The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is a twin-engine, variable sweep wings capable of supersonic flight. The aircraft is crewed by a Pilot and a Radar Intercept Officer who share the tasks of navigation, target acquisition, ECM and weapons usage. The Tomcat was operated by the United States Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force only. The name "Tomcat" is said to come from the call-sign used by Vice Admiral Thomas Connolly which conformed to the USN tradition of giving Grumman aircraft feline names.
F-14D BuNo 164604 c/n 632 was the last Tomcat to be produced and was delivered to the USN on July 10, 1992 and assigned to the Test & Evaluation units VX-4 and VX-9 as Vandy 1. VX-9 “Vampires” was created when VX-4 and VX-5 merged. The first F-14 to wear the black livery was 159853 and 164604 was the last. On July 2, 2004 164604 made its last flight when it flew to NAS Oceana and serves as gate guard and repainted as VF-103 “Jolly Rogers”.
