A Tomcat of VF-31 "Simplers" lines up an approach on USS Beast in the early morning

"ANYTIME, BABY!" -F-14 Tomcat crew slogan

I know y'all are probably tired of me posting so many Tomcat iterations, but I just keep finding things to improve and rework! However, I will now shift to a numerical version system to clarify things a little bit.

You guessed it, this is yet another iteration of my Tomcat design!

This is my masterpiece, a real product of love. I love the F-14 to death and wanted to bring it to SimplePlanes, because I have problems running DCS but still wanted to live out my dreams of flying Tomcats.
I built this for myself, but as I saw it coming together, I knew I had to share this with the community, because it's just too good. I made this with a pure focus on realism and accuracy, while doing my best to minimize the parts count and performance cost. You will not find a Tomcat this complete and accurate for this kind of relatively low parts count, I can practically guarantee it.
I hope you enjoy it, fly high into the Danger Zone!

MAJOR UPDATES!

Tig spools up the afterburners to Zone V for the cat launch

-CUSTOM AFTERBURNERS! I lifted the afterburner assembly from plane634’s “F-16C Block 52” and modified it until it looked right in the Tomcat. Somewhere in translation it lost the beautiful shock diamonds, so I might look into reworking that at a future date. Definitely looks wayyy better than SimplePlanes’ stock afterburners!

-IT'S SYMMETRICAL NOW!! I don't know how many people noticed, but the original tail section was not even symmetrical! It also bent upward slightly, and generally looked terrible. I fixed all of that, so now it's a truly symmetrical bird, and I got rid of the upwards bend and smoothed out all the components to make a much better looking tail section. Makes it much easier to make modifications in the tail area and also slightly improves flight performance and predictability.

Tomcat assigned to USS Beast's Air Wing stands on alert 5

-COMPLETE FLIGHT CONTROL REWORK! The original control system I had used airbrakes on the wings as spoilers and simple funky commands for the rear surfaces. This posed a few problems, notably- the spoilers didn't actually help roll, they only killed speed and made a little bit of yaw, and if you moved the controls a certain way, the rear control surfaces would snap off entirely due to conflicting connections. Additionally, there were bad dead zones in high pitch up and high roll control positions (bottom left and right stick). Plus it just couldn't MOVE like a Tomcat, it was always too fast and could never get the tight, energy bleeding turns the Tomcat was so good at.

Flight Control Fixes: I made custom spoilers using just small structural wings hinged by rotators, activation group is still 4. They actually cause roll now! (Plus a little bit of yaw for realism, after I reviewed the Tomcat's NATOPS.
For the rear controls, I removed the daisy chained rotators and went to one per surface, with a funky input expression modified from the Wasp's excellent flight control system. You now get much better pitch and roll control at all speeds, which means you can make really nice tight turns at low speeds, but also not have a twitchy rocket at supersonic speeds! It should be a good match for what I call the "hyper-realism" planes some have made for SimplePlanes.

Going into the Merge with a TOPGUN A-4E Mongoose over Wright Isles

CHANGELOG (Last updated 5 November 2023):

-Added custom afterburners
-Adjusted wing hardpoints to reflect proper dimensions
-Repositioned external drop tanks
-Moved chaff/flare dispensers to actual location
-Fixed uneven wheel positioning on landing gear
-Adjusted AIM-7M Sparrow positioning, now is attached to pylon correctly oriented
-Tweaked speedbrake, now has proper 120 degree angle, as in real Tomcats
-Repainted/streamlined AIM-54 Phoenix pylons
-Added realistic weight to the rear control surfaces
-Disabled all missile impact cams
-Fixed symmetry
-Completely reworked flight controls
-Rescaled Phoenix missile componentry, creating a much more realistic smoke trail that's more visible
-Removed errant paint on AIM-7M Sparrows that had emission
-Reworked nose camera assembly from dual pod to single pod, reflecting the F-14A variant properly now, instead of the F-14D's double pod.
-Reworked Vulcan 20mm gun tracer color and housing
-Added proper afterburner delay
-Moved catapult link location to better reflect real Tomcat (still missing an actuated link, but works more realistically now)
-Refueling probe added (Activation Group 7)
-Adjusted fuel load to accurately reflect distribution and capacity of real F-14A
-After looking at a Tomcat in person, I scaled up the tailhook, so now it's to scale, as the original version was much thinner than reality
-Removed the useless spinning instruments on the pilot's upper console and replaced them with actual gauges in case you don't want the HUD instruments
-Smoothed and shined nose camera lens and Sidewinder seeker heads to the maximum

Into the Merge. Great balls of fire!

OVERVIEW:
This is my rendition of the Grumman F-14A Tomcat, and it is in my humble opinion, the best version on SimplePlanes!
I have frequently been frustrated in my search to find a well-built, realistic, and well-performing Tomcat in SimplePlanes, so I went ahead and built one the way I wanted! It has pretty realistic maneuverability and speed, but it can also stand toe to toe with a lot of the relatively "overpowered" SimplePlanes designs.
(AnIndonesianGuy, if you ever see this, your Tomcat was a fantastic starting point! I hope you like what I've done with it!)

Modifications done by me are extensive, to summarize:
-Added roll spoilers
-XML modded the engines, changing from AG4-controlled afterburner to a purely throttle based afterburner
-Speaking of afterburner, modified the color and shape to be more realistic
-Fully furnished the cockpit, including G-force camera, HUD readout, and a furnished RIO cockpit with a radar scope
-Added replica missiles/gun (which all work REALLY well by the way!)
-Added countermeasures
-Added trim inputs
-Reworked the flight model via Overload to make it much more realistic

Tig launches an AIM-54 Phoenix during a live-fire test at Wright Isles

Splash!

Mukola's AIM-54 Phoenixes fire true to life! I have yet to see one miss. This 'Cat's BVR capabilities are insane, and start praying if you merge with it! Cockpit is fully furnished as accurately as I could figure out how.

Another day in the office...

Craft Instructions are complete and included.
I intentionally left it largely undecorated as far as markings/paintjob goes, that way YOU can decorate it in the livery YOU want.

DISCLAIMER: The main airframe design credit goes to AnIndonesianGuy's "Grumman F-14 Tomcat", and I pulled in a lot of other parts and designs:
-M61 Vulcan 20mm: “[F-22] Raptor” by The CommentaryGuy
-Front Cockpit & G-Camera: “Grumman F-14 Tomcat” by Deeznutz1234
-AIM-9M Sidewinder: “AIM-9 Sidewinder Evolution” by Cutters127
-AIM-54 Phoenix: “AIM-54 Phoenix" by Mukola
-AIM-7M Sparrow: “AIM-7 Sparrow Air-To-Air missile” by JohnLewis
-Afterburner Assembly: “F-16C Block 52” by plane634
-Decals and radar scope: "Grumman F-14A Tomcat" by Robomo119E

Below is a copy of the Craft Instructions.

GRUMMAN F-14A "TOMCAT" NATOPS
Published 4 Nov 2023
THIS EDITION SUPERSEDES PREVIOUS EDITIONS

AG1: Tailhook
AG2: Glove Vanes
AG3: Speedbrake
AG4: Activate Roll Spoilers (Off by default)
AG5: Drop Tanks
AG6: Jettison ALL missiles
AG7: Fuel Probe
AG8:

VTOL > 1: Wing Sweep
VTOL < 1: Flaps/Leading Edge Slats
Trim: Trim

Throttle:
0-95% Dry Thrust
95-100% Afterburner

Specifications

Armament: 1xM61 Vulcan 20mm, 2xAIM-9M Sidewinder, 2xAIM-7M Sparrow,             
4xAIM-54 Phoenix
AIM-9M Max Range: 3 miles
AIM-7M Min Range: 0.6 miles
AIM-54 Min Range: 2.2 miles

Countermeasures: 2x100 Chaff, 2x100 Flares
Misc Features: G-force camera, Lead-Computing Gunsight, Nose-Mounted
Television Camera

Maximum speed at sea level ~820 MPH IAS