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A valid question and one which was never answered. Then again, maybe whatever this is all about is what they were saved for. Good a guess as any, I suppose.Although the Tomcat is sorely missed and was a better plane than what replaced it, there were so few Ds, that once the decision was made to retire them, it would have been too expensive to keep the fleet ready to go. Plus, the stocks of parts necessary to bring back a substantial fleet would be subject to "diversion" to Iran, and the USN and DoD are absolutely panicked about that (some reports are that it's already happened to some surplus parts). Talking with a few museums that got Tomcat Ds flown in, they noted they had never seen an airplane brought in that got demill'ed so fast and so extensively. The cockpits were reduced to shells, even rudder pedals were removed. And as for the engines and fire control...!
A valid question and one which was never answered. Then again, maybe whatever this is all about is what they were saved for. Good a guess as any, I suppose.
Although the Tomcat is sorely missed and was a better plane than what replaced it, there were so few Ds, that once the decision was made to retire them, it would have been too expensive to keep the fleet ready to go. Plus, the stocks of parts necessary to bring back a substantial fleet would be subject to "diversion" to Iran, and the USN and DoD are absolutely panicked about that (some reports are that it's already happened to some surplus parts). Talking with a few museums that got Tomcat Ds flown in, they noted they had never seen an airplane brought in that got demill'ed so fast and so extensively. The cockpits were reduced to shells, even rudder pedals were removed. And as for the engines and fire control...!
