F-14 Tomcat

New York: Military Press, 1991. Presumed First Edition, First printing Thus. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Quarto, 128 pages. Profusely illustrated (color). DJ has small tear at top of front near spine. A Western Australian by birth, Tony Holmes was a published aviation author by the age of 20. Moving to England in 1988, he has worked in aviation publishing ever since. Tony has written more than 50 books and edited a further 300 in the past 25 years. Passionate about naval aviation, he has conducted more than 30 carrier embarks on US Navy and Royal Navy vessels across the globe, including nine visits to supercarriers sailing in the waters of the Northern Arabian Gulf whilst they were conducting operations over Iraq and Afghanistan. Tony Holmes has worked as Osprey's aerospace editor since 1989, having previously served as an author/photographer for this publishing house in Australasia. He established the critically acclaimed and hugely popular Aircraft of the Aces series in 1994. Designed to improve on the F-4 Phantom's air combat performance, the Tomcat entered service in 1974 with the US Navy, replacing the F-4 Phantom II. The winning Grumman design reused the TF30 engines from the F-111B, though the Navy planned on replacing them with the F401-PW-400 engines then under development by Pratt and Whitney for the Navy. Though lighter than the F-111B, it was still the largest and heaviest U.S. fighter to ever fly from an aircraft carrier. The F-14 had its first kills on 19 August 1981 over the Gulf of Sidra and went on to serve in Operation Desert Storm. An integral part of US naval aviation since 1974, the F-14 has proven itself both on land and at sea with over 15 frontline and reserve squadrons. Bloodied in combat on two separate occasions against the Libyan Air Force, the F-14 has easily come out on top, against both the Sukhoi Su-22 Fitter and the MiG-23 Flogger. This volume takes the reader aboard ship with a Tomcat squadron and catapults the reader off on a combat air patrol over the Persian Gulf or the Mediterranean Sea. Illustrated with 128 action packed photographs never before published, this volume is a Tomcat tour de force from cover to cover.