F-14 being destroyed instead of...

being sold to the American People. What craziness, here we are at War in the
Middle East and we are busy destroying weapons.

Hummm, kind of makes me wonder....
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

On Jul 2, 7:51 pm, Craig Fink wrote:
being sold to the American People. What craziness, here we are at War in the
Middle East and we are busy destroying weapons.

Hummm, kind of makes me wonder....
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

Do you have a link for this?

On Jul 3, 4:03 pm, JGDeRuvo wrote:
On Jul 2, 7:51 pm, Craig Fink wrote:

being sold to the American People. What craziness, here we are at War in the
Middle East and we are busy destroying weapons.

Hummm, kind of makes me wonder....
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

Do you have a link for this?

The problem is, that no matter how much you or I may love the F-14
(and I loved it), the fact is that it was too expensive to maintain
anymore. Between wear on the airframe and the obsolescence of many of
its components (the parts aren't made anymore, or the people who made
them are out of business), the cost of keeping the planes flying in
the air was too much.

As far as destroying the airframes, I am not sure anyone . . . or any
foundation would have what it would take to keep an F-14 flying, like
is being done for the F-4. Perhaps if it was stripped of anything not
related to the safety of demonstration flight it could be done. But
the F-14 was complex and I am not sure it would be practical.

I just hope that anyone who wants one a gate guard or a memorial, and
has the money to pay to demil'ing the plane, transporting it, and
promises to take care of it, gets one


Take care . . .

John

On Jul 3, 11:08 pm, John wrote:
On Jul 3, 4:03 pm, JGDeRuvo wrote:

On Jul 2, 7:51 pm, Craig Fink wrote:

being sold to the American People. What craziness, here we are at War in the
Middle East and we are busy destroying weapons.

Hummm, kind of makes me wonder....
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

Do you have a link for this?

The problem is, that no matter how much you or I may love the F-14
(and I loved it), the fact is that it was too expensive to maintain
anymore. Between wear on the airframe and the obsolescence of many of
its components (the parts aren't made anymore, or the people who made
them are out of business), the cost of keeping the planes flying in
the air was too much.

As far as destroying the airframes, I am not sure anyone . . . or any
foundation would have what it would take to keep an F-14 flying, like
is being done for the F-4. Perhaps if it was stripped of anything not
related to the safety of demonstration flight it could be done. But
the F-14 was complex and I am not sure it would be practical.

I just hope that anyone who wants one a gate guard or a memorial, and
has the money to pay to demil'ing the plane, transporting it, and
promises to take care of it, gets one

Take care . . .

John

They are being destroyed so that the parts don't fall into the wrong
hands. Any guess who might have some F-14's?

Some reason why private Americans shouldn't be allowed to buy them?

In article ,
Scott Hedrick wrote:
Some reason why private Americans shouldn't be allowed to buy them?

As of roughly the beginning of the Cold War, the US military reversed its
earlier surplus-aircraft policy and decided that civilians could not be
trusted with jet fighters.

In practice, you'd be crazy to buy one -- part of the reason they're being
retired is that they are hideously expensive to maintain -- but then, there
are some crazy people out there...
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

scott wrote:

On Jul 3, 11:08 pm, John wrote:
On Jul 3, 4:03 pm, JGDeRuvo wrote:

On Jul 2, 7:51 pm, Craig Fink wrote:

being sold to the American People. What craziness, here we are at War
in the Middle East and we are busy destroying weapons.

Hummm, kind of makes me wonder....
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

Do you have a link for this?

The problem is, that no matter how much you or I may love the F-14
(and I loved it), the fact is that it was too expensive to maintain
anymore. Between wear on the airframe and the obsolescence of many of
its components (the parts aren't made anymore, or the people who made
them are out of business), the cost of keeping the planes flying in
the air was too much.

As far as destroying the airframes, I am not sure anyone . . . or any
foundation would have what it would take to keep an F-14 flying, like
is being done for the F-4. Perhaps if it was stripped of anything not
related to the safety of demonstration flight it could be done. But
the F-14 was complex and I am not sure it would be practical.

I just hope that anyone who wants one a gate guard or a memorial, and
has the money to pay to demil'ing the plane, transporting it, and
promises to take care of it, gets one

Take care . . .

John

They are being destroyed so that the parts don't fall into the wrong
hands. Any guess who might have some F-14's?

Let's see, we sell F-14s to Iran therefore we must destroy all of our
F-14s... Talk about Blowback on the American people.

John wrote:

On Jul 3, 4:03 pm, JGDeRuvo wrote:
On Jul 2, 7:51 pm, Craig Fink wrote:

being sold to the American People. What craziness, here we are at War
in the Middle East and we are busy destroying weapons.

Hummm, kind of makes me wonder....
--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

Do you have a link for this?

The problem is, that no matter how much you or I may love the F-14
(and I loved it), the fact is that it was too expensive to maintain
anymore. Between wear on the airframe and the obsolescence of many of
its components (the parts aren't made anymore, or the people who made
them are out of business), the cost of keeping the planes flying in
the air was too much.

As far as destroying the airframes, I am not sure anyone . . . or any
foundation would have what it would take to keep an F-14 flying, like
is being done for the F-4. Perhaps if it was stripped of anything not
related to the safety of demonstration flight it could be done. But
the F-14 was complex and I am not sure it would be practical.

It's just the Aerospace Engineer in me, but even the F-4 is a beautiful
flying machine. As ugly as it is, it exudes the raw power of it's engines,
a flying brick. The F-14s, F-4s are or a just the high performance military
aircraft of our time. The P-51 is their equivalent of an earlier time, many
were destroyed as they roll off the assembly line, but many are still
flying. Even formations of P-51s at air shows (or even air race). Today,
there would probably be someone who would want to own and fly every single
one of those P-51s that was destroyed.

Viewing a static display isn't quite the same as watching one fly or riding
in one.

"Craig Fink" wrote in message
ink.net...
It's just the Aerospace Engineer in me, but even the F-4 is a beautiful
flying machine. As ugly as it is, it exudes the raw power of it's engines,
a flying brick.

And it *still* beats the hell out of what most of the world's military flys.

On Jul 7, 9:31 pm, "Scott Hedrick" wrote:
"Craig Fink" wrote in message

ink.net...

It's just the Aerospace Engineer in me, but even the F-4 is a beautiful
flying machine. As ugly as it is, it exudes the raw power of it's engines,
a flying brick.

And it *still* beats the hell out of what most of the world's military flys.

After we didn't get a Phase II subcontract for the
RASCAL program, I put together a revised F-14
launch vehicle concept that I felt would have been
quite superior to the one that strictly fitted RASCAL's
"figures of merit." See:

http://www.tour2space.com/archives/f-14lv/f-14-st.htm

This concept would have worked quite well even with
F-14A's. Moreover, we were much more interested in
the basic airfame than in the weapons system
capability of the F-14A/C or D. However, I now feel
that spending several times more on developing our
Space Van 2011 would have a payoff that would be
proportionately much higher.

Len