The Fatal Flat Spin Mode That Was Never Supposed to Happen The F-14 hadn’t been in the fleet a year when some handling problems at high AOA (low speed) started to bust out. Good low speed maneuvering is right up there with speed and acceleration in the list of “must haves” for a good fighter plane. It turns out that F-14 jocks were having to cross-control to get the roll performance they needed during low speed hassles. Being fighter pilots, it didn’t bother them much, but it set off alarms all

F-14 Tomcat Air Combat Maneuvering Top Gun, Miramar Naval Air Station Made by Grumman to promote the new F-14 Tomcat, this film takes place at Miramar, California and Fighter Town USA. At mark 0:33, Fighter Town USA is seen with various front line Naval aircraft including F-4 Phantoms. Here, pilots are now using lessons from the war in S.E. Asia in developing F-14 combat maneuvering syllabus, using the variable wing at different speed ranges, and getting used to the plane's sophisticated electro