JFK Aircrafts

I took a tour of the JFK in July of 1990 shortly before it left for the Gulf. It had the standard array of aircraft you would expect to see. F-14s, F-18s, A-6s, EA-6Bs, E-2Cs, I did not see any S-3's but I assume they were there. I can't remember what helicopters were aboard at the time either.

One of the F-14 squadrons (tophatters? maybe) had two MIG-23 silhouttes on two of the aircraft as well as the side of the island. They had recently shot down two Libiyan MIG-23's. That was pretty cool to see. I'll see if I can find the pictures that I have of the trip, but I can't promise anything.

Wow! Two hits!
Thanks for your reply. Was the F18 the navy version "E" already?
Didn't you see any A-7 in that tour?
I will wait for the pics, if you find them.
Thanks again

The F-18E was not on board yet.

I believe they were F-18C's. As for the A-7's, I think they were already being phased out at the time. The F-14's were "A" models. If you do a search on the web under aircraft carrier JFK you will find lots of good stuff.

Good luck
Darren

P.S. Congrats to the Tampa Bay Buccaneer's Superbowl xxxvii champs!!!

The Gulf War was the A-7s swansong. The were there but I'm not certain what carrier(s) had them aboard.

The question I'd have, is regard in the Tomcats aboard. To me the Tomcat and its subvariants are a bit of a foggy patch. There's the standard F-14 A, There's an F-14B and and F-14D. I saw a Tomcat at an airshow many years ago and the pilot refered to it as an F-14A Plus and said it was some sort of bridging gap variant between the A and the B until sufficient numbers of the B and D versions could be brought into service. At the time of the Gulf War, what would the typical complement of Tomcats consist of on a carrier?

The Hornets would likely be C and D variants by that time period.

My suspicion on the helicopters would be for SH-60 Seahawks, though a late model Sea King might not be out of the realm of possibility either.

A buddy of mine in Virginia is a civilian contractor working on F-14 upgrades. He says that the F-14A+ is a normal "A" model with a GE F110 powerplant as opposed to the old TF-30. The exhaust nozzles are larger. The wing glove vane was deleted. An AN/ALR-67 RWR was added. There were some other mods that he mentioned but you get the picture. These were fill-ins until the "D" model development was complete. In the early 90's the Navy redesignated the A+ the B. Apparently upgraded A+ and new manufacture A+ variants were being accepted around 1987 so it's quite possible that the JFK had the A+ in July of 1990. It was very interesting talking to my friend about it.

upnorth is right about the helos. But I recall buying Hasegawa's Sea King model shortly after that tour of the JFK. I think partly because of seeing it on the "boat".

Good catch on the F-14 upnorth

Darren

I know this doesn't answer your question about aircraft on the JFK, but you may be interested in The USS John F. Kennedy Official Web Site.

It's a pretty nice site. Some nice pictures on the site. Unfortuneately, the airwing link appears to be broken (or disabled on purpose?? ). Anyways - it's a nice site and might provide some inspiration if you're working on a JFK model.



By the way...
On their site, they have a list for Carrier Airwing Group 7. Taking the list from there, you could probably look some of the squadron names up for more information.

For example - Fighter Squadron Eleven (VF 11) "The Red Rippers" can be found here -> VF-11 Red Rippers @ Home of M.A.T.S. - The F-14 Tomcat Reference Work

Thanks to the personnel by the information, it went very useful.
Now I only need to find the kits.
PS: To Bayonet Recon: I could not access the site.