I think the awnser lies in the DFCS (the digital fight control system). The Tomcat was an old lady without real FBW and the pain to reprogrammate all its systems to take all the benefits from the new engine installation could have been deemed unncecessary, especially when the Cat had already 30+ AoA and fantastic manoeuvring skills (see all the work done with the flanker).

I put that on aero earlier but after having read part of the maual, it could be this.

Could you tell about which part of the manual are you thinking? It would be a bit surprising, as I thought that superiority of D version over A in close combat is an established fact, even by accounts of opposing pilots.

I was looking through the book of David Baker from 1998 and this fragment caught my attention:

“Rated at 20900lb thrust with reheat the TF30 had a specific fuel consumption of 2.78lb/hr/lb while F101-DFE (further developed into F110-GE-400) with augmented thrust of 27400lb has a comparable figure of of 2.01lb/hr/lb. At an intermediate throttle level of 12350lb thrust the TF30 has an SFC of 0.69lb/hr/lb, while the F101 at the same percentage settings has a thrust of 16400lb and an SFC of 0.66lb/hr/lb. These figures translate into mission examples of comparative capabilities. With a standard CAP load of four AIM-54, two AIM-9L and two AIM-7F and with two 280 US gall fuel tanks, the F101-DFE powered Tomcat would have an endurance of 90min at radius of 300nm from the carrier, compared with 48min for a TF30-powered Tomcat.
Performance enhancement was spectacular in 6 ways: specific excess energy was increased by 22 per cent over the TF30 (combat maneuvering energy was raised by that amount); afterburner SFC was reduced by 30 per cent; carrier take-offs could be made at military power without afterburner thereby reducing night glare and intense infra-red signatures from a great distance; time to altitude was cut by 61 per cent; the combat air patrol radius was increased by 35 per cent, making the aircraft a much more cost effective air superiority system; and fuel consumption was dramatically reduced giving the Tomcat a 62 per cent increase in deck launch intercept radius.”

Doesn’t the statement in bold contradict what is shown in E-M diagrams? Also, all this range numbers seem a bit optimistic, is it even possible looking at the engines numbers? I’ve read that the biggest benefit of F110 in terms of cruising was higher altitude of cruise, but still, increase of all radius numbers by more than 35%?

If the guy is to be believed (it seems he worked with the F-14 as a pilot or technician), the Tomcats landed on carrier even with 6 AIM-54, see post #10: http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1021095

Well yes, not the glove vanes were deemed unnecessary per se, but the performance they allowed for was no longer required. F.e., the F-14A could pull 7.5G at Mach 2 with the help of the glove vanes. The F-14D could not.

I did some additional searching and you are right, there is like one source which states that deletion of glove vanes was connected with the engine upgrade. The rest simply claim they were useful in a very narrow and not very useful envelope and even then, their influence was not that big. What is interesting I found an opinion of the ex-pilot who stated, that most of the squadrons deactivated them in 80’s, long before official Navy decision to do so.

You can add Carnards and make it a tri-plane like Su-33 or No Carnards at all like Mig-29K wit Kruger flaps, And keep other stuff like variable air-inlet as well for performance wise. Those two jet can do whatever the Other CV jets can do. Its just pure acedemics. Ski-jump or steam rails.
You increase the size of some control surfaces. Add some 1000Ib of weight/strenght and you get a jet that has far less “compromise” that F-14 had.
IMO imagine them operate off a US super carrier..

I think you are underestimating the extent of modification in Su-33. Both Y. Gordon and P. Butowski gives 19600 kg empty weight for Su-33, about 3 tonnes more than in the legacy Su-27 (16380 kg). In fact it’s almost as much as the empty weight of F-14D (19856 kg given by manual as weight with gun, oil and with pylons).

Thanks guys for your answers, I must say that I find them all really informative.

The main problem with the Tomcat besides the engines were that it was overweight due to the complex fuselage structure to accommodate the swing wing and the weight of the pivot mechanism of the swing wing. The Fuselage suffered from a lot of cracking and was overly complicated to maintain. It should have been designed as a fixed wing and would have been equal or better to the F-15 if it was.

It is another interesting matter for me, was a VG design a mistake in the case of the Tomcat? It is quite common that people are talking about weight penalty connected to the variable geometry configuration, however most of the books says that the VG was often chosen to allow weight savings. For example, probably we all know the story of Grumman 303F fixed wing design which was considered during F-14 development. In the words of the designers: “The 303B was modified to become the contract-award-winning E, which we then ran off against the fixed-wing 303F. The F lost for 2 reasons:

Also, in the book on the F-14 by David Baker there was a small discussion about VG design, here are some of the most important points:
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So how it really is with the variable-geometry, was it a technological dead-end, or there was really something into it (let’s neglect the maintenance problems connected with this idea)? Or maybe just the introduction of FBW and other aerodynamic advances made the VG obsolete?

Also we don’t know if there is a CG shift due to this weight increase.

Well, there is some indication of the CG shift, as the glove vanes were deleted in the D model. Partially it was dictated by lower cost of maintenance, but they were also deemed unnecessary for pure aerodynamic reasons.

Shouldn’t having more thrust increase the STR? The more thrust you have the more you can sustain a turn at high Gs and the more lift the wings will generate during the turn.

This is something I also still don’t fully understand, although I see that it is not as simple as I originally thought. However one thing that bothers me is the fact, that opinions on superiority of F-14D over F-14A were quite unanimous. Were the differences noted by fltgshdw significant enough to justify them?