From the Chairforce Engineer

It's a sad thing, the last great Grumman Cat.

I've never quite understood why the Navy went with the F18 rather than the F16. Isn't the Falcon a better plane in all respects including range? The 2 engine argument just makes no sense to me.

The Tomcat seems to be successful because of the way we used it in spite of itself. This is similar to what we did with the Phantom which was also less than optimal.

American seem to always find a way to get the best out of less than optimal equipment. A CIA friend of mine told me that during Korea our Sabres had less performance than the enemy Migs except in a narrow range of altitude... so we stayed at that altitude and let the Migs come to us.

Just some thoughts.

The Navy didn't want to the f-16 because they wanted 2 engine aircraft due to their over the water mission.

What's strange is that the F-14 has been retired, while the Navy doesn't have a dedicated strike aircraft, having canceled the stealthy "Avenger" years ago. As far as I know, there's nothing on the drawing boards to replace it, either. Which will be really annoying when the VTOL version of the JSF doesn't live up to it's hype.