Vampyre

All versions of the F-111 use the TF-30. The TF-30 sucks as a fighter engine but you don't really have to worry about that in a dedicated strike aircraft like the F-111 as all it should be doing is going fast and straight anyway. I believe the F-111C has a couple of 21,000lb thrust TF30-P-109's under the hood. The real hot rod of the bunch was the F-111F with the TF-30-P-100 engines rated at 25,100lb of thrust. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

Like this? Seriously though, I am a proponent of both carrier based air power and long range strategic aviation because they offer almost instant reaction time (within a day or two). Both are extremely important to our national defense because of this and the fact that the bases for both are usually out of the reach of our enemies. The limitations of the Hornet require the carrier to be much closer to the beach and therefor much closer to the enemy which makes it easier to find and more vulnerable to enemy fire. The Hornet is easier to maintain than the Tomcat (I've worked on both) but I believe that if new versions of the Tomcat had been built a lot of the issues that made it hard to work on could have been rectified. Many of the low mean time between failure parts could have been replaced with more reliable parts and the avionics would defiantly been updated. Apply the latest stealth technologies and the ability to supercruise (which the basic airframe was capable of with engines of sufficient power) and possibly thrust vectoring and you have an aircraft comparable to the F-22. Also, imagine an AESA RADAR in the nose of a Tommy... RADAR functions primarily on power output and the size of the RADAR dish to get the longer detection ranges needed for the first shot advantage. It would be the quickest, most powerful, longest ranged system in any fighter around. Now all we have to hope for is a navalized F-22 or F-23 but we will probably only end up with a few F-35's which is a dubious proposition in itself. Twin engines should be a primary requirment for a naval aircraft. Hopefully we won't have to fight a war against a competant enemy anytime in the next 40 or 50 years. Here's some pics from my last cruise. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

Havent seen the Litening on a Lancer but heres some pics of the Sniper pod on a Bone. If you look closely in this pic, the B-52 is carrying a pod on a pylon between engines #6 and #7. Looks a bit like a Litening Pod. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

Uhh... spell it out and look at it. B-one.

Sniper is designed to be a stealthy pod so the pylon mounting will, most likely, be designed with a lowered RCS in mind.

Sniper has been tested for supersonic speeds during the F-16 test period so I do not see why it would limit the top speed of the Bone. The pod is also carried by the F-15E and F/A-18C/D and E/F... well our E's and F's anyway... I'm not sure about the rest of the fleet. I've also seen them on AV-8B's. As for START, I assume a representative sample would be sufficient but it is their (the Russians) perogative as to if they want to inspect the entire fleet or not. Unless an extension is signed it will not matter in about two years anyway as the current round of treaty inspections will expire.

Article IV of START covers this... no rewrite necessary. all that is needed is an exhibit of the configuration to satisfy the inspectors that the station cannot be used to launch nuclear weaponry. The Sniper is a targeting pod and, like all targeting pods, is hard mounted to the airframe and cannot be jettisoned. As the Bones are primarily conventional bombers now (I'm not saying they can't be converted back to a nuclear role at some later date which is also covered by Article IV) this upgrade is essential to it's mission. The B-1 desperately needs a self designating capability and the ability to conduct its own bomb damage assesment and a limited reconnisance capability.

I've only ever seen this aircraft with a 213 MODEX. I was on the 2003 cruise with VF-213 and they did not have this paint scheme at that time but were wearing the 100 series MODEX's. The first time I had seen this particular scheme was towards the end of the workups for the 2005-06 cruise and the squadron was already wearing the 200 series MODEX's. If they did apply a 100 series MODEX then it was for only a very brief period of time. It never went to war with a 100 MODEX. Also, keep in mind that VF-213 had three full color birds for the cruise... 200, 201 and 213.

Pretty good but the Phoenix needs to be over the bottom red stripe. The stripe needs to be situated a little lower... closer to the base of the vert stab while maintaining the grey stripe with a larger main red field. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

Like this?

Looks awesome! Now if only there were a way to change the E-2C to a VAW-124 bird you would be entirely CVW-8. I have noted the un-natural emptyness of the carrier decks in this game. It just looks weird.

Thanks! I no longer feel like I'm driving a moped in a supercross race. Much appreciated.

I've noticed this recently. With full burner I could barely keep up with a B-57G while flying a MiG-23MLD. How would one go about tweaking the speed to get it a little more realistic?

Indeed! Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

Looks great so far. The decals are quite a bit off there. National insignia needs to be much much smaller and it needs the 100 on the nose..

You didn't see many due to the Navy regulating the paintschemes in the early 80's. VF-31 had all of its cats painted with black noses at one point. VF-41 is another squadron that did the same.

Pope Air Force Base has A-10's from the 23rd Wing, 75th Fighter squadron, The Flying Tigers(yes the same as from WWII). Did the bird have a Sharks mouth painted on its nose and FT for tailcodes? If so, that is where it was from. I believe Pope is neat Fayettville NC.

Blackcat 101... Heres a holiday shot I took of her.

How's about this? Yes, it was the last Tomcat cruise. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

The Mutha award goes to the squadron which epitomises fighter spirit and Boola-Boola is given to the squadron which has excelled in missile launches. The Grand Slam Award was created in 1986 and is the East Coast equivalent of the Boola-Boola award, being presented to the F-14 squadron which has best employed air to air ordnance during the previous 12 months. All these awards tended to be given at the annual Fighter Pilots Ball. The most celebrated award is the Clifton Trophy, presented in honour of R.Adm Joseph C. Clifton. The winners of the Atlantic and Pacific Battle 'E's are the contenders for this trophy, with the winner being honoured as the best fighter squadron in the United States Navy. I think that covers all the awards you will see on the Tomcat Tails. (EDIT) I forgot the Battle Efficiency "E", Safety "S" and Golden Wrench awards. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

The award is named in recognition of the mythological phoenix, a bird that lived five centuries, died and was reborn from its own ashes. The Phoenix Award is granted in recognition of the long life given to equipment by sustained quality maintenance and the rejuvenation of equipment through well-established maintenance programs. This annual award is intended to improve material readiness by providing a positive incentive for extraordinary maintenance efforts, improved efficiency and reduced waste, and to provide recognition to outstanding "below depot-level" maintenance programs. This award is sponsored by the Department of Defense and is competed for by all branches of the service. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

No problem. If you want to do any of the other birds in CAG-8 then I have pics of them all. Heres a sample of a VAQ-141 Prowler. Enjoy! Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

I'll look for some more but this is what I have on hand at the moment. I'm sure I have others but I'll have to dig out my laptop to find them. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

OK, Heres a few of Blackcat 100... enjoy! I have many more too and like I said I have all high res too. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!

I was on the TR's 2005-06 cruise. I took quite few photos so if you need any more pics, I have a few high res pics from the last Tomcat Cruise. BTW, the bird emblim is called the Phoenix award. Tomcats Rule! Anytime Baby!