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The essence of my childhood is fading away... F-14 Tomcat retired.
Instead of spending my childhood daydreaming about dragons and gold and elves and pirates and treasure and stuff, I read books. Lots of books. Books about stuff getting blown out of the sky. Military factbooks. I was a jet nerd.
My favourite jet as a kid was the venerable F-14 Tomcat. The deal was sealed when my parents took us to the US one time way back and we went to an airshow in the area. Seeing an F-14 break the sound barrier just overhead the most amazing thing my 8 year old brain had ever seen.
From that point on I knew I wanted to be a shit-hot fighter pilot, and wanted to fly only the Tomcat.
Then I found out Canada flies only CF-18s. Pfffffft. This couldn't be. The Tomcat was the pinnacle of fighter technology, I thought. I was 9. My dreams changed every week, and well, that dream went away quickly.
HOWEVER. I still retained a love for the aircraft and am sad to hear it is going. The last flight was back on February 8th. It is being replaced by the F-35 JSF. Having seen them perform at many airshows and whatnot, and being the star of the most awesome motion picture "Top Gun," this is truly a dark day for aviation.
HIIIIGHWAAAAAAYYYYY TOOOOO THE DANGER ZONE
Goodbye, ol' pal.


VF-84 Jolly Rogers.

Oh, just for clarification, here is a rundown of today's modern American fighter/attack aircraft.
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F-14: HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE
F-22: Hey an enemy plane on radar 5 million miles away oops it's dead
A-10: Has a gatling gun which shoots love and glitter
F/A-18: Better suited for bomb dropping than the F-14?
F-35: If you call it a Harrier it pisses people off so I'm pretty sure it's a Harrier and it is built out of love and puppy dogs and floats around like a Harrier but is isn't British |
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