(F-14) Jets shredded, kept away from 'bad guys'

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Jets shredded, kept away from 'bad guys'

By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 29 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - A mechanical monster grabs the F-14 fighter jet
and chews through one wing and then another, ripping off the
Tomcat's appendages before moving onto its guts. Finally, all
that's left is a pile of shredded rubble — like the scraps from a
Thanksgiving turkey.

The Pentagon is paying a contractor at least $900,000 to destroy
old F-14s, a jet affectionately nicknamed "the turkey," rather than
sell the spares at the risk of their falling into the wrong hands,
including Iran's.

Within a workday, a $38 million fighter jet that once soared as a
showpiece of U.S. airpower can be destroyed at the Davis-Monthan
Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., the military's "boneyard" for retired
aircraft.

-snip-

The Defense Department had intended to destroy spare parts unique
to the F-14 but sell thousands of others that could be used on other
aircraft. It suspended sales of all Tomcat parts after The Associated
Press reported in January that buyers for Iran, China and other
countries had exploited gaps in surplus-sale security to acquire
sensitive U.S. military gear, including F-14 parts.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070702/ap_on_re_us/shredding_tomcats

[Captain Hilts]

1. I've NEVER heard of F-14s being called "the turkey." And the metal is valuable and will...

be recycled.

I'm glad they're not selling them for parts.

[unpossibles]

2. it always cracks me up/saddens me when the news refers to

"bad guys."

Jesus Christ, people. We're not in some awful George Lucas movie, are we?

[CGowen]

3. Does anyone know how many working F-14's Iran still has? They ordered 80 and got how many?

Iran is the only country trying to keep Tomcats airworthy. The United States let Iran buy the F-14s in the 1970s when it was an ally, long before President Bush named it part of an "axis of evil."

Bush accuses Iran of financing terrorism and trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran's F-14s came from the first of several increasingly sophisticated versions of the Tomcat.

The conventional wisdom among national security experts is that though Iran aggressively seeks parts for its fleet, even if the Middle Eastern country could get its jets off the ground, it could do little with them except perhaps make mischief in the region.

"Those planes as they age are maybe the equivalent of Chevrolets in Cuba. They become relics of a past era," said Larry C. Johnson, a former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the State Department in President George H.W. Bush's administration.

"Even if they can put them in the air they are going to face more advanced weapons systems."


http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0705tomcat0705.html