As a defender of the American Fleet, Tomcat serves his opponent
At the talks on July 19, the leaders of Russia and Iran stated that both sides had the necessary political will to develop relations. Specific issues were discussed at personal meetings of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Seyed Ebrahim Raisi, as well as at a reception with Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ali Khamenei.
Details are not reported, but it is known that the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has long been interested in purchasing Russian Su-class aircraft. They are needed to replace the American F-4D/E Phantom II, F-5E/F Tiger II and F-14A Tomcat fighters purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The most advanced in technical terms is the F-14A Tomcat ("Tomcat"), and Iran turned out to be the only foreign buyer of this model. According to some indicators, this car looks better than the MiG-29 that appeared a decade later, acquired by Iran in the early 1990s in the amount of 40 units.
At the turn of the century, front-line Su-24M bombers and Su-25 attack aircraft were supplied. But then the Iranian fleet was reduced due to wear and tear and plane crashes, as well as as a result of the transfer of several Su-25s to Iraq to counter gangs of radical Islamists.
AN UPDATE IS NEEDED
The topic of updating Persian aviation is acute. Russia has repeatedly stated that it does not recognize the Western embargo on military-technical cooperation imposed on Iran. China is also ready to supply aircraft. However, over the past twenty years, Iran has not acquired a single combat aircraft.
The reason lies in the priorities chosen by the country for financing defense programs. The main one is the comprehensive development of the local defense industrial complex, the expansion of the range of products it produces, so that everything the army needs is produced in its own country.
Iran has its own aviation industry, but it is not going further than the serial production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and attempts to assemble local copies of the F-5 (Azarakhsh, Saeqeh, Kowsar). Local designers have developed several types of training (Tazarve), combat training (Yasin) and light combat aircraft (Qaher-313). But they still exist in single copies, and in terms of technical level they lag far behind world standards.
The Persians are trying to compensate for the shortage of combat aircraft by mass construction of attack UAVs, cruise and ballistic missiles, and the country's air defense is saturated with anti-aircraft missile systems (SAMs). The second direction is the extension of resources, rehabilitation and modernization of the existing fleet. The construction of specialized aircraft repair enterprises began under the Shah and received a powerful impetus after the Islamic Revolution.
This cluster, in particular, is represented by a number of companies in the area of the capital's Mehrabad airport. American-made aircraft, including the F-14A, are serviced here. The Persians mastered the restoration repair of such aircraft, including the manufacture of radio-electronic components and power plant units to replace the original ones that have spent their life.
RADAR WITH MISSILES
Great difficulties were observed with maintaining the onboard electronic station (radar) of the AWG-9 aircraft in good condition. It is known that the Persians turned to specialized Russian research institutes with a request for help. Our specialists had the opportunity to get acquainted with samples of AWG-9. We came to the conclusion: at the time of the aircraft's adoption in 1974, this equipment was perfect, but since then it has become very outdated. Maintaining it in good condition without the support of the manufacturer – the Hughes company – promised to be very costly and ineffective. Moreover, there are few AIM-54 Phoenix missiles left in Iranian warehouses with the guidance of the AWG-9 signals. There is nowhere to get new ones (production has been discontinued for a long time, missiles were removed from US service in 2004), and Soviet / Russian analogues do not mate with American radar. Therefore, maintaining the station in good condition made no sense.
Instead of modernization, an option was proposed to replace the AWG-9 with the Zaslon radar from the MiG-31 interceptor. Yuri Bely, the former director of the V.V. Tikhomirov Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Engineering (NIIP), mentioned this in an interview with journalists. Fortunately, the volumes and configuration of the nose of the F-14A made it possible to place the necessary equipment. The NIIP proposal was not accepted. In any case, not a single Tomcat with R-33 missiles (guided by the "Barrier") was seen.
Over 45 years of operation, most of the AWG-9s are likely out of order. Meanwhile, the F-14A continues to fly. They participate in Air Force maneuvers, in the aerial part of military parades, as well as in exhibitions regularly held by the Islamic Republic.
Photos of the F-14A of the Iranian Air Force accompanying Russian Tu-22M3 bombers in the airspace of Iran during a flight to Syria have gone around the whole world.
Over the years, Persian Tomcats have also been used to escort Russian VKS fighters of the Su brand. Including those belonging to the Russian Knights aerobatics group, when they flew through Iran after performing at international air shows, including an air show on the Iranian island of Kish in the Persian Gulf.
The local industry does not waste time in vain: for several years in a row, samples of Fakour-90 missiles, resembling the AIM-54 in appearance, have been demonstrated at exhibitions. Serial production of SAMs with missiles has been established, according to mass-dimensional parameters suitable for suspension on F-14A pylons.
Iranian factories have mastered the production of radar stations for air defense systems, on the basis of which airborne radars for front-line aircraft can be developed. This creates a kind of base for the modernization of the F-14A. The question is only in its economic sense: after all, the fleet of these aircraft is small and outdated both morally and physically.
AN IMPERFECT ENGINE
The headache of the Iranians is the TF30 engines of Pratt & Whitney. The initial version with the brand name JTF10A was developed for the F6D Missileer ("Rocket Man") aircraft to comply with the US Navy's 1959 specification for a promising carrier-based interceptor. In fact, they represented the details of the requirements of the FDF (Fleet Defense Fighter – "defender of the fleet"), published a couple of years earlier.
The "Rocket man" did not go into the series, but the technologies and components developed for it were used on other aircraft. Several aircraft manufacturers chose the JTF10A because it was one of the first dual-circuit turbojet engines suitable for use on combat aircraft. The two-circuit scheme promised to reduce fuel consumption, and the design of the motor allowed to raise the thrust by installing an afterburner. Serial production of the motor was carried out from 1964 to 1986 under the general designation TF30.
The creation of the JTF10A was made possible thanks to technologies previously tested on the family of engines for mainline airliners. In fact, the new engine was a halved JT8D with a ready-made gas generator from the JT8A. In 1960, the US Navy gave the product its own designation TF30-P-1, and after the termination of work on the "Rocket Man" recommended it for installation on a promising aircraft TFX (Tactical Fighter Experimental – experimental tactical fighter).
The TFX concept was proposed by Robert McNamara, who served as Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968. In order to optimize costs by uniformity of the fleet, he promoted a single type of combat vehicle for the Air Force and Navy. The plan failed because the F-111 base aircraft created for it (the first flight in 1964) was accepted only by the Air Force – several hundred FB-111A nuclear missile carriers and F-111 front-line bombers of several modifications were built for them.
The F-111B carrier-based interceptor was tested, including on the aircraft carrier Coral Sea in 1968. But the "admiral lobby" of the US Congress blocked the allocation of appropriations for the purchase of serial products. The naval commanders feared that in the future the practice of creating "interspecific" aircraft would lead to the loss of control over the distribution of budget funds allocated to the fleet.
Instead of the F-111B, in a short time (the first flight in 1970), the F-14A carrier-based interceptor was developed somewhat smaller and with a modified aerodynamic layout while maintaining a variable geometry wing. From the F-111B, he got a power plant of two TF30-P-412A, an AWG-9 radar and an AIM-54 missile. Note that the base engine and onboard equipment are developments of the late 1950s – mid-1960s.
SHAH 'S REQUEST
The first operation using the F-14A was to cover the evacuation of American troops from Saigon in 1974, but there were no air battles then. The car immediately attracted the attention of the Shah of Iran, who sought to turn his country into the strongest state of the Persian Gulf. Shah Reza Pahlavi loved aviation, he flew planes himself. He rated the F-14A higher than the best fighter of the US Air Force at that time, and allocated funds for the purchase of 80 such vehicles plus 714 AIM-54 missiles.
Although the plane was not intended for export, Washington granted Tehran's request, considering that a pro-American "Gendarme of the Middle East" would be created in the region by rearming the Shah's army. This policy was also reflected in the fact that the F-16A light fighter was sold to Iran immediately after being adopted by the US Air Force. The transfer of serial production was prevented by the Islamic Revolution.
Export deliveries of the F-14A were carried out on a priority basis, which the Americans later had to regret. Firstly, 77 aircraft of this type (three cars for various reasons did not get to the customer) formed the core of the Air Force of a large country, which has been extremely hostile to the United States since 1979. Secondly, the Americans built a large support base for the transferred aircraft with a large number of various equipment and spare parts on the territory of the airbase near the city of Isfahan. Thus, they themselves laid the foundation for the long-term operation of combat aircraft in Iran.
Thirdly, several deserter pilots hijacked their F-14A to Iraq, where the vehicles were thoroughly studied by both local specialists and their foreign partners. Fourth, the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 dispelled the image of the Tomcat created by the American military and cinematographers as a miracle weapon. Although the machine was the most modern in the Iranian Air Force fleet and successfully intercepted enemy aircraft, it itself suffered losses from air defense fire and in air battles with Iraqi MiGs and Mirages.
The actor Tom Cruise, who made Tomcat famous, switched to Super Hornet in the new series. A shot from the movie "Top Gun: Maverick". 2022
Hollywood HERO
In a word, the Iran-Iraq war served as an anti-propaganda of American weapons. In practice, it turned out to be not as perfect as in Hollywood movies. The biggest lie is about the supposedly extraordinary maneuverability of the F–14. This is despite the fact that the maximum overload value on it is 7.5 g, for the sake of resource conservation, limited in the practice of the US Navy to 6.5 g. The corresponding indicator for the Su brand aircraft of the fourth generation is 9 or more.
At the same time, the F-14A really has good aerodynamics. This is the result of a huge amount of testing of scale models in wind tunnels in the late 1960s. The Pentagon decided to spend money on aerodynamics after the sad story with the previous "defender of the fleet" – the F-4 Phantom II carrier-based interceptor, which was also adopted by the US Air Force as a multi-purpose fighter.
The wars in Southeast Asia and the Arab East have shown that a heavy, clumsy "phantom" with a high wing load cannot compete in maneuverable air combat with a small and nimble MiG-21. The Soviet aircraft develops a large overload (up to 8.5 g versus 6.5–7.5 g for the "American"), turns better, is not afraid of reaching large angles of attack and near-zero speeds.
Without an advantage in height and speed, the F-4 crews preferred to get away from the enemy by overclocking on the afterburner, because they knew that they would not be able to maneuver the MiG. When entering large angles of attack, the ailerons lost efficiency, there was a reverse roll reaction and the phantom could easily fall into a tailspin.
Since the F-4 remained the main fighter of the US Air Force and Navy even after the Vietnam War, the Americans had to find technical opportunities to raise its characteristics, including through improvements in aerodynamics (for example, slats fixed in one position were installed instead of automatic ones).
In addition, it was necessary to change the tactics of fighter aircraft, to develop new methods of conducting air combat. To do this, the US Navy founded a special school for professional development of Top Gun. There, experienced instructors trained combat fighters in the techniques of tightening the MiG-21 to unfavorable flight modes for it.
With the advent of the F-14A, Top Gun instructors switched to practicing air combat techniques so as to maximize the aerodynamic qualities of the new aircraft, noticeably superior to those of the F-4.
Here the most unpleasant feature of the F-14A power plant became clear: sharp maneuvering led to a disruption of the flow from the compressor blades and, as a result, to engine surging. In this respect, the TF-30 turned out to be noticeably worse than the P-25–300 on the MiG-21bis. Attempts to "cure" the engine did not lead to great success, and Top Gun specialists switched to carefully practicing maneuvers without entering modes that are dangerous from the point of view of surge. In this case, they were helped by a fairly advanced flight control system of the aircraft, which allowed fine tuning.
Pilots were taught how to rearrange the wing consoles manually (turning off the automation, ranging from 20 to 68 degrees of sweep) in order to accelerate sharply or slow down when performing spatial evolutions, trying to go into the tail of the enemy aircraft. We must pay tribute to the school instructors: they carried out painstaking work and thereby gave a wide scope for the activities of cinematographers. Seven feature films and two documentaries were made about Top Gun and F-14. With the participation of the popular actor Tom Cruise.
DEFENDER OF THE FLEET
Thanks to the film distribution products, an artificially created image of a "super-maneuverable" aircraft appeared, which the F-14A was not in reality. In fact, this aircraft was exactly as it was conceived by naval commanders and aircraft designers: an interceptor with long-range missiles. The main purpose is to protect carrier groups from enemy air strikes.
The variable geometry wing made it possible to take off from the flight deck or airfield, quickly gain altitude and reach the launch line of air–to-air missiles. The approach was carried out with the wing set to the position of 20 degrees sweep along the leading edge, braking – with the hook of the aerial finisher cable.
The "highlight" of the aircraft is a unique weapon control system based on the AWG-9 radar. The radar detects a target with an equivalent scattering surface of 3 sq. m at a distance of up to 160 km. The equipment is complex, the pilot alone cannot cope with it. Therefore, the crew is supplemented by a weapons control officer.
The AWG-9 was specially designed to work over the sea surface with simultaneous targeting of six AIM-54 air targets at a distance of up to 120 km. After launch, a four-meter rocket weighing up to half a ton gains an altitude of 24-30 km and accelerates to a speed four times higher than the sound. Trajectory correction in the marching section – according to the commands of AWG-9, in the final section – according to data from its own active radar.
Fire tests of the AWG-9 and AIM-54 bundles were conducted in 1966. The use of analog equipment and a slit antenna array with mechanical beam scanning imposed serious restrictions on the firing zone. It was assumed that the enemy would attack several aircraft from the same direction, and in this case the technical parameters of the airborne radar from the radar were sufficient.
However, even in landfill conditions, only four of the six missiles fired hit the target. However, volley firing by "phoenixes" in a combat situation has never been carried out due to the lack of such a need. In the entire history of participation in conflicts, American pilots have completed only three launches of the AIM-54, and all went "into milk".
GOT IT, BUT NOT EVERYONE
The Naval Command insisted on equipping the F-14A with TF-30 engines. In the marching mode, it worked steadily and consumed little fuel, which ensured a long patrol of the interceptor over the sea in anticipation of a raid by enemy bombers. At the same time, the thrust-to-weight ratio of the new fighter remained at the level of the "phantom" of the last generation. Moreover, maneuvering at high angles of attack was allowed with great restrictions due to the risk of surge. Since the engines on the F-14A are widely spaced, the failure of one of them was fraught with the aircraft falling into an inverted corkscrew, from which it did not come out.
Developed a couple of years later, the F-15A received next-generation engines from the same manufacturer. The early F100-PW-100 samples were distinguished by numerous disadvantages, including difficulties with ignition and gorenje combustion in the afterburner. For carrier-based aviation, this is unacceptable, since extinguishing the afterburner on takeoff is fraught with the loss of the aircraft with a great risk to the life of its crew. By refusing to install newer engines on the F-14A, the fleet not only did not lose, but even won in terms of reliability.
The Americans got rid of the main disadvantages of the F-14 and F-15 powerplants only in 1986. The first aircraft received a completely new F110-GE-400 engine from General Electric, the second – a modified F100-PW-220 from Pratt & Whitney. By that time, the mass production of the F-14A was replaced by the assembly of small batches of F-14B/D (75 in total), which lasted until 1992. Slightly more than 100 aircraft were remotorized, and most of the 712 F-14 aircraft built retained the TF-30.
The development of the F-14A was carried out with the expectation of a combat load of six AIM-54 missiles with a total weight (with pylons) of 3600 kg. Tests have shown that take–off from the deck is possible, but landing is not. Therefore, the combatant F-14A carried out patrol and interception sorties with less ammunition: a pair of heavy AIM-54 missiles and six lighter AIM-7 and AIM-9.
American aircraft operating from aircraft carriers shot down two Libyan planes in 1981 and a couple more in 1989. One Tomcat was destroyed by the S-75 air defense system over Iraq, the pilot was evacuated by helicopter, and the operator was captured. According to sources in Damascus, Syrian anti-aircraft gunners defending the Lebanese sky shot down an F-14A over Beirut.
Several more cars fell victim to air–to-air missiles. The vast majority of US Navy losses (about 170 F-14s) turned out to be non–combat, almost 30% of them due to the failure of the power plant.
Conceived as a pure interceptor, the F-14, after the cessation of serial production, was modified to load first free–falling bombs (with a total weight of up to 6,500 kg), and then - controlled with guidance equipment in a suspended LANTIRN container. However, as a bomber, the aircraft was only occasionally used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Operation in America ceased in 2006 with the replacement of the last F-14D (on which all analog equipment was replaced with digital) with new multi-purpose fighters F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
PERSIAN "SEALS"
Since Iran has never had aircraft carriers, Persian Tomcats were used in the country's air defense system. They took part in the war with Iraq. There is no reliable information about the losses of the parties; the figures given in various sources differ by an order of magnitude. According to Iranian data, three F-14A pilots (Zandi, Rostami and Afshar) became aces, having won 23 aerial victories in total. At the same time, Rostami shot down three Iraqi planes with Phoenix missiles.
At the same time, the effectiveness of the AIM-54 turned out to be low, mainly because these missiles were intended for firing at non-maneuverable high-altitude targets such as a strategic bomber. And during the war, the overwhelming number of launches (about 60 in total) were carried out by fighters.
Having come under enemy fire (the onboard means informed the pilot that his plane was being irradiated by enemy radar in missile guidance mode), they actively maneuvered, and the AIM-54 guidance system malfunctioned. If the enemy pilot left with a sharp dive, then against the background of the underlying surface, the radar could not accompany the target as steadily as in free space. This observation is also true for AIM-7E Sparrow missiles with passive radar guidance.
Most of the downed F-14A Iraqi aircraft are accounted for by short–range AIM-9 missiles with infrared homing heads. In short, the installation of the AGW-9/ AIM-54 combination on the aircraft did not justify itself in a real combat stop.
THE PROSPECT OF REPLACEMENT
As a result of the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian fleet of F-14A was reduced from 77 to 58 vehicles, AIM-54 – c 274 missiles (the Americans refused to supply the remaining 440 under the contract) up to a few dozen. The Iranians tried to solve the problem by arming the Tomcats with missiles of the MIM-23 HAWK army anti-aircraft system. Several test launches were carried out, which showed the inconsistency of this approach. I had to arrange the release of an unlicensed copy of the Phoenix – Fakour-90.
Keeping foreign combat aircraft assembled 45 years ago in service, with complete lack of support from the developer and manufacturer, is, of course, a huge achievement of Iranian specialists. But nothing lasts forever. Having created a very advanced F-14A for its time, America subsequently refused to continue developing specialized interceptors. Today, the multi-purpose F/A–18E/F fighters solve the tasks of air defense of aircraft carrier groups, and the country's air defense is F-15C.
Russia retains a grouping of high-speed high-altitude interceptors MiG-31, serial production of which was discontinued at the turn of the century. If the Persians cannot do without an interceptor aircraft with long-range missiles as part of the country's air defense, they should take a closer look at the Russian Su-30SM2, Su-35S and Su-57E. Although they belong to the class of heavy multipurpose fighters, they have modern air–to-air missiles with a launch range of several hundred kilometers in their arsenal.
Vladimir Karnozov
