![]() ![]() As each nation fielded a more powerful, more capable, or more advanced platform or weapon system, the other would respond in kind, dumping funding into programs aimed at offsetting any potential advantages the other seemed to have. This push for performance was mirrored by America’s Cold War opponent in the Soviet Union. Others, like the F-16 Fighting Falcon, emphasized low cost and high performance, becoming the most popular (and common) fighter platform on the globe. Jets like the B-1B Lancer combined the speed and variable-sweep wing design of a fighter with the ability to carry a massive 75,000-pound payload into the fight. ![]() This devotion to brute force and rapidly advancing aviation technology produced incredible platforms that aimed to beat enemy defenses not with stealth, but by straight-up outflying them. Today, the F-14 conjures images of a bygone era, when American airpower was predicated on fielding the fastest, most powerful, and highest-flying jets the nation’s technological capability and economic might could muster. The F-14 Tomcat may be a legendary fighter that got the Hollywood treatment in 1986’s “Top Gun,” but for a short time in the 1970s, the Navy considered tossing the Tomcat in favor of flying the F-15 from its aircraft carriers instead. ![]()
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