The SV Tomcat design had restrictions in care-free handling and was overweight by SV for most parts of the flight-envelope for general missions.
Every fighter designed in the 60s had restrictions on carefree handling.
The F-14 is no different in this respect. Add a FADEC and FBW, along with a rebalancing of the aero-surfaces and you’ll achieve carefree handling.
The SH was and is the better cost-effective solution for the general missions.
Right up until the point you are facing a competent adversary, then all the little savings look remarkably short-sighted when your cheap little aircraft cannot defend the billion dollar carriers.
Even then, I disagree. The F-14D could drop bombs on Afghanistan when the F/A-18 E/Fs failed miserably.
The un-refueled radius of an F-14D carrying the normal strike load (four 2,000 pound LGBs, two Phoenix missiles, and two Sidewinders, plus 675 roundsof 20mm, and two, 280 gallon external tanks) is at least 500 statute miles.
Accompanying E/F Super Hornets have only a 350-statute-mile radius carrying about half the bomb load.
The F-14D with fixed inlet-system to lower the related cost had not even better flight performances compared to the SH. 😎
Have you any evidence to support this?
It really doesn’t square with quotes such as:
An F/A-18E/F in maximum afterburner thrust cannot exceed Mach 1.0 in level flight below 10,000 feet even when it is in the clean configuration (no external stores). At 10,000 feet, the F-14D can exceed Mach 1.6.
The -14D has better flight performance than the SH in everything but roll rate, roll response and pitch response/rate*.
*Even then, the pitch response applies only to certain points of the envelope.
Additionally, the wide spacing of the F-14’s engines would allow a TVC capable design to augment roll rate.
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