re: What's your favorite military plane ?

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The “D” engines were so powerful they couldn’t use full afterburner at takeoff else would basically melt JBD.  

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There was no limit on using GE110 afterburner on the JBD’s, we couldn’t “Melt” the JBD with the engines, we just didn’t need to go to afterburner, because the engines at military thrust provided enough power to safely takeoff and we didn’t want to waste fuel (you use 2000 lbs a minute in afterburner, we carried 20,000 lbs of fuel, so in afterburner you had 10 minutes of fuel before you crashed from dry tanks!).

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You mentioned others not so lucky but they only made a small set amount of D’s and could only outfit 2 squadrons. Was this in future years these happened? VF-11 is only one who lost one during the 94 cruise (which was first D cruise). I also know VF-31 lost 2 D jets in late 94 or early 95 (all 4 recovered) off San Diego. I believe that one was pilot error as both one was trying to take pics of the other inverted and clipped em and both splashed in Pacific Ocean.

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Don’t remember how many squadrons eventually ended up with the F14Ds, but it doesn’t really matter when discussing the afterburner blow through situation since, from 1987 onward, the Bs were being reconfigured from the old Pratt & Whitney engines to the same GE110 engines that the new F-14D’s being made from the Grumman factory had. So, by the late 90’s, all F-14s had the GE110 engines which were experiencing the blow-through problem.  All the Squadrons experienced (or knew about) afterburner blow-thru as a possible result of going to afterburner. GE was apparently aware of some kind of faulty engine situation as early as 1990, since they started having Grumman carry out inspections on the burner cans & nacelles. 

Here’s an interesting story about an afterburner blow-through incident that happened after Grumman transitioned to the GE110 engine. I had just finished my first 1000 hours as a RAG instructor and was leaving the flight-line heading back toward the squadron hangar. As I entered the building, another instructor I knew slightly was exiting to go man up his jet for a training sortie. We briefly exchanged greetings and in passing I mentioned that I had just completed my first 1000 hours. At which point he reached up and plucked off his own 1000 hour patch from his flightsuit and handed it to me, cheerfully saying “Here, take my patch - I’ll hit 2000 hours next week anyway, and it’s always been lucky for me!”. I thanked him then headed upstairs to debrief. About 45 minutes later the ready room began to buzz with the news that an F14 had just blown up in flight 20 miles away. Turns out it was the plane of the guy who had just given me his 1000 hour patch - LCDR Fred Dillingham. I wore his “lucky” patch the rest of my navy flying career.  I was a RIO my first 4 years in the Navy and a pilot my last 19 years.