British F-14k Tomcats

[Lawman]

In the very early 1970s, the UK is faced with the need to replace both Lightning and Phantom fighters in the air defence role.

There are numerous proposals made, from swing-wing Phantom derivatives, Tornado fighter derivatives, F-15s, F-16s and F-14s. The UK eliminates the Phantom derivatives and F-16 from the competition, for being too dated and too small respectively. The Tornado is eliminated on the basis that its small efficient engines are great for low level, but cannot give sufficient performance in the air to air role. The result is a face-off between the F-14 and F-15, both to be modified to UK specifications. The F-15 is seen as too weak on ECM, and the offer has insufficient UK content - McDonnell Douglas only offer UK weapons and radar integration, which is not considered enough. The F-14 offer, on the other hand, includes a much more substantial UK content, though keeping the powerful American radar, but with more British avionics.

The most significant change is the replacement of the lousy American TF-30 engines with a development of the Rolls Royce Pegasus, with an afterburner. Due to the efforts to develop the non afterburning Harrier engine, the result is an engine with massive dry thrust, and the addition of an afterburner gives a huge level of thrust in afterburner. The new engines develop as much as 24,000lb dry thrust each, with 36,000lb thrust in afterburner - this gives a similar level of thrust without afterburner to the original F-14s in full afterburner! These figures are entirely realistic, since RR had already projected these thrust levels for conventional Pegasus derivatives.

The UK is not too keen on switching to the Phoenix missile, however, and goes ahead with the Skyflash missile, with the aim to switch to an active seeker soon after. Thus the F-14K enters UK service in 1979, reaching squadrons from 1980 and onwards - one interesting thing being the continued carriage of full carrier equipment. This is officially to minimise the need for structural changes, but it is well recognised that this is not entirely true. The UK also makes the interesting choice of qualifying air to ground munitions on its aircraft.

The aircraft carries a large conformal fuel tank between the engine nacelles, carrying a mix of fuel, and of equal importance, a modular payload bay. This payload bay allows the aircraft to carry:

- Buddy refuelling stores, taking advantage of the huge fuel load capabilities.
- ECM gear, giving the Tomcat a similar capability to the EF-111 Raven.
- Recon gear, allowing the aircraft to undertake the recon role as needed.

In addition, the conformal tank has recesses for four Skyflash, and an integrated laser designator. The wing pylons are thus free to carry pairs of Sidewinders on the shoulders, and still have a large hardpoint free on each wing. The hardpoints on the engine nacelles are still free, allowing two more hardpoints free.

Possible loadouts include:

8 Skyflash (four semi-recessed, two on the nacelle hardpoints, two on the wings)
4 Sidewinder (on the shoulder launch rails on the wings)

or

4 Skyflash (semi-recessed)
4 Sidewinder (shoulder launch rails)
2 ALARM (on the engine nacelle hardpoints)
4 1000lb laser guided bombs (on the wings, in pairs)

or

2 Skyflash (on engine nacelles)
4 Sidewinders (shoulder launch rails)
4 ALARM (in pairs on the wings)
4 2000lb laser guided bombs (in place of semi-recessed Skyflash)

or

12 1000lb unguided bombs, or naval mines (6 in triple mounts on the wings, 6 on the fuselage, in place of the semi-recessed Skyflash)
2 Skyflash (on the engine nacelles)
4 Sidewinders (on shoulder launch rails)

The result is an enviable fighter, with amazing performance (the increased weight being more than offset by the massive increase in thrust). The huge dry thrust gives the ability to fly most of a mission without needing afterburner at all, and even the ability to cruise at low supersonic speeds.


The Royal Navy, of course, love the new aircraft, not because they were supposed to be getting any, but because of the future possibility for carrier use. The RN is, at the same time as the RAF are getting their new project up and running, are able to cancel the new Invincible class. Instead, the RN is able to persuade the government to buy a pair of new carriers, getting the first one by 1981. The new carriers are partially funded by the US, due to fears about the UK's inability to defend the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap airspace, endangering the crucial ASW frigates and destroyers. The new carriers are basically a scaled down Kitty Hawk type, scaled down to the size of a Midway class carrier, i.e. ~65,000 tons, but with greater automation. The crew size is big, but manageable, with around 1500 ships crew, and 1000 airwing. The airwing consists of a wing of 40 Tomcats (two 16 aircraft squadrons, and a recon/sead half squadron of 8 Tomcats), 4 Hawkeyes, and Sea Kings for ASW. The RAF is happy for this to happen, since it bolsters their own Tomcat program, allowing a full scale UK production line. The RAF also benefits by getting Hawkeyes for AEW, instead of the disastrous Nimrod AEW project.

In order to help replace the old commando carriers (Albion then Hermes, and Bulwark), the RN gets four cheap RoRo conversions, like Argus. The ships are to be used as commando carriers, hospital ships, and aviation training ships. The very cheap ships prove easy to man, and very capable. They carry a pair of 35mm Oerlikon cannon for self defence, acting as the ships CIWS.  

[Maverick]

Brill alt-history there Lawman.  Really well thought out and as a Turkey lover, just the bees knees.

Mav

[elmayerle]

Actually, I think a more likely choice for re-engining would be a Spey 300 (aka afterburning TF41) which would give decidedly better performance than the TF30 (thrust matches the F401 but engine weight is somewhat higher, a reasonable tradeoff, all things considered).  If the French also bought F-14s, I could see a joint UK/France effort of RR/SNECMA to develop the Spey 300.  I suspect SNECMA learned enough with the TF106/TF304/TF306 development effort to make a substantial contribution to the engine development.  I can just see the test aircraft n "raspberry ripple" with FAA markings on one side and Aeronavale markings on the other.  For modelling this one, I'm looking at using M53 exhaust nozzles from a couple Mirage 2000s for the RR/SNECMA Spey 300 exhausts.

[nev]

*Whistles innocently*    

[elmayerle]

*chuckle* Nice one, Nev, and quite believeable.  Personally, I still think they'd've looked into a re-engining (my opinion of the TF30 starts at abysmally poor and goes downhill from there).

[Lawman]

I preferred the Pegasus-derived option for its thrust and weight, but a Spey derivative would have worked too. The Pegasus, in conventional form, complete with afterburner, would have been capable of something like 25,000lb of thrust dry, and 35,000lb in full afterburner. This would have given a similar level of thrust dry to the F-14As TF-30s in full afterburner! Rolls had already projected such engines, and they would have been relatively straight forward to fit to the Tomcat as well. The only major issues would have been weight distribution, simply due to being a different engine, thus having slightly different weight distribution. This should not have been too complex to work around.

With this sheer level of thrust, the British Tomcats would have been the 'hottest' fighters in NATO, probably beating the American F-15s as well! Even with a large conformal tank on the centreline, they would still have had 0.8:1 thrust to weight ratio in dry thrust at combat weights. In afterburner, the thrust to weight ratio would have been even better, giving an amazing level of thrust.

If the Argentines had gone ahead with their Falklands grab, they could have been on the receiving end of a carrier full of Tomcats. With their powerful radars, they could have flown high (for fuel economy), and spotted Mirages and Skyhawks coming from a considerable distance. With their excellent dry thrust, they could have forced the Argentine aircraft into combat manouvering, forcing them to use their afterburners a lot. As a result, the Argentine fighters would have found themselves burning up most of their fuel just trying to run away from the Tomcats, probably exausting all their fuel, thus crashing on the way back home. The extra fuel carried by the Tomcats would have allowed them to mount four hour CAPs, without any difficulty, and could have allowed the carrier to keep a good distance out from the islands initially.

As for the carriers, I think it would have been perfectly reasonable, considering the Conservative party's pledge of 1970 to bring back big carriers, to get two medium size carriers. These would have been expensive, but the US would probably have been very keen for the UK to field proper carriers, so perhaps helping out a bit... A carrier the size of the Midway or Coral Sea would have been able to operate Tomcats, though not in massive numbers. [Tomcats could operate off the Midway class, but there were problems with hangar height and catapult strength that prevented them being part of the normal airwing]. Two decent sized carriers, replacing (nominally) the Eagle and Ark Royal, would have been reasonable, probably with a third having been mooted but not bought. Following the massive success in the Falklands of HMS Illustrious (lead ship of the new big carriers), the UK even manages to fund the construction of a third carrier. This enters service just in time for the Gulf war, with two of the three ships, HMS Vengeance and HMS Ark Royal, deploying to the region. These carriers give the UK a major capability boost, and since they were only built during the 1970s, and received a major SLEP in the '90s, they are good for service through to around 2025.

The commando ships, converted RoRo ships, prove similarly to be a massive success, being cheap enough to allow four ships to be built. These carriers do not carry large numbers of troops, however, relying instead on four of the new LPDs like Fearless (though somewhat bigger), and no less than eight Round Table class LSLs. In addition, four passenger ferries are converted, like with Argus, to serve as troop transport ships, allowing the Marines to travel in relative comfort. They each carry one Commando when fully loaded. The UK can therefore deploy two amphibious task forces, each consisting of one commando carrier, a second commando carrier as a command and hospital ship, two troop carrying ships, two amphibious dock landing ships, and four landing ship logistics. This gives the UK the ability to comfortably deploy one reinforced Commando battalion, expanded to four rifle companies, two amphibious commando companies, a pair of Cavalry companies, along with engineers and artillery. The force can be further reinforced by adding single companies of infantry, to be carried on each of the LSLs.  


As part of the deal for the Tomcats, the RAF could also have received numbers of Phantoms, to tide them over until the Tomcats were ready. The RAF would thus replace its final Lightnings with Phantoms, and operate a nice mix of Phantoms, Jaguars and Harriers. The Harriers would act as FAC aircraft, carrying rockets for target marking, and close support. The Jaguars would act as close support aircraft, carrying bombs and rockets. The Spey engined Phantoms would be used for low level strike and recon, and the ex-US J79 engined Phantoms would be used for air defence. As the Tomcats arrive, they would displace the air defence Phantoms, with Tornados replacing the strike Phantoms. From the mid '80s onwards, the RAF would have mostly Tomcats and Tornados, with Jaguars and Harriers for CAS. The remaining Phantoms would be mostly used for secondary air defence, and to provide a squadron for the Falklands.  

[elmayerle]

The biggest drawback to using a Pegasus-based engine is that it has rather too high a bypass ratio for a supersonic engine.  This isn't a problem with the Harrier, but it would be if used in the F-14 (heck, at least part of the problem with the TF30 is that it has too high a bypass ratio to be a good supersonic engine - it was originally designed for the subsonic F6D).

[Lawman]

I agree, though remember that RR had been specifically thinking of using the Pegasus as a supersonic engine. The high bypass ratio would give high levels of dry thrust, giving exceedingly good subsonic performance, the trouble is only when you go supersonic. I am not sure that there would be too much of a problem, as long as the engine is suitably built for the role - RR had thought it through quite thoroughly. The result may, of course, be excellent dry thrust, giving good subsonic cruise range, perhaps sacrificing absolute top speed.

I am also beginning to wonder if it might have made a good marine engine, as happened with the Spey and Olympus. It could potentially replace Olympus engines in power, with fuel consumption more like the Spey. A suitably combined Pegasus and diesel CODAG arrangement might have worked for a lot of the RN ships, from the early '70s on.  

[Jetfixer]

Did someone say Royal Navy Hawkeye?



in the words of the TV prog blue peter, " And here's one i prepared earlier"  

Greg

[Lawman]

Brilliant! It really looks good in RN colours, even as dark a grey as that, though I always preferred the lighter greys of later USN aircraft, it just looks much cleaner.

How about one in digital camo, with the pixellated paintscheme?  

[Jetfixer]

OOOH, digitize paint scheme would be a nightmare, thanks for the words on the Hawkeye, to be honest i bought this model as a built wreck in a bargain box for 50p. seems like a worthwhile investment now. the colours were supposed to be an alternative Falklands scheme.

all the best.

Greg