nice one Maico

Hey All,

At a recent airshow I had the privilege of meeting the pilot who was behind the tomcat in this amazing picture. CAPT Snodgrass USN Ret, Served with VF-33 in 1988 was the pilot behind the F-14 that performed this airshow for a family dependents cruise on the USS America with this amazing low level flyby.



Retired Captain Snodgrass wrote in 2007: "I am amazed that after nine years this photo is being scrutinized with such fervor. The photo is in fact real. It was taken during a dependent's day airshow aboard the USS America in the summer of 1988. I was Executive Officer of VF-33, the Captain of the America was JJ Coonan. It was of my opening pass in the F-14 demo. [...] This photo indeed has a surrealistic quality. I believe it is due to the focal length of the camera used. There is no doubt that this pass was an aggressive low level maneuver, however, it was briefed to the Airwing Commander who happened to be Captain JL Johnson. Currently he is the Chief of Naval Operations. In fact the officer standing on the flight [deck] with his hands behind his back adjacent the LSO platform is CNO."

In the spirit of the tomcat, here's more eye candy. I love these great pictures:

1991 Gulf War Tomcats from VF33 & VF14.

Tomcat over Afghanistan 2001.

VF24 "Look Ma, I'm upside down".

Ready for the cat.

Tomcat Sunset

VF84 "Beware the Bones"




Heat2151
USN Retired
"Mr, We could use a man like, Ronald Reagan again, those where the days"

Where's the MiG-28 under it?



The Jedi Master

F-14A and D at AMARG (the Bone Yard). Took these pictures last week when I was TDY there.

[img]http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/...~original[/img]

[img]http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/...~original[/img]

[img]http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/...~original[/img]

[img]http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/...~original[/img]

They are like mummies sleeping... Waiting to be awoken to prey on Migs again...

My Tomcat story is not as cool as yours. I was home on vacation and decided to visit the Intrepid. She is a floating aircraft carrier museum in Manhattan. I was touring the deck and when I got close to the Tomcat a man stood there with a briefing book. We exchanged names and I found out he had been an engineer working on the Tomcat. He was really impressed when I started to talk about DCS and the state of simulation these days. He promised to have a look at the sim. As I was going to move on he said, "Wait, here you can have this... just don't tell anyone because it is the only one I have". He gave me a sticker. It is a circle with a blue background with white stars and red and white stripes. In the foreground stands a cat with a gun on his hip looking like a cowboy. Underneath it says TOMCAT. I love this sticker. I was really like a kid at Christmas. It was like the first rubber powered airplane my dad ever gave me. I carried it with me for the year or so. A week ago I took it to a Philippine tailor. He is making a patch out of it. I cant wait to see it. I may just have to put it on one of my motorcycle jackets. And a quick google search later.... here it is. First one on the left. https://www.google.com/search?q=F-14+Tom...309&bih=665

Beautiful set of pics, heat2151!

My BuNos Printout shows 6 at AMARC still flight worthy as well as 2 on display. And one of the As has the least amount of flight time than all the D and B models.

Pretty sure that they'd need a week to restore everything before flying them again.

As the Avionics and mission packages have been removed, logged and stored.

There are rumors amongst some investers, of a group trying to purchase 2 F-14s without the mission critical packages, just the airfrane, engines and required flight avionics boxes.


And certain government officials still stand up and say there are no F-14s left, lol

I had the privilege to serve under Snort when I was active duty. That's one of my old birds in that picture. Snort was my XO in VF-33 before I transfered to Pax. I caught up with him years later when he flew a F-86 into Pax for an airshow. I knew when he was coming in and met him on the line wearing my VF-33 polo shirt. He walked up to me, saw the shirt, looked me over and then greeted me by name. I was impressed, as I hadn't seen him in 15 years.

He is the real deal. Best Tomcat stick I've ever met.

-CJ

My military career began at NAS Miramar in 1996 as an F-14D PC/AT in VF-31. I'm pretty sure I met CAPT Snodgrass about ten years later when he flew a P-51 into Minot AFB for an airshow. Coulda been an F-86 though. I just remember him talking about F-14s and Miramar.

Miramar was cool. Minot...less so.

I had a former Minot CO as wing commander of my base about 10 years ago. He went straight from Minot as colonel to brig gen select at mine.
Least pleasant one I had to deal with in my 10 years there.



The Jedi Master

I used to drive through Minot on my way through the US on leave. It was both a boring and interesting drive at different times. It was much more fun flying there, as it was a divert base for us and meant we got "away" pay allowance. Wicked long runway... and awesome watching B-52s take off.

/sarcasm on
Did everyone read the awesome April Update by LN, so much info
/Sarcasm off

Oh wait , no there wasn't an april update, I know they said 2 days ago there would be but once again, another broken promise from them

Does anyone really believe we will see the F-14 before June 2016. I mean they go on about their new processes and tech that they have but they can't even put an announcement out on time.

Maybe they've had a business awareness training course from ED!

That would explain a lot.

anyone else notice in the second pic, the gun is on the wrong side, obviously a reverse render.

You're just embarrassing yourself now, with how much you're trying.

Good catch!

I mirrored the image as it fit better compositionally on our site. (That is the F-14 product page banner)

Yeah, if I flip that in my head and put the F14 logo on the lower right it doesn't work as well.

Artistic license is acceptable.




The Jedi Master

Oh, I missed that. Where did they say it?

Either way, as far as I'm concerned the Q4 2015 beta release date's preliminary as they acknowledged. If they make it, great! Then that's something that will keep me very unsocial when the family turns up after Christmas. If not, oh well. So far LNS has been the best DCS dev as far as deadlines, PR and actually continuing work on their module post release, so I'm confident we'll have the Tomcat relatively soon.