I came across this photo while skimming the news this morning. It was at the top of a story on Geopolitics about Egypt. I glanced at it and thought 'cool, a bunch of jet fighters flying over the pyramids', but then I looked closer and realized that all of the airplanes were different. Left to right we have:
This photograph is phenomenal. Whoever managed to get all these aircraft to fly together and then managed to capture this photo as they flew over the pyramids deserves a medal.
I don't know how old this photo is, but the Tomcat was retired in 2006 and the Kennedy in 2007. Cool photo. Click to get full size and the full effect.
Deep Intel on the Smugglers Who Keep Iran's F-14s Flying
Ward Carroll
Curious story about Iran's efforts to keep their F-14's flying and the USA's battle to keep them from getting replacement parts for their planes. The most interesting bit of information was the number of combat encounters that resulted in the Iranian Tomcat shooting down their adversary. Seems like we seldom hear about a US aircraft shooting down another aircraft and here the Iranians shot down over a hundred. I'm not sure what this is telling us.
Looking at this picture I immediately identified the P-51 and the F-15. I saw the one in the middle and said 'Starfire', but that's not quite right. The F-94 Starfire was developed from the T-33, but can be distinguished by the longer nose.
The F-15 Eagle and the F-14 Tomcat are similar aircraft. Both carry two people, have two engines and twin vertical tales. The F-14 has variable swept wings. You can't really see them in this picture, so I don't know how I know it's an F-15. Maybe I've just seen enough of them that I can instinctively tell.
The Internet is a strange and wonderful place. Who knew that Iran had American F-14 Jet Fighter Aircraft? Not me, and how did they get them anyway? Isn't Iran our arch-enemy? Are arms orders that important that we are selling our supposed enemies military aircraft? It seems that the F-14 is kind of an old airplane. Back in the 1970's, when the Shah was still in charge, and Nixon (!?!) was President, we cooked up a deal to sell them 80 Tomcats along with everything they needed to operate them, including an airbase with dual three mile long runways. The whole shebang was worth $2 billion dollars. Two minutes after we delivered the 79th airplane the Shah was overthrown and we quit talking to Iran.
On the other hand Tom Cooper (whoever he is) also says: "It is impossible to tabulate, for example, how many air-to-air victories were scored by Iranian F-14s because air force records were repeatedly tampered with during and after the war for political, religious, or even personal reasons.
One of the F-14's big jobs during the Iran-Iraq war was protecting Kharg Island, their main oil export terminal. Iran still has a couple of dozen F-14's that are operational.
Tehran is the violet marker near the top, Baghdad is the green marker near the left side, the orange markers are giant air bases in the middle of nowhere, Kharg island is indicated by the red ship icon, and Kish island, marked with a yekkiw sun, is near the bottom. The satellite view does not make the place look at all appealing, does it?
These are US planes over Iraq, but they are F-14's and it is a pretty good show.
Update July 2016 replaced missing photo.
Update June 2017 replaced missing map.
.jpg)
