Yes , i thought it was the same for the f-14 wing boxes.
Unique F-14 Test
- Thread starter billt460
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An SR-71 is pretty big and that fuselage was mostly titanium. Not sure how hard it was to obtain titanium for F-14 production, but I'm thinking it was a decade later so maybe there were more sources? I think Australia is the #1 source for titanium ore today.
In addition to what is stated above ... the F-14D had newer NACES ejection seats and a different cockpit layout plus a WAR hud (The Bravo had the Sparrowhawk if I recall that correctly?!). From the outside you would be able to make out the different ejection seats in the Delta (just in case you can't peak under the nose haha).
This reminds me of a story a roommate in college told me.
The roommate had a co-op job (one step up from intern) at Rockwell International when they were designing the B-1 bomber. He told me an engineer who designed the fixture that held the in tank fuel measuring device had the choice of making it out of aluminum or titanium. Aluminum would withstand 8 or 9 g's, well above the airframe capability. Titanium would withstand 12 g's. Either of those g limits could only be realized if the airframe crashed into the ground. Either part would work equally well knowing the limits the bomber was designed to.
The decision was made to produce the part out of titanium. The reason? The titanium part cost something like 16 times the aluminum one. It was a cost plus contract and Rockwell made more profit out of the titanium part.
An F-14 isn't a heavy bomber, but something tells me if needed, that wing box could be fabricated out of something other than titanium without that big of a degradation. Perhaps the resulting airframe would have a slightly lower g-limit restriction, something the Iranians probably already live with considering the age of the airframe.
Nope - not in this case - that wing box needed to be titanium or the airplane would have been a few thousand pounds heavier - killing performance.
The F-14 was under huge pressure from Congress to kill or cancel the program due to cost over-runs. The early years of the program had huge inflationary increases in cost. Cutting the titanium wing box was considered, but the airplane would have failed to meet performance requirements if they went with a heavier design. Aluminum wasn't strong enough. Steel was too heavy.
Perhaps wanting to tell that story about the B-1 I implied the original F-14 box could have been made out of some other material than titanium. I should not have done that. I would never intentionally lump Grumman program managers and executives in with their scoundrel counterparts from Rockwell International.
Let me restate my theory. While titanium was necessary for the F-14 wing box to meet the initial U.S. requirements (strength, weight, ruggedness), if unable to obtain or manufacture the box out of titanium, the Iranians may substitute another material or alloy and simply accept the reduced performance. With the current state of the platform I'm pretty sure reduced g-limits are already in place.
Without going into Iranian AF specific challenges, it was never the wing box that wore out. Airplanes had over 10G put on them in flight. Lots of parts bent, or broke, but the wing box was never one of them. I’ve seen crashed airplanes, the wing box looked fine. The parts connected to the wing box might wear out but the IIAF really won’t need to build any new wing boxes.
I wanted to join the USAF shortly after high school, the F14 and F15 were the two main reasons i absolutely love those aircraft. I wanted to be an aircraft mechanic but automobiles (and my fiance') talked me out of my dream.
I was told that the Navy kept the same technician on the same plane? It would make sense but I never verified it.
I was told that the Navy kept the same technician on the same plane? It would make sense but I never verified it.
Back to the F-14. Talk about clicking the shutter at the right time.
The caption on this picture mentioned this F-14 successfully landed on a carrier in this condition.
I doubt very much that it landed on a carrier.
Carrier landings include a great deal of engineering. A damaged aircraft, and the required approach speed for damage like this, is hard to fit within those engineering limitations. As an example, the maximum engagement speed of the F-14 hook is 119 knots (relative to the carrier).
So, a 140 knot (aircraft airspeed) approach required a minimum of 21 knots wind over the deck for recovery, and unless the ship was dragging a screw, or there was some other problem, we operated at 25 knots wind over the deck to give a couple of knots of buffer for pilot technique.
This thing was probably up around 180 or 200 knots to stay in the air. Making the wind over the deck requirement nearly impossible, unless you had an already windy day, and a nuclear carrier (which could go really fast).
Even if you could meet the wind over the deck, the unpredictable handling of this airplane in the turbulence, known as the burble, behind the ship makes bringing it aboard a big risk.
If a runway is available - that is always the better option for an aircraft like this.
Finally, this is back when the Black Lions flew the -A model. Which means it was during my time flying the jet and being an LSO. If a shipboard recovery had been done with this damage, we would’ve been talking about it in LSO school and through professional channels.
I believe this was one of the jets in the infamous Black Lion photo shoot mid-air collision. A travesty of poor briefing, poor safety management, and poor flying. The squadron had loaded 6AIM – 54 missiles on one of their jets, and went out to take photos of the airplane with the “ he-man load out”. In fact, that’s exactly what their flight schedule said. They didn’t cover responsibilities of the photo airplane as well as how to break away if the airplanes got too close.
The goal was to take pictures while the airplanes were going, vertical, and the pilot in the photo jet lost sight during the vertical climb, while the RIO in the back was looking through his video camera. In the accident report, the Rio said “he looked a lot farther away than he was, because I was still looking through my camera.”
Edit - That mission was flown off the boat. One aircraft lost. The other (pictured) landed in Singapore. please ignore my following paragraph.
That Mission was flown out to Miramar, and the two airplanes were recovered back at Miramar. The fact that the RIO was looking through his camera instead of worried about a mid air collision, tells you that this whole thing was poorly thought out.
bottom line, don’t believe everything you see on the Internet…
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