Much to the dismay of military aviation and “Top Gun” fans worldwide, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released video footage from infrared targeting cameras taken over the military section of Mehrabad Airport in Tehran on June 16 as part of Operation Rising Lion – a reference to the Iranian flag before the Islamic Revolution.
These show the destruction of two legendary F-14 Tomcatsalso known as “Persian Cats”, by air-to-ground munitions. Although the two aircraft – the last in the world – were still in the Luftwaffe’s inventory, they had probably not been “active” in the sense of operational for a long time.
Only a handful left
As is well known, Iran, a close ally of the USA, ordered a total of 80 F-14 Tomcats and over 700 AIM-54 Phoenix missiles for BVR (Beyond Visual Range) combat from US President Richard Nixon between 1973 and 1974, i.e. towards the end of the Pahlavi dynasty’s rule – although only 270 of these were delivered.
By the beginning of 1978, 79 F-14As had been delivered to Iran; one remained in the USA for testing purposes and was never handed over. Just one year later, the Shah was overthrown by Islamist forces under Ayatollah Khomeini, and the pilots trained in the USA fell out of favor: persecution, imprisonment and dismissals were the result.
Another year later, Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein began his invasion of Iran. Now the “cats” – with their then revolutionary AN/AWG-9 fire control radar – were urgently needed again. According to the well-known expert Tom Cooper, they shot down a total of 159 Iraqi jets (MiGs, Su-22s, Mirages) during the First Gulf War (until 1988) – based on primary interviews with pilots.
Around 65 Tomcats survived the war. Six were shot down in battle, the rest were lost in accidents or to friendly fire. After that, the situation for the fleet deteriorated rapidly: no more support could be expected from the now “hostile” USA – and soon only a handful of aircraft remained operational.
Between 1992 and 2022, four more aircraft were lost in accidents. However, Iranian technicians proved to be extremely inventive: both in developing their own maintenance programs for the notoriously complex jets and in the illegal procurement of spare parts.
The USA reacted: After the decommissioning of the F-14 in the US Navy (-> Current news about the US armed forces) in 2006, almost all of the remaining aircraft – apart from a few museum pieces – were scrapped in order to prevent such “smuggling activities”. Nevertheless, there were repeated attempts to procure parts – and also convictions.
All of this was associated with enormous effort and high costs. And all this just to keep an aircraft with increasingly limited capabilities operational.
Laborious survival until the 2010s
Availability did not improve noticeably until 2008: In the Iranian Aerospace Industry Organization, over 60 aircraft were overhauled – each with around 12,000 working hours per jet and at a rate of eight per year.
In the mid-2010s, around 40 aircraft were kept in limited operational condition. However, the missile program of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has always enjoyed higher priority in the Islamic Republic of Iran than the conventional air force (IRIAF).
This reduced the average number of airworthy aircraft to around twelve, only half of which were actually operational – with functioning radar and weapon systems. The other half was used for retraining; the rest were cannibalized as spare parts donors.
Last year, only a single F-14 could be seen at the annual airshow on Kish Island in the Persian Gulf. This should now also be history.
