in much better condition. There were
few restrictions placed on NFWS ‘Red Air’
crews tasked with training us students.
When simulating the MiG-23, the Tomcat
instructor pilot would leave the manual
sweep handle at roughly 45° in order to
mimic the ‘Flogger’s’ combat wing-sweep
position. When simulating old-model
MiG-21s, forward-quarter shots weren’t
used. But both of these simulations
were more for students undergoing FRS
training. The NFWS syllabus [taught to
eet crews] was almost entirely focused
on teaching how to defeat fourth-
generation threats — well- own MiG-29s
and Su-27s.’Tiring Tomcats
NSAWC’s maintenance woes with the
Tomcat eventually resulted in the loss of
F-14A BuNo 160408 on July 6, 1998 during
a 1-v-1 training mission over the Fallon
Range Training Complex. According to RIO
LT (later CDR) Bill Lind, whose room-mate
LT (later CDR) Art ‘Kato’ Delacruz ejected
successfully from the aircraft, the Tomcat
was lost due to a ‘mis-rigged throttle’,
which caused a compressor stall when
the engine was quickly retarded to idle.
Lind says, ‘The crew was pretty dynamic
at that moment, trying to defeat a gun
shot, so loss of the down-wing motor
caused the jet to spin. There was a safeThe F-14s would force the student F/A-18
pilots to get on timeline and get their
missiles off on time, or fear being outgunned by
the F-14s up in the thin air, where enemy missile
ranges are farther than at lower altitudes
CDR Doug Dennenyfound unsettling as I had come from a
B-model squadron equipped with jets
powered by F110-GE-400 engines that
were all but unstallable. I was crewed up
with Jim ‘Puck’ Howe, who was an F-14A
guy from VF-32 with orders to serve as
an instructor with VF-101 [the Tomcat
eet replacement squadron], so I had
con dence in his abilities to handle the
quirkiness of the A-model jet throughout
the class. We also had the last VF-201
reserve crew going through our class. They
ew out of Fort Worth, Texas, and had
F-14As that were used solely as adversaries
for the eet at the time. When NSAWC
started running ou t of ‘up’ F-14s half-way
through the class, VF-201 was willing to
loan a couple of jets to help TOPGUN get
through a tough maintenance period.’
LT (later CDR) Jim ‘Puck’ Howe, who
would later command the very last
eet unit to y the Tomcat with the US
Navy, took the TOPGUN class between
leaving VF-32 and joining VF-101. ‘My
recollection of ying against TOPGUN
Tomcats wasn’t particularly di erent
from ghting the Tomcats from VF-32,
other than the fact the VF-32 jets wereAbove left to right:
Towards the end
of their tenure
with NSAWC, the
F-14As tended to
wear standard
overall gray
schemes, as
evidenced by
BuNo 161281.
Mark Munzel
One of the last
adversary-
painted F-14As of
TOPGUN — BuNo
161869 — on the
Fallon fl ight line.
Peter Rolt
Below: F-14A
BuNo 160913 in
1998, sporting the
fi nal iteration of
the ‘Asia Minor’
scheme applied
by TOPGUN to
represent an
Iranian Tomcat.
Mark Munzelhttp://www.combataircraft.net // September 2018 55
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