Not long ago, we explored the reasons the legendary F-14 Tomcat found itself sent out to pasture decades before its fighter classmates from the 1970s, but there’s more to the tale of Grumman’s incredible fighter and its efforts to find a place in a post-Cold War fleet. In the early 1990’s, Grumman proposed a new iteration of the famed Top Gun fighter that was not only modern enough to still be in service today, it would have marked a vast improvement in performance and capability over even Maverick’s highly capable F-14D.
While the F-14D took on the title “Super Tomcat,” this effort to modernize the F-14 began under the moniker “ST21,” which, appropriately enough, stood for “Super Tomcat for the 21st Century,” and make no mistake — that’s exactly what it could have been.
Related: Why did the F-14 Tomcat retire decades before its peers?
The Navy needed a fighter with attack capabilities
In 1988, a joint team from McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics was awarded a development contract for what was to become the A-12 Avenger II, not to be confused with Lockheed’s proposed A-12 of the 1960s, which sought to arm an SR-71 sibling jet with air-to-air weapon systems. Once completed, the Navy’s A-12 would have been a flying wing-design reminiscent of Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Spirit or forthcoming B-21 Raider, though much smaller and more triangular; earning it the nickname “Flying Dorito.”
Once completed, the A-12 would have actually been the world’s first true stealth fighter, thanks to the inclusion of onboard radar and the ability to leverage AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles — but by 1991, the Flying Dorito was shot down by its own massive budget overruns and technical delays. You can read more about that in our full feature on the A-12 program here, but suffice to say, its cancelation left the Navy with a strike capability gap it needed to fill, especially with the A-6 Intruder’s retirement looming on the horizon.
The Tomcat had been designed from the very onset with air-to-air combat as a primary focus, with an emphasis placed on covering a great deal of ground very quickly while carrying a heavy payload of advanced AIM-54 Phoenix missiles to intercept approaching Soviet bombers. Grumman, recognizing the Navy’s need for an aircraft capable of filling the attack role, proposed a fairly inexpensive facelift for the Navy’s Tomcat fleet dubbed the F-14 Quick Strike. The Quick Strike upgrade would incorporate an infrared navigation and targeting pod similar to the LANTIRN system that found its way into the F-15E and F-16 along with upgrades to the aircraft’s powerful onboard radar for ground-attack modes. The addition of more hardpoints for standoff munitions rounded out the proposal as an economic-seeming solution.
Related: The A-12 Avenger II would’ve been America’s first real ‘stealth fighter’
An F-14 for the 21st Century
Of course, as we’ve discussed at length in the past, economic was never really the Tomcat’s specialty, and the Navy wasn’t particularly interested in expanding the role of its expensive and sometimes problematic F-14 fleets as they stood. To make matters worse for Grumman, McDonnell Douglas was rumored to be hard at work on development of a practically clean-sheet fighter modeled after the Navy’s other carrier-fighter, the F/A-18 Hornet.
McDonnell Douglas’ plan was to present the Navy with a new, more advanced fighter that could fill a broad swath of roles for the Navy, but delivered in a package that looked and sounded like a continuation of the successful Hornet lineage. Not only would that make the aircraft sound proven and reliable, it would be perceived as less expensive than funding development on a new fighter.
Grumman opted to offer an even more heavily upgraded iteration of the F-14 that could come as new aircraft or through remanufacture of existing platforms. The resulting ST21 (Super Tomcat for the 21st Century) and subsequent AST21(Attack Super Tomcat for the 21st Century) were designs that could have catapulted the Tomcat straight into the coming millennium it drew its name from.
Related: What’s actually different about the Block III Super Hornet?
Cramming a new fighter under the Tomcat’s hood
Despite the incredible capabilities offered by the most modern F-14Ds of the day, the Tomcat’s design was already more than twenty years old by the time discussion about the Super Tomcat 21 began. Often, when discussing fighter programs that are trying to stay relevant amid rapid technological progress, a dated design is something engineers are trying to compensate for, but in many ways, the Tomcat’s dated layout created a glutton of opportunity when it came to introducing new technologies to the aircraft.
Leveraging lessons learned from more than a decade and a half of service, the Super Tomcat 21 eliminated the “glove vanes” that were located just outside of each wingroot. These glove vanes were designed to create lift ahead of the aircraft’s center of gravity at supersonic speeds above Mach 1.4, pressing the nose of the aircraft up and unloading the tail planes to allow for greater high-speed maneuverability. However, the systems that controlled these planes were a maintenance nightmare, and they were eventually welded shut on most aircraft.
In place of those problematic glove vanes, the ST21 and AST21 incorporated enlarged aerodynamic gloves that offered massive benefits in terms supersonic handling and dogfighting performance while simultaneously providing room for an additional 2,200 pounds of fuel storage in each wing, granting the aircraft even greater range.
When the F-14 first took to the skies with its incredible AIM-54A Phoenix missile, the fighter had to include rail fairings to house the missile’s oil cooling system, but by the ’90s, the Navy had upgraded to AIM-54B and C iterations of the missile, neither of which required the F-14 to manage oil cooling duties. In place of these systems, the Super Tomcat 21 would house navigation and attack FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared Sensors) in these rail fairings.
Data from those systems would be fed into an entirely glass cockpit with dramatically improved avionics, a wide-angle Heads Up Display (HUD) that could project imagery from the navigational FLIR pod, upgraded APG-71 radar, and entirely new mission computers, making the Tomcat into a dated-looking fighter with the most advanced avionics available at the time.
The AST21 was largely a continuation of the ST21 design, with additional bomb-carrying pylons, a modified radar system with a Forward Air Controller (FAC) mode, an Integrated Defensive Avionics Package (IDAP), and nuclear weapons carrying capabilities.
Related: F-14 Tomcat: Iran’s best fighter jet used to be America’s Top Gun
More power, more speed, and more range
Both Super Tomcat 21 iterations saw the use of upgraded GE-F110-129 turbofan engines, in keeping with the Navy’s ongoing efforts (at the time) to replace the troubled Pratt & Whitney TF30 in their Tomcat fleets. The use of these engines in conjunction with the increased fuel capacity and improved wing aerodynamics resulted in what could have been an astonishingly capable fighter that may have been further bolstered by the inclusion of thrust vectoring nozzles taking their cues from the aircraft’s new flight computer.
The GE-F110-129 was not only a massive improvement over the TF30 still filling the fuselages of some Tomcats into the early 2000s, it was also an improvement over the F110’s the Navy’s best Tomcats employed. With approximately 30,000 pounds of thrust available from each engine under afterburner and a more efficient design, the new Tomcat would have been able to fly further than ever before at higher sustained speeds. In fact, the Super Tomcat 21 would have been able to super-cruise, or fly at supersonic speeds without the use of its afterburner, at a sustained jaw-dropping Mach 1.3.
Thrust vectoring nozzles, if the Navy had opted to include them, would have taken the new fighter’s maneuverability to a positively mind-boggling level when leveraged in conjunction with its automated sweep-wing design. According to some sources, the AST21 would have already been able to sustain 77 degrees of sustained AoA (angle of attack) thanks to the aircraft’s planned aerodynamic improvements, and thrust vector control would have pushed that even further.
With wing position controlled by an on-board computer for maximum benefit, the massive (in comparison) F-14 could already turn tighter than its tiny Air Force sibling, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, under the right circumstances. The addition of thrust-vectoring would not only have improved upon that already-impressive Angle of Attack figure, it likely would have made the Super Tomcat 21 the most acrobatic and maneuverable fighter not just of its era, but likely for decades yet to come.
Thrust vector control effectively aims the outflow of the engine’s thrust independent of the aircraft itself. This can allow the aircraft to literally continue to push forward in the sky while pointing its nose (and weapons) down at an opponent, as well as allowing for rapid maneuvering that seems to defy the laws of physics when shown on video.
Thrust vector control has long been an important element in Russian fighter design based on their emphasis on within-visual-range fights (dogfights), but within America stables, it can only be found on the ranking king of the skies, F-22 Raptor.
But Grumman wasn’t done yet. If the Navy didn’t think the ST21 or the AST21 designs were capable enough, they had one more ace up their sleeve.
Related: F-15 ACTIVE: This Frankenstein fighter was better than the F-15
ASF-14: The ultimate Tomcat
While both the ST21 and AST21 were billed as both re-manufacture programs for existing Tomcats and new-build aircraft, Grumman’s pitch to the Navy eventually included an entirely new-build Tomcat dubbed the ASF-14. The ASF-14 would have looked like its F-14 predecessors, but the similarities would have been largely skin deep.
While the Super Tomcat 21 designs would have increased the Tomcat’s internal fuel storage to 18,500 pounds, the ASF-14 design added thicker wings (much like the Super Hornet versus the Hornet) to further increase fuel capacity. Other improvements over the ST21 and AST21 designs largely revolved around the fact that the ASF-14 would be an entirely new aircraft, so Grumman wouldn’t be stuck working with many of the bulky legacy subsystems that an upgrade/remanufacture program would leave in place as a cost and time-saving measure.
That would mean this new “ultimate” Tomcat’s internals would have been state-of-the-air from nose to tail. Dated and bulky electrical systems would have been replaced with modern modular systems that would not only improve performance and reduce weight, but would have made subsequent improvements cheaper and less time consuming. Perhaps most important to the Tomcat’s ability to survive budget cuts, its troublesome electronic and hydraulic systems that made the aircraft such a maintenance nightmare would have been gutted in favor of modern systems that required less upkeep and weighed substantially less. Even parts of the aircraft that had always worked well would see improvements in materials used, with carbon fiber replacing titanium or aluminum in a number of components.
In fact, even with carrying all that extra fuel, the new ASF-14 Super (Duper?) Tomcat would have weighed in at very close or perhaps even less than the Navy’s existing F-14s thanks to the massive weight savings allowed by the ASF-14 design.
When it first took to the skies, the Tomcat was built to house the massive and incredibly powerful Hughes AWG-9 fire control radar, which remains the largest radar system ever employed by an American fighter. All that real estate would have come in handy for a large active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for air-to-air and air-to-ground operations.
The ASF-14, with some 60,000 pounds of thrust and a better thrust-to-weight ratio than the F-14D, thrust vector control, massive internal fuel stores, huge payload capabilities, and incredible situational awareness provided by powerful onboard radar and a multitude of sensor pods, could have been a 4th generation fighter with few — or maybe no — peers to this very day.
Related: Vought 1600: The plan to put the F-16 on America’s carriers
The Super Tomcat versus the Super Hornet
So if these designs were so good, how did find ourselves here, waxing poetic about how incredible they could have been? Well, like all military acquisitions, the Navy had to balance capability with capacity, mission requirements with budgets, and public perception with military doctrine. The Super Hornet the Navy ultimately chose doesn’t stir the same passion among many aviation fans as the F-14 Tomcat for many of the same reasons it’s proven itself to be such a solid choice for the Navy: It’s a little boring compared to the high drama that comes as part of the F-14’s package.
In a lot of ways, the F-14 was like Rocky of movie fame: a troubled past and a rocky start ultimately produces an American powerhouse that becomes the star of its own movie. Couple that with the F-14D’s genuinely incredible performance and the near-constant threat of nuclear Armageddon and its no wonder we fell in love with this dynamic aircraft.
The Super Hornet, on the other hand, has been characterized as an “80%” solution to the Navy’s litany of problems at the time. It’s not as fast or as powerful as many other fighters and it certainly lacks the range of the F-14, let alone the steroid-injected range of the ASF-14… but it’s reliable, efficient, and battle proven. In fact, America’s only air-to-air kill of the past two decades was scored by a Super Hornet.
It’s tough to argue that the Navy made the wrong call with the Super Hornet, as its reliability and efficiency were both on full display throughout the past two decades of the Global War on Terror. But now, as the the U.S. shifts its focus back toward Great Power Competition, the ASF-14, with it’s insane range, powerful radar, bonkers speed, and spine-crunching agility, looks as appealing as any non-stealth fighter could.
America’s carrier-based fighters are struggling with a lack of range today, something numerous programs are currently working to offset, thanks in large part to the size of China’s area denial bubble created by hypersonic anti-ship missile systems. The Super Tomcat 21 or ASF-14 would lack stealth, just like the Super Hornet, but they could have had the legs they’d need to engage those weapons while keeping America’s carrier’s safely out of range. Today’s F-35Cs and F/A-18s simply don’t.
Of course, aviation technology continues to steam ahead, and even if the ASF-14 had entered service by the end of the 1990s, it would likely still be flying toward an early retirement in favor of the Navy’s F/A-XX fighter being developed in conjunction with the Air Force in the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. With stealth increasingly a requirement for new designs, it seems the years of people saying “they never should have retired the F-14” may soon be coming to an end.
But for now, those of you who have long reveled in that salty declaration can rest easy knowing that the Super Tomcat 21 or ASF-14 could have been some of the greatest fighters the world has ever seen.
If you want to really see what the ASF-14 or the Super Tomcat 21 may have looked like, The Warzone hired an artist to find out, and the pictures are worth a click.
Ah..reminiscing the good old days, loved the article and all the post..I served USN 72-76 NAS Miramar VF-124 I worked on the first west coast f-14. We were a training squadron and trained all those who went sea, also had Iranian pilots come for flight training, not to mention the US MARINES…carry on men your keeping my youth alive thanks…skip wilton..aka ROCK AMH, AMU 2 STRUCTURAL HYDRAULICS .
Thanks for your service Skip! I also served at NAS Miramar in their FRAMP program from 78-80. The F-14 program was top notch! I also sailed a West PAC on an aircraft carrier USS Ranger CV-61 out of North Island from 80-81. Those powerful Tomcats were no joke! I remember once on the open sea one flew pass us pulling crazy G’s, so exciting! The wingspan really helped it get off the deck quick. To experience and maintain the various aircraft and their Naval capabilities was a highlight of my life. Like you said; “the good old days”. AO2 , ORDNANCE SYSTEMS MECHANIC, VF-1 Wolfpack.
PS – To those of you who are not familiar with George Skurla – George was the President of Grumman Aerospace – he replaced Leroy Grumman (the founder) – George also perished but I suggest to those of u interested including the so called author of this article a book titled Iron Works – it will provide u with a lot more on Grumman than what is published on the internet and it’s a great read – again maybe some one will start a new Grumman in honor of George – he was my father’s boss – and I’d rather have have an updated Grumman built Tomcat 21 along with an Updated A-6 intruder that most of the shit out there today including the 35 and the 22 – why cuz Grumman knew how to build quality aircraft at an affordable price – kinda like today’s bag of chips – 2 dollars a bag with fifty cents worth of chips 😀
I’m sorry to say I now just glance at anything Grumman as Grumman is no longer with us and most of the stuff published is inaccurate crap – ask urself why would Boeing of all companies reintroduce the 15 – call and old airframe mind blowing even better than the Raptor yet still have the frame from the 70’s??? Now compare that to the Tomcat 21 or QuickStrike – it’s not in Today’s arsenal nor is Grumman – so Far Mike who commented had it close which is why I don’t read peeps articles they are so dead wrong – Dick hated George Skurla and even my father – why cuz Dick is a Govt Beaucrat and does not know defense aircraft and George and my father do – my dad was a USAF Pilot and mechanic who would later become an Airframe Engineer 4 Grumman – my father recently perished so I try to speak 4 him – I’d rather see you people come together and complain to the Govt as we are now building high cost to u the tax payer (shitty defense aircraft) @ a staggering cost – Grumman did not do that as it was a family run company another reason Dick took it out – they were too good – Signed – the proud son of a Grumman Airframe Engineer (now deceased) Al
Happy Birthday, Marines!
In the mid/late ’70’s Dick Cheney and his financial group tried to buy a controlling interest of Grumman stock. Unfortunately for them Grumman’s major stockholders were its own employee’s. After offering stupid high dollars for the stock they fell short. If I remember correctly I think they got about 30% of the stock. The group then abandoned the effort. Cheney publicly stated ” I will make sure Grumman never gets another major contract again”! And they didn’t. Cheney was DOD chief when the F22 was chosen over the F23 ( Grumman/Northup). Cheney stopped the Navy from further Tomcat purchases. Politics killed Grumman. By 1990 Grumman was basically gone.
Cheney was such a scumbag. Research what he and his evil henchmen did to the Union Pacific Railroad.
Totally agree!
Well done article! I served on USS JFK 1980 to 82. Took the F-14 somewhat for granted at the time but surely miss them now! Still get chills up the ole spine remembering the lo altitude hi speed passes by the Tomcats during the med cruise. Happy veterans day everyone!
I made the 80-81 Med cruse aboard the JFK. I was in VA-72 the Blue Hawks one of the A-7 squadrons. I was a Plane Captain and worked the deck the entire cruise. Dang that brings back memories…..
I served on the USS America CV66 formerly CVA66. I worked in Primary Flight Control/Pri Fly
The F14 Tomcat was by far the most impressive fighter.
I too worked the USS America Pri Fly, and couldn’t agree more, Tomcat was the best.
Good article Alex. You hold the bug and superbug in much higher esteem than I, but I respect that. It’s whut brung us dancin these days.
NAVAIR has a history of issues. You are right on the A-12, and NGAD promises to be no less problematic. It’s just how things are. And, every 3 years or so, with the appointment of a new Acting Secretary of the Navy, we go through cancelling programs midstream and coming up with new whizbang things that are sure to change warfare forever.
My mind boggled trying to sort out the programs started over the past 20 years and what their current status is now.
Stealth. Well, the USAF buys of the F-15EX for standoff and non sneaky rolls is ultimately the proof of what we should have done. Shoulda woulda coulda.
I’m a Tomcat guy. Worked on and supported them for many years. I was the guy (among others) who ran those Wing Flap Glove Vane controllers of which you spoke. The WFGVs were disused from the early 90s on. The box was still in the a/c, so we had a steady supply to fix. It had to pass BITE (Built in Test Equiment) before flight even if unused.
Range. Range. Range. Range.
It cannot be stressed enough. The Carrier’s survival depends on a big ocean in which to hide. With the bugs, and now the F-35s, and, amazingly, the CVF-22 or whatever the designator is, we are forcing the carriers closer and closer to shore and threats. Cutting down on that big ocean. It’s hard to fathom launching a COD from the North Arabian Sea that couldn’t make it to Diego Garcia in one shot. We would buddy tank Tomcats way out there on top of their built in range. Even with MQ-25s…. yeah, that’s not really going to regain that capability.
So, far from a fighter partisan, there are so many reasons that we have and continue to do ourselves a disservice when we focus on whizbang instead of range. Where we knowingly give up CSG protection (no frigate? CGNs?) for, well, I don’t know what. You talk about the DF-21 and it’s a concern. But we don’t help ourselves by pushing the CSG into the littorals.
Ahh…. For what could have been I guess.
It’s my hope and the hope of many others that we will one day be more friendly with Iran and return some of the ‘cats to the US so we can see and hear them again.
The world just doesn’t seem right when they are flying in Iran and not the US.
I’ll say! Why the F-14 was never evolved to protect the current fleets I just don’t understand. It was a dream for fleet commanders to purpose. One of my favourite memories of the F-14 was the near vertical take-offs from Miramar when they were showing off. It was so awesome – probably the pinnacle of air defence at the time. I never saw anything like it, although C-130’s with JATO could do a slower mimic….out of Bien Hoa….Also awesome….but the F-14 later – we will never forget it.
Left out the guy who canceled the Tomcats. Dick Cheney, the GQP always preferred the less competent and radilized USAF at the expense of national security.
and haters are going to hate….sad. Cheney wanted to upgrade the F14 fleet and Congress wanted to build more new ones, Congress one and the plane was allowed to rot without the upgrades. Now of course maybe the GOP may prefer the less competent blah blah blah. Democrats prefer no competence at all. At least they are fair to equal to all the defense branches.
Please elaborate on your “…less competent and radilized USAF…” comment. I’m curious as to, first, what “radilized” actually means, and, second, what your data behind measures of competence are.
The YF-23 would have made the difference had it been picked up for a carrier based airframe and engines with thrust vectoring. I’d venture most of the 21st century Tomcat proposal applied to the YF-23 would have put it well over the top.
Great story Alex. As a 13 year Air Force Vet, I still believe that the Navy’s F-14 was the second greatest Aircraft ever built and that I’ve seen. For myself of course the #1 of all time ever built and that I’ve seen is the SR-71. While in the Air Force, I worked on our nuclear force Bombers, & seen just about all the modern Fighter’s including the F-22. I am still faithfully a Tomcat Fan and thankful to the Pilots of this fantastic Aircraft. Your story hit the nail right on the mark. The American Defense Folk’s in my opinion have really screwed the pooch. I’m not just saying that because of the wasted time, but of more importantly the money to date & future in the F-35 Program. Providing our Battle Commander’s a proven work-horse to the table, at distance and speed, seems to be forgotten. A Super F-14 Tomcat built today, with all the latest bells & whistles would bring terror and fear back into the Skies We Protect for our Freedoms.
Maverick flew an A model. The TF-30 engine suffered a compressor stall the D model did not have a problem with. Great Article!
The Navy has been hell bent on the revolutionary at the expense of the evolutionary. The result of which is their current state.
Well done sir
Another excellent deep dive Alex. Thank you.