23 kilometers away from the target, the DSQ-26 radar at the nose of the missile begins to search and lock on to the captured target and attack.
As a former "cat party", I was fascinated by this combination at the time. Presumably that's one of the reasons most people love the F-14 — except for the handsome fuselage. This combination is a myth, but it is also a myth - except in the confrontation with the F-15, the F-14 has never shot down any enemy aircraft with the AIM-54! The widely praised "1 minute battle" is a battle solved by AIM-9, one of the most exciting battles is the Tomcat against the two MiG-23s in Libya, let the other side launch missiles first, from dodging missiles to counterattacking and shooting down these two MiG-21 actions in one go, just ten seconds of victory and defeat have been divided. cattle!
In the ensuing battles, the F-14 mostly served as an escort, sometimes even reconnaissance, and did not have a chance to verify whether it was really as it was preached. The pandas were depressed until they retired.
The retirement of the Tomcat makes many people unable to understand how the strong air combat ability and excellent aerodynamic shape lost to the F-18. That year, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the United States had new requirements for carrier-based aircraft, no longer focusing on how strong the air combat capability was, but instead wanting to be multi-purpose; coupled with the F-14's long maintenance time due to its complex airframe structure, it was undoubtedly worse for the F-14, which was in urgent need of improvement. In this way, the F-14 became an eternal legend. Perhaps it is because of this regret that the F-14 has such a high popularity.
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