Grumman F-14 Tomcat | Joe DiMaggio

Hi to All the Ships at Sea,

Talk to any fighter pilot from any era and they’ll tell you the only two planes that matter are P51 Mustang (propeller plane) and the F14 tomcat jet plane. TIME Magazine sent me on an assignment to photograph the last F14 to come off the assembly in Grumman. Suffice it to say it was very prestigious. Like all my assignments I always try to go a little bit further. So I got permission from the commanding officer to mount two cameras in the back with the weapons control officer. I used a NikonF with motor drive and 15mm lens, Kodachrome 64. at 1/250 at f/8. In a couple weeks you’ll see another P51 blog and see how many G’s I can go through.

All the best,

Joe D

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Adorama Learning Center

There are rules, and there are new rules. The new rule is to never look backwards, instead always look forwards. I’m starting to get it; it takes a while but no one ever said I was a fast learner. While searching the archives for my new book, I stumbled across a story I did for Time Magazine on the last F-14 Tomcat that was to be built. The story was very important to me, but I had no idea how important it would actually be. I absolutely fell in love with the Tomcat. I believe the basic design was done in 1966 and it’s been improved upon and modified scores of times ever since. When you talk to pilots about two planes, their eyes will light up; one of those planes is the P-51, and the other the Tomcat. I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Chuck Yeager at the Reno Air Races and he watched me climbing out of the P-51 Precious Metal. Without me asking a question, he smiled and said “You know what I like about that damn plane? You can fly it 300 feet off the ground, hit the stick and make a hard left around a barn. With these damn new planes, if you want to do that you’ve got to fly to a different state before you can make a left”. We both laughed. I will follow up on Precious Metal next week. To all the ships at sea, let’s go out and make some photos. Check out my Adorama TV show.

http://youtu.be/7DjOy2hN5NI

http://youtu.be/H48CJGZXijo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3YFNXjr-5M&feature=plcp

Photo above: Canon film camera; yes, I don’t remember which one, 14mm lens, on top of a cherry picker, ASA (ISO) 64, 1/15 of a second, at 2.8

Photo below: Canon camera, 300 2.8 lens, ISO 64, 1/100 of a second, at 2.8