Grumman F-14D Super Tomcat

The F-14 Tomcat served as the U.S. Navy's first line fighter from 1972 to 2006 and became one of the most widely recognized Navy fighters, helped by its role in the 1986 film Top Gun. Its distinctive variable-sweep wings moved forward to provide lift for slow-speed flight needed for carrier landings and swept back to blend into the aircraft for supersonic flight. Designed specifically to carry the AIM-54 Phoenix missile, a single Tomcat could use powerful onboard targeting systems to fire up to six Phoenix missiles at six different targets at ranges exceeding 100 miles. Navy Tomcats flew combat missions during the Gulf War and over Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 until retirement in 2006. Iran was the only other nation to use the Tomcat, receiving the aircraft before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and Iranian forces claimed successful combat use against Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War and were known to have used Tomcats against the Islamic State as recently as November 2015. The aircraft on display was the seventh Tomcat built by Grumman and served as the prototype for improvements to the series.

New York, New York · United States