The F-14 Tomcat is one of military aviation’s most recognizable aircraft. The wide, flat fuselage and the swept wings are discernible to many. However, the F-14’s recognition is owed mostly to its inclusion in the Top Gun film series rather than to battlefield accomplishments. That’s not to say that the F-14 wasn’t a capable combat aircraft, it was, but the opportunities for American aircraft to engage with the enemy were limited in the post-Vietnam era. The F-14’s air-to-air combat record is nearly nonexistent.  

Remembering the Tomcat 

In three decades of service, American F-14s tallied only five air-to-air kills. Indeed, the F-14 tallied more kills on screen, in the two Top Gun films. 

The F-14 is featured so prominently in 1986’s Top Gun that the multirole fighter might as well be a credited character. Director Ridley Scott does justice to the Tomcat, capturing the airframe’s beauty and power in one of the most cinematically gorgeous pictures ever. Backlit by setting suns, framed against blue waters, the F-14 is flattered like one of the stars of the film, Tom Cruise or Val Kilmer. And of course, in the film’s narrative, the F-14 shoots down several of the fictional MiG-28s. 

In 2022’s Top Gun sequel, the F-14 makes a stirring cameo, when Tom Cruise and Miles Teller’s characters steal an exported F-14 from an enemy airfield and execute a highly implausible short-field takeoff. Again, the F-14 is flattered, engaging valiantly, and recording kills, against “fifth-generation fighters,” which are modeled after the Russian Su-57 Felon.  

In all, the F-14 records more kills across the Top Gun series than across its three decades of actual U.S. Navy service. 

Air-to-air Tallies 

In 1981, two F-14s from VF-41 shot down two Libyan Su-22 fighters in what would be remembered as the Gulf of Sidra incident. The Su-22 initiated the engagement, which was unwise; the Su-22 was ill-equipped to hang with the then-cutting edge F-14s. 

Eight years later, in 1989, two F-14s from VF-23 again shot down two Libyan fighters – MiG-23s this time. The F-14s, remembering the Libyan attack over the Gulf of Sidra, believed the MiGs were engaging and chose to intercept. 

The F-14 did see extensive action during the Gulf War, although you wouldn’t know that from the jet’s air-to-air record; the F-14 claimed just one kill: a Mi-8 helicopter.  

More Use Abroad 

The thing to remember is that the F-14 was also exported, to Iran, before their revolution. The Iranian F-14s saw extensive combat throughout the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War. Against Saddam’s forces, the F-14 was active and successful; the Iranians claim that the F-14 earned 150 air-to-air kills. Only fifty-five are confirmed, but either way, that’s ten times more air-to-air kills than the Americans ever recorded. 

So, the irony is that one of the most recognizable American airframes of all time, the F-14 Tomcat, received the vast majority of its combat tallies at the hands of Iranian operators.  

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.     

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