"The F-14 Tomcat Is the ultimate air-combat weapons system."....So goes the opening line of the Grumman Aerospace Corporation's information sheet on the Tomcat. Parochial as it may seem, this is a fair assessment of the F-14, lor the Tomcat has bridged the gap from yesterday to tommorrow. In aerodynamics and avionics.
Even before the Tomcat flew, it was in a battle for survival, as the full wrath of anti-military congressional critics was directed at each new weapons system proposed in the waning months of the Vietnam War. That it was born of the abortive F-111B. which was to have been the Navy version of the F-111A. one TFX, did nothing to smooth the bumpy road from design to fleet introduction.

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