The Successor of the Wing King

    During the Cold War, the US had to devise a plan to combat the Soviets Mig-25 after their failure of the F-111B project. The US Navy then obtained the F-14 Tomcat from Grumman which was a great addition to the Navies fighter squadrons. The F-14 was a memorable fighter aircraft which served multiple roles in the US Navy which earned its name as the "Wing King". 

       

     The F-14 design was a twin-engine, two-seater, supersonic jet which top speed was 1,544 mph which could also carry various ordinances on it. The F-14 held its reputation as being the best fighter jet for three more decades of its service where it came to an end in which it was used as a strike aircraft in its final years of service. The popularity of the aircraft also spread into movies such as Top Gun. 

    But unfortunately, the cost to maintain the F-14 grew so the Navy had to come up with an alternative fighter which was the F-18 Hornet. Even though the F-18 is more advanced in avionics it lacks two major aspects of aerial combat. The F-18 doesn't have speed and range capabilities which the F-14 had. One of the reasons why is that the Navy gave up on those two aspects since there was no real need to fend off bogies at long distances nor win combat situations with speed. Additionally, the F-18 is a reliable fighter aircraft but it can't truly fill the footsteps that it's predecessor the "Wing King" had.