DCS World Players Recreated The First Two Air-to-Air Engagements Of The F-14 Tomcat
DCS World Players Recreated The First Two Air-to-Air Engagements Of The F-14 Tomcat
Two F-14 Tomcats as seen in DCS World. (Photo: Eagle Dynamics/Heatblur Simulations)
For the 50th anniversary of the first flight of the legendary F-14 Tomcat, we get a look at how its legacy is still carried on by aviation enthusiasts using today’s technology.
The Grumman F-14 Tomcat flew for the first time 50 years ago, on December 21, 1970. To celebrate the half-century of life of this legendary fighter aircraft and remember its legacy, we will talk about the “Turkey” (as the aircraft would be later nicknamed) first air-to-air encounters and its first air-to-air victories. The episodes we are going to recount, however, were not the first “baptism of fire” of the F-14, as the first combat deployment of the aircraft happened in 1974, when VF-1 “Wolfpack” and VF-2 “Bounty Hunters” were deployed aboard the USS Enterprise in Vietnam to provide air cover for Operation Frequent Wind, the American evacuation of Saigon, though no air-to-air engagement were reported.