VF-2 "Bounty Hunters" jet positioned for launch. Taken on a mid-80s cruise by Dave "Bio" Baranek.
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Mission: To Preserve the History of the Greatest Fighter Jet the United States Navy Has Ever Flown.
The F-14 Tomcat Association
Our primary purpose is to maintain contact among the members of the Tomcat community, keep members informed of developments in Naval Aviation, provide support to museums where F-14s are on display, and sponsor annual reunions of the F-14 family. Membership is open to anyone who has flown, worked on, or just plain love the F-14 aircraft.
This website is dedicated to the aircrews who risked their lives fighting for our freedom, the maintainers in the hangars and shops who kept these jets flying, the managers and support personnel who continually found the funds and supplies needed to hold it all together, and finally, the engineers, scientists, technicians and artisans who designed and built the F-14 and who through the years came up with the improvements to keep it in the air for 36 years.
ALWAYS, BABY ...!
Presidents Message - October 2014
Dear Tomcat Flyers, Fixers, and Fans
The F-14 Tomcat Association is alive and well! Due to a series of challenges, we haven’t been in touch in a while, but with this newsletter, that will be changing.
We have been transforming our web site, email system, and our membership renewal and tracking system, bringing those up to speed after 11 years under the original software. I ask for some patience while we work the kinks out, but within the next month you will see all the changes coming to fruition.
I have quite a bit of information to share, so please get comfortable. In the future, we will be putting out a quarterly email newsletter which will be a bit shorter, but timelier.
Sadly, I need to let everyone know that our Association’s founding father and longtime Secretary, Art Martin passed away this summer. We were so blessed to have Art’s vision, energy and drive behind everything the F-14 Association did since its founding in 2003. Words can’t begin to describe the loss we feel, but here is the announcement from his family:
F-14 Tomcat History
"The F-14 Tomcat continues to be a premier long-range strike-fighter as evidenced by its superb performance in Operation Allied Force and the strikes in Operation Southern Watch. While the Navy provided only eight percent of the total dedicated aircraft in Operation Allied Force, the Navy was credited with 30 percent of the validated kills against fielded forces in Kosovo as a result of the superb performance of the Tomcat in the Forward Air Controller (Airborne) (FAC(A)) role. Another revolutionary feature of the Tomcat is the recent Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting InfraRed at Night (LANTIRN) system software update that enables the Tomcat to acquire mensurated target coordinates that are accurate enough for GPS weapons, which is unique to the Tomcat. The Tomcat's "Roadmap for the Future"—a plan to incorporate significant performance improvements during the next four years, including through-the-weather precision strike capability—makes it the platform of choice for all-weather, day or night, deep strike." [U.S. Navy statement, 2000]