by expat » Sun Jun 01, 2014 7:00 am
This will get me shot down, but after nearly 30 years in in aviation, military and civil, my view is probably a little different.
Like all great aircraft it had its day. It was old, expensive and very, very out of date. As long as a good handful make it to museums and maybe a super rich private owner to keep in the air then this is the fate of aircraft. Saying that having witnessed two of them do a super sonic flyby, some aircraft pull at the heartstrings more than others. I worked on Harrier GR3 to GR7 and T10. They were scrapped well before their time and I was sad to see them go. If the F14 had to go to war today against some of the aircraft that have come after it, well the question would then be why are we sending our aviators up in substandard aircraft to die. Another 40 years and we will all be looking at the stealth aircraft of today having the same conversation......
Matt
"A bit of a pickle" - British translation: A catastrophically bad situation with potentially fatal consequences.
PETA

People Eating Tasty Animals.
B1 (Cat C) licenced engineer, Boeing 737NG 600/700/800/900 Airbus A318/19/20/21 and Dash8 Q-400
1. Captain, if the problem is not entered into the technical logbook.........then the aircraft does not have a problem.
2. And, if you have time to write the fault on a napkin and attach to it to the yoke.........you have time to write it in the tech log....see point 1.