The F-14 Tomcat fighter jet hit the big screen in 1986's "Top Gun" and flew in major military conflicts like the Gulf of Sidra incident, Cold War confrontations, and the Iran-Iraq War. Grumman developed the F-14 Tomcat for U.S. Navy in the 1970s to be the post-Vietnam replacement for the aging F-4 Phantom II as a long-range, high-speed fleet defense fighter/interceptor. Its primary Cold War mission, to destroy Soviet bombers and their fighter escorts from a relatively "safe" distance, was never performed in an actual war. A maximum speed of Mach 2.4 and variable "swing wings" made the Tomcat an impressive aircraft and symbol of U.S. naval air power. It served prominently in the Middle East during operations against Libya, in defense of U.S. interests and vessels in the Persian Gulf, in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, in the Balkans in the mid-1990s, and in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s. Upgrades and modifications over the years made the Tomcat a formidable air-to-ground fighter/bomber toward the end of its service.
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