FMC 3.0

I came across a picture today of a somewhat historical event:

Sure, it’s just an F-14D Tomcat taking off from an Air Craft Carrier. It’s not a bad picture, but certainly not the best picture of a Tomcat ever taken. It’s just a shot of something that has happened many thousands, possibly millions of times in the nearly 35 years the plane has been in service to the Navy, right?

Wrong. What makes this a big deal? Mostly the fact that it’s a picture of the last time it’s going to happen. The last of the Tomcat Squadrons was deactivated recently, as the F-14 gets retired officially next month. It’s being replaced by the new revision of the F/A-18, the Super Hornet. Also, with the joint strike fighter coming down the pike at some point, the Tomcat looked more and more like a dinosaur. While it’s not the sleekest of jets, at least by modern stealth standards, it was incredibly versatile, and has been a part of just about every major operation the US military has undertaken since Vietnam. (The Tomcat came in to being as a replacement for the F-4E Phantom II after Vietnam.)

You can see the entire history over at the wikipedia if you want. It’s an interesting read about one of the most important jets of the modern age.