special relations cat

[mrvr6]

right iv started another whiff build

in the late 90s when it became apparant that the us navy intended to retire the tomcat the uk made a bold and unusual request for a few non combat ready cats to be leased to the raf. this request was promptly turned down not to be deterred the british labour government made a bizzare but in hindsight brilliant discission and asked baroness thatcher to try to persude the us goverment to reverse the discission. she arranged what can only be described as a private air display by the legendary red arrows using 9 in service tomcats needless to say the americans were bowled over by the sight .

6 months later thatcher manadged to not only procure a dozen f14s but was also able to persuade the americans to provide them free of charge on the understanding that they be stripped all sensitive hardware ie radar and weapons system etc and britain agree to pay the us to rebuild the fleet from the ground up thereafter the us would service and maintain the entire fleet

when asked by journalists how she was able to get the americans to agree to such an undertaking she just grinned and said "persistance dear"

unnofficial sources in america claim tha thatcher terrorized and bullied american diplomats to the point where they wouldve signed nearly anything so long as she promised to return to the uk!

work began in 2005 the underbelly was filled in flush all the avionics and weapon systems were removed as was the tailhook and all other non military equipment the end result was a cleaner airframe that had been reduced in weight by over 25% from the service aircraft which gives the red arrows supercats steller performance and even with a full fuel load it still has a power to weight ratio exceeding 1:1

heres the only progress pic so far

[Daniel]

Cool, interesting to see what these look like.

Dan

[TaiidanTomcat]

Nice and Red!

[sinnerboy]

.....and? .....