The Grumman F-14A Tomcat is the workhorse of the United States Navy's fighter aircraft inventory.
Mounting an AWG-9 weapons control system, it can lock onto and track as many as 24 targets up to about 166 kilometers away, and fire an AIM-54 Phoenix missile (with a maximum range of 185 kilometers) at any six of them individually.
The AWG-9 is also capable of simultaneous, multiple targeting during air-to-air combat when tracking is impossible.
Another feature characteristic is the utilization of variable geometry wings. The Mach sweep program computer on board the aircraft maintains the variable sweep angle of the main wings at the optimum lift drag ratio at all times.
While being stored or serviced on the deck of the aircraft carrier, the wings may be swept back to a full 75 degrees to facilitate space-saving on a narrow deck. The F-14A Plus mounts the General Electric F-110-GE-400 engine for better performance. As a result of the engine change, the exhaust nozzle also had to undergo major design changes.
