Tomcats were conceived and designed to be air superiority fighters but eventually evolved into strike fighters at the later half of their 30+ year service career. It is ironic that these beautiful birds killed more targets on the ground with their laser guided bombs & JDAMs than their air-to-air missiles ever did in the air. I believe US Navy Tomcats tallied less than 10 kills through the years. Early Iranian Tomcats claimed 159 air-to-air victories during the Iran-Iraq War (unconfirmed).
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This Tomcat depicts one of the aircraft that participated in the early stages of Operation Enduring Freedom, operating out of the USS Theodore Roosevelt Oct'01-Mar'02. Fightertown decals were used and GBU-24 bombs and associated launcher were cannibalized from a defunct Academy kit project.
I applied only light weathering and kept this bird fairly clean compared to how they often looked after months at sea. I didn't want the heavy weathering to detract from the natural design beauty of these aircraft. Enjoy!
Sal
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