🔷 Tomcat

Bring Back
The Tomcat

Made famous by Maverick and Top Gun, everyone knows the iconic F-14 Tomcat.

The U.S. Navy flew its last F-14 in 2006, and despite the airshow circuit and warbird programs, that was the last F-14 to fly in America.

And it’s all due to Iran.

Iran

In the 1970s, the U.S sold Iran 80 F-14s to counter the Soviet Union, but the regime change in 1979 made things complicated ever since.

For decades there were fears that surplus Tomcat parts were being smuggled to help Iran keep their F-14s flyable.

With the U.S. retired, in 2008 Congress made it illegal to sell any F-14, any parts unique to the F-14, and even the tooling or dies used to make those parts, except to U.S. museums preserving them for historical purposes.

But now comes the part worth revisiting.

Epic Fury

One of the first targets in Operation Epic Fury was destroying Iran’s Air Force on the ground—including its last F-14 Tomcats.

No matter how Epic Fury proceeds, it's pretty clear that Iran’s F-14 Tomcat fleet is out of the picture.

So it’s time for America to revive the F-14 Tomcat!

Restore

It’s easy to imagine all of the goodness that comes from restoring an F-14 to flyable condition, but that is going to be tough.

This is made extra difficult because it requires overcoming the deliberate effort to prevent this from happening.

Of the 165 Tomcats that went to the boneyard, most we’re shredded to keep the parts from falling into the wrong hands (there are 8 shells remaining).

Those shells and the few museum specimens that exist all likely have the wing sweep gear boxes cut—meaning it would take a herculean effort to rebuild it.

But nothing is impossible.

It would require a massive project supported by a foundation with help from Northrop Grumman (the F-14 builder) and even NASA (after all, the first A is aeronautics).

It could even be crowd-sourced to an extent—what better way to restore the F-14 than to have hundreds of teams across America all working to solve parts of the project.

Beyond the obvious nostalgia, the undertaking would essentially be 1,000+ real-world STEM projects with unique challenges and constraints that do not normally get taught in academics.

Reverse-engineering parts, solving for diminished manufacturing, integrating new parts into old systems, and even designing new parts and systems to mimic the characteristics of old systems.

But there is red tape to cut before the process can begin.

Red Tape

The first thing that needs to happen is to repeal Section 1035 of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 110-181) that specifically prohibits the Department of War from selling F-14 aircraft and any related parts, dies, or tooling.

This can easily be done as part of the 2027 NDAA process, which would change the law by the end of this year (assuming Congress keeps it mostly on track).

A single Congressman, Senator, or even a demand signal from the executive branch (White House, NASA, the Pentagon) could make this happen.

Next, any identified Tomcat airframe is likely going to need a GSA rule change, a formal exception, or legislation directing transfer via donation to the foundation leading the effort. Go ahead and write that in the 2027 NDAA too.

The Pentagon would also need a Tomcat-specific exception to the demilitarization policy that outlines revised instructions or an approved heritage-flight configuration that says exactly what stays and what must be removed.

Finally, the Pentagon would have to release enough manuals, records, and life-limit data to let a civilian operator build a credible maintenance and inspection program.

Fly

With Iran’s jets out of the picture, there is a clear path to restoring an F-14 Tomcat to fly—if America wants it.

It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing is ever easy.

The newest F-14 (and the last one to fly in the U.S.) is currently on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in New York. This seems like a good candidate as a starting point.

In That Number

2,200 nautical miles

BlackSea’s Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) has logged more than 2,200 nautical miles with the U.S. Navy during maritime patrols as part of Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

TRIVIA

On this day in 1990, with the help of a NASA NB-52 Stratofortress, this rocket became the first air-launched vehicle to successfully place a payload into orbit. What was its name?

A) Aurora
B) Pegasus
C) Skybolt

On the Radar

$8 Billion GPS Glitch. The Space Force is considering the total cancellation of its Next-Generation Operational Control System (OCX) after 16 years of development and $8B in spending. Despite RTX finally delivering the software last July, recent operational testing revealed "extensive system issues" across all subsystems that remain unresolved. The persistent failure of the ground segment prevents the military from fully utilizing the advanced jam-resistant M-code and L5 civilian signals onboard the GPS III satellites already in orbit.

• The Merge’s Take: We covered this GPS mess last year: what started in 2010 was expected to take 6 years and $3.9B to field in 2016 and still hasn’t delivered. While it's easy to blame RTX as the big bad prime, the reality is worse. OCX is a combination of bad contractor performance, which partly stems from bad program management and bad systems engineering—aspects the government mostly drives. Once OCX gets put out of its misery, someone will make it a case-study in program management. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin’s bridge program called  Architecture Evolution Plan (AEP) may evolve to be a permanent solution.

Battle Management Breaking Point. The U.S. Air Force’s airborne battle management fleet has hit a critical readiness state during Operation Epic Fury. With only 16 15 E-3 AWACS remaining in the inventory and 6 5 currently deployed to the Middle East, the fleet is limping along at 55% readiness, technologically obsolete, and effectively exhausted.

• The Merge’s Take: The debate over its successor continues to rage, and the people who bear the risk of indecision are the warfighters. The Air Force awarded Boeing a $2.5B contract to build 2 rapid prototype E-7 Wedgetails, and then another $2.4B to fast-track the E-7 after Congress rejected a pivot to unproven space-based sensors. But the Air Force is resisting. It tried to kill the program in 2026 (which Congress prevented) and the newly released 2027 budget shows zero research or procurement funds for the E-7 again. Keep an eye on how this plays out—and expect fireworks.

They Said It

“The Army can’t make that level though. Hell, today, our country can’t make that level, if I’m really being honest. But it is 100 percent a commercial partnership.”

— Rich Martin, Army Materiel Command’s director of supply chain management, on the evolving narrative on the SkyFoundry program.

SkyFoundry aims to manufacture thousands of cheap drones by leveraging the government’s organic industrial base (OIB).

Knowledge Bombs

• The Navy issued an RFP for 216 new jet training aircraft to replace the T-45

• Rheinmetall & Boeing partnered to offer MQ-28 fighter drones to Germany

• Sikorsky & Robinson partnered for an autonomous R66 cargo helicopter

• BAE Systems & Scale AI announced a partnership for agentic AI capabilities

• Red Cat acquired Apium Swarm Robotics to enhance drone swarming

• General Cherry partnered with Wilcox Industries to build Ukrainian drones in the US

• Saronic raised $1.75B in funding to scale autonomous ship production

• The Army tested Hornet kamikaze drones that are used in Ukraine

• The Pentagon launched Swarm Forge to accelerate drone swarm fielding

• Airbus’ interceptor drone fired a missile at another drone

• Ondas acquired World View to establish a multi-domain ISR platform

• RADD launched GLADIUS to detect RF-silent drones using acoustic sensing

• Palladyne AI integrated SwarmOS with Draganfly’s drones to enable decentralized swarms

• Northrop Grumman tested its Lumberjack drone during an Army exercise

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ANSWER
B) Pegasus. On April 5, 1990, Pegasus became the first air-launched rocket to reach orbit. Dropped from a B-52 Stratofortress at 43,000 feet, it ignited after release and delivered a 422-lb payload—Navy comms and NASA experiments—into polar orbit.