Quote:
Originally Posted by JRSully
Yes, they were built in both Bethpage and Calverton further east out on the Island. Unfortunately, both have some serious ground water pollution issues happening... I was lucky enough to attend the Grumman party back in 2006 to watch the last LI F14 fly over and airshow. The landed the plane at Republic Arpt, taxied it up, ran the engines to they ran out of fuel, removed the avionics, fogged the canopy and put it on display down the road at the Grumman facilities where it sat until a month ago. Somebody bought the bldg and wanted it gone
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I think that one is now at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Long Island.
I watched a vid with Puck Howe(last commanding officer of the last F-14 squadron) and he said that when they flew Tomcats to their final destination before going to museum, after landing they blew the fire bottles in the engines to de-mil them so that they couldn't be flown again. He said he was delivering one to Florida to Snort Snodgrass and he had very specific instructions to blow the bottles because they knew Snort would be flying that thing the next day if they didn't. lol