Warbird Information Exchange

Why is it that the US congress and government cant see beyond the retirement of the F14 and not destroy the remaining aircrafts stored safely...

I hate to inform the US congress - been a aussie ya know an all - but the Iranian AF nowdays modifies and even makes it OWN aircraft and helos.. and using logic like that....derrr.. that means they can make their own parts and avionics. So destroying the AMARC F-14 serves what purposes if Iran cant get parts anyway for their F-14...

They get russia and others to supply parts nowdays.. and Israel...


So if iran can do that years ago and still do it nowdays HOW in the hell will cutting up F14 in a supposely secure AMARC? --- right it is secure? it isnt? cmon decide... --- and be of any use if iran cant get hold of the spare parts anyway?

Iran gona send people to AMARC to buy whole complete F14 with receipts just in case they want a refund?


Iran has the ability to build ANYTHING but obviously everyone in US government has not noticed... like those missing WMD in Iraq... they need to really pay attention to what a country does..

F14 should be preserved and ( one sent down to the main oz navy aircraft museum as it was promised 10years ago but still aint here) displayed...

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Fighters pilots are born to make movies , bomber pilots make HISTORY, cargo crews haul their material and fame.

It's a knee-jerk reaction. Some politician getting his name in the news.

Shay
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Semper Fortis

actually it's a federal law. I can't remember what it is, or even what it says, but they're destroyed primarilly for safety's sake, same as all the old jeeps they quartered in the 80's and 90's. Stupid, but...

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

I was watching the History Channel last night and this show called Boneyard came on about the Anniston Army Depot.

Rant on...

A lot of good things are going on there, repairing all sorts of military equipment but then they showed the destruction or the "unusable and unrepairable" weapons... Mad

The were taking what looked like very nice M-16 A1's and putting them in the shredder...whole...then the parts like sights and triggers that made it through the shredder were taken and put to the cutting torch..."to make sure that no recognizable parts survived" GRRR...why can't we get them to understand there is a market for the rifles and or their parts? I think I understand the lower receivers are considered machine guns but what about all the other parts? heck just like the M-14 discussions why can't someone like the CMP modify the receivers and get rid of the selective fire trigger group and make some needed cash....

Call me a Luddite but it would make cents to me....but then again the US Gubment is not about making sense...the F-14 are in the same boat.

Rant off...Z

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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Actually the law says that they aren't supposed to shred everything willy nilly. If there is a civilian counterpart out in the real world then the item is not supposed to be subject to demil.

As for the rifles, the BATF in their all knowing wisdom says "once a machine gun always a machine gun", irregardless of modifications that take that ability away from the weapon. Many serviceable M-14s as well as other fine nonautomatic surplus rifles were fed to Capt. Krunch during the Clinton years and apparently the process is alive and well just on a smaller scale.

Can we not get on the subject of M16's? And the SAW. I fired both, and hated both. The damned M16 takes at least two rounds to put someone down, unless you get lucky. And I have had several SAW's litterally rattle apart on me while I was firing them. Utter crap when it first came out-I am glad they are phasing them out (partly due to the reasons I mentioned) And I hope every damned one gets shredded. With extreme prejudice. And then they jump up and down on them. And then they bury them in a dark place where no one will ever think to look. Except for the single copy of each which is used to instruct weapons designers on why we should never never never have gone to 5.56. More ammo my flaming ass. The rounds flip my ass. So waht when one round still won't drop a guy? My sig is there for a reason!

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

i find it hard to believe israel supplies parts to a country that has sworn to wipe it off the map. i'd like tosee some evidence.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I can understand retiring the Tomcat to a degree, but what I find hard to swallow is the retirement of the F-117. Seems way premature to me. I certainly hope they will be kept in return-to-flight condition.

Hard to believe that the F-117A first flew in the early 80's. Some of the protypes flew even earlier than that!

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

They don't even go supersonic!

The F-22 & F-35 will retire the rest

Phil

Makes you wonder if the Iranian F-14s are so feared, why did we retired ours?

I find it hard to believe that even if the Iranian's got them flying again that they would pose a significant threat, these planes are close to 30 years old...and they've had no updates. The ones that actually could still fly after the Iranian revolution were used during the Iran/Iraq war.

Why would the Iranians go through all that trouble to get the F-14s back in the air when they can get factory-fresh Mig-29s with a lot less fuss?

Neither does the A-10, and it's not even LO

Sounds like a load of kettles...


Well, as the NMUSNA has at least a couple on show at Pensacola, who else has (in government eyes) a legitimate reason to have one? Smithsonian?

No Government likes the idea of private individuals operating warplanes. Why should they? We should just stay home, pay tax and do what we are told.


Interesting. Can you provide a source for that statement? As the museum in question's only just returned to being a Naval Aviation museum after a period trying to be a general aviation museum, there was a lack of specific justification for a good while there.

Cheers,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

While at the Geneseo Airshow this past weekend, I had the privledge of talking at length to Dale 'Snort' Snodgrass. One of the things I asked him about was the rumored 'civilian' F-14 for the airshow circuit. He told me that the plan was in the advanced stages and involved bringing about 12 F-14's from AMARC to St Augustine FL (Northrop-Grumman facility). 4 would be kept airworthy while the rest would be placed in ready reserve for the project as well as the Navy should the need arise. I believe he did say that they would have remained Navy property.

The airworthy Tomcats would have been used for contract work and airshow performances. They had a major corporate sponsor on board as well. It got up to the top Navy Brass where it was rejected after some consideration. The thought of seeing the F-14 in the hands of 'Snort' again...or in legacy flights... ....what might have been?

Have a look at Dale's latest project on his website:
http://www.americantopguns.com/

He will be hosting a reality series that will take MS Flight Sim gamer's and see if they can handle the real thing. Dale says the plan is to start them out in Extra 300's then move up to L-39's where they will square off. The winner will be going to Russia to fly in a front line Mig or Sukoi!

(For those who don't know who Dale is, his Bio is posted on the website. For starters he's the highest time F-14 pilot out there.)

Pete

I hate to be the one to say it, but do we really need that many F-14's ready for combat?

I say shred them all, they cost to much to maintain and they are too old.

The SuperHornet can do the job just fine. And besides, do we really think that we are into having another global conflict?

It is going to be man to man, terrorist activities that will re-define how wars are fought.

Yes, we have better planes then these old girls, and they will continue to get better well into the future.

Save a few for display, shred the rest and move on, just like history.