I
T REMAINS ONE of the most
revered of all ghter aircraft, yet 12
years on from when the type
bowed out of US Navy service the
sole remaining active examples of
the mighty Grumman F-14 Tomcat
are to be found in Iran. Some 41 years
after the rst F-14As were delivered to
the Iranian Air Force, 62 remain on the
Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF)’s
books, of which around 45 are
operational in varying states. This in
itself is an impressive feat given that the
Tomcat is a complex beast.
Without a suitable replacement, Iran’s
Tomcats continue to prowl the PersianGulf, the Straits of Hormuz and the
central Iranian Plateau. Equipped with a
few modest indigenous upgrades, they
look set to continue policing Iran’s
airspace until the mid-2030s.
After the Islamic Revolution of 1979,
new leaders sought to purge the Iranian
armed forces of their western equipment.
The impressive new Tomcat eet —
seen as the most poignant symbol of
the Imperial Iranian Air Force’s
modernism — was targeted and o ered
for sale as widely as Canada and Turkey.
With just 13 of the original 77 F-14As in
Iran being declared airworthy, and only
113 pilots and radar intercept o cersFor the US Navy, the F-14 Tomcat is but a fond memory. However,
these big cats still soldier on in Iran. In the fi rst of a series of
Tomcat features, Combat Aircraft looks at the F-14As of the
Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force.REPORT Babak Taghvaee
F-14A serial
3-6030 (BuNo
160328) after
participation in
the rehearsal for
Iran’s Military Day
Parade on April 16,- D. J. Dani
44 June 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net
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