KerbalX

Cinematic trailer:

IMPORTANT:

To use the VF-84 livery on this jet you have to download the necessary flags and unpack them into your flags folder, the livery will not be present otherwise.

These can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14VYV56Ik26TYhj_LKVzeMON0TrgTHcU6/view?usp=sharing

To operate the variable geometry wings you also require peteletrolls DockRotate plugin. This does not add any parts and the plane is flyable without the plugin just fine.

The plugin can be found here:
https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/170484-19-110-dockrotate-lightweight-robotics-rotational-control-on-docking-ports-plus-noderotate-make-any-part-rotate/

If you want to try out the armed version (1350+ parts) with functional AIM-54 Phoenix missiles and visually modelled AIM-9P missiles you can do so from here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TUU4jyraVaNvQ7PwGdySvQAdRGF_MbGu/view?usp=sharing

Before the storm

Ever since 1950 as the Soviet strategic bomber force grew in strength, US Navy expressed a need for a long range, high altitude, high speed heavy fighter to defend their ever-growing carrier fleet from potential attacks. F-4 Phantom II - while versatile and reliable started showing it’s age by the mid-1960s. The new fighter for the Navy needed to possess a stronger radar and long-range missiles that could intercept Soviet bombers long before they could launch their own missiles. The Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX) Program was born. After three years of cooperation between General Dynamics and Grumman F-111B took flight and was expected to become the backbone of Fleet Air Defence duties for the US Navy in the upcoming years.

These expectations were never met. Although the AWG-9 / AIM-54 Phoenix weapon system combo performed admirably the F-111B was plagued by performance issues. Far heavier than predicted and powered by unreliable and relatively weak TF30 engines it couldn’t meet the performance requirements set out by the Navy command. F-111 platform was later polished out and developed into multiple variants, but it was clear that the US Navy required something completely new.

New beginnings

The new project was named Navy Fighter Experimental (VFX) and after more than 5 years of work resulted in the first YF-14 prototype taking it to the skies.

Initial performance figures were admirable, but a series of crashes during testing, one during a closed display of the aircraft’s performance in front of military officials left a bad initial impression. Despite this, a batch of 12 pre-production YF-14 Tomcats was ordered in 1970 and soon after mass production started. Early A-model Tomcat were not without their flaws - most notably the TF30 engines while good for the flight regimes of a fighter-bomber like the F-111 were not suited for high-AoA maneuvers that the Tomcat could perform. Since the nacelles were spaced far apart compressor stalls led to some high-profile crashes and meant that the Tomcat could enter into a hard-to-recover spin if handled without proper care. These issues were later polished out and the Tomcat proved to be a worthy successor to the F-4 fleet - both as a fighter and as a fighter-bomber (later versions were retrofitted to carry ground ordnance). US Navy’s Tomcat fleet was retired in 2006 due to large maintenance costs.

A formidable predator

By design the Tomcat was a niche fighter in the Navy. Unlike the light and nimble multirole F/A-18 Hornet the Tomcat - while still capable of fighting within visual range - was more suited to BVR engagements. Both it’s radar system and long-range missiles meant that it theoretically could engage targets at distances well in excess of 100km.

While engaging bomber fleets in a cold-war-gone-hot scenario wouldn’t pose a large risk of friendly fire incidents the highly congested airspace of Middle Eastern theatres of war meant that the Tomcat was often not allowed to engage their targets at their optimal range. USAF’s F-15 Eagle was a more suitable dogfighter for these engagements and went on to score an incredible air-to-air kill ratio of 100+ to 0. The bulky Tomcat was often delegated to ground attack and patrol roles.

This did not mean that it was not a capable fighter jet - it proved it’s worth both in the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident and the 1989 air battle near Tobruk - scoring four kills on Libyan fighters without losses. In Iranian service it supposedly went on to score multiple kills with very low losses, albeit this data is rather poorly documented.

Flight Manual

Do not use max thrust at low speeds and high altitudes as this can lead to assymetric thrust and unrecoverable spins. Optimal maneuverability can be achieved at ~250m/s. This figure gets higher with altitude. Change the wing sweep in level flight only at speeds higher than 220m/s, do not maneuver when changing the sweep. Stall speed sits at approximately 65m/s so extra care should be taken when landing.

Action Groups

AG1 - Toggle reheat
AG2 - Wings swept
AG3 - Wings unswept

I hope you enjoy flying the Cat out!

v1.0 - Initial release
v1.1 - Fixed some structural elements made with landing gear deploying with the landing gear action group. Whoops!
v1.2 - Improved smoothness and corrected shape of the nose section, added wing glove weapon pylons.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: aircraft
• Part Count: 999
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.10.0