Tomcats on Midway

Visitors to the USS Midway Museum in San Diego, California, encounter an F-14 Tomcat on static display on the flight deck. There is no information that implies an F-14 ever flew from the Midway (CV-41), and history shows that F-14 squadrons were not assigned, as the carrier’s flight deck and infrastructure could not support regular operation of the large, heavy aircraft.

The interesting thing, however, is that long ago, two F-14s did land on and launch from the Midway.

In February 1982, the Midway and the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) were on joint operations in the northern Pacific as part of NorPac exercises. At the time, U.S. naval forces were pushing on the Soviet naval forces in the North Atlantic in conjunction with NATO exercises and in the northern Pacific. Acting as commodore for the two-ship exercise in the Pacific was Captain Charles McGrail.

During this northern cruise the Midway operated about 200 miles out in the Pacific, and the Enterprise operated closer to Soviet shores. Soviet naval air defense forces quickly found the Enterprise and her embarked airwing but not the Midway. When the Enterprise took a no-fly day to wash aircraft, the Midway’s Carrier Airwing 5 F-4 Phantom fighter squadrons—the VF-151 “Vigilantes” and VF-161 “Rock Rivers”—flew top cover. Soviet air forces worked themselves into a frenzy trying to locate the Midway, which they did about 24 hours later. I recall standing on the flight deck watching a Tu-95 Bear bomber fly overhead.

One of the aircrews from VF-161 wrapped a VHS camcorder in aluminum foil and took it on an escort flight. The resulting video was shown on the ship’s television system during captain’s call. The memorable part of the video was when the starboard engine of a Tu-16 variant Badger bomber exploded, with a large fireball out the exhaust and all manner of parts exiting through the starboard engine housing. The aircraft banked toward the west, and we did not see another Soviet airplane after that.

During this period, two F-14s from the Enterprise were returning from patrol when their carrier was covered by a dense rain squall. With visibility below minimums, no tanker assets aloft, and none ready to be launched in time from the Midway, a decision was made to attempt a “short field arrestment” on the Midway.

A quick call went out to all squadrons, and an F-14-qualified landing signal officer (LSO) was located and sent aft to the LSO platform. Other F-14-qualified maintenance personnel were found to handle servicing the two aircraft when they came on board.

I was in berthing when the two aircraft landed. Word quickly spread about F-14s on the flight deck, but most people thought it was a joke. I grabbed my camera and went up to Vulture’s Row to check and captured the photo at left.

The aircraft were from the VF-114 “Aardvarks” and VF-213 “Black Lions” and were parked outboard on the port side of the angle deck. The handler announced over the 5MC that no one was to “tag” either aircraft as they came aboard on purpose, not by accident.

The following morning, with the weather clear, the aircraft were serviced, and once the normal launch cleared the forward deck, both F-14s were moved to the bow catapult on the port side. To prevent the heat from the F-14s’ engines from damaging the port jet blast deflector, it was kept in the lowered position, and the deck aft was kept clear to prevent anyone from being blown down.

The two aircraft launched from the Midway and returned to the Enterprise. I learned that the aircraft each earned a couple of small “paint tags” but otherwise were spared. It is the only time I know of that F-14 Tomcats landed on the Midway. This could be a good way to win a bar bet.