The Last Tomcat To Land in Lakeland

The above picture, showing the crowd and published by The Lakeland Ledger has our classmate, Keith Hawkins, in lower center, in light colored shorts with his hands in his pockets. I coulda picked him out anywhere! How 'bout you?

This information was sent to me by Keith, who was there to experience this awesome Tomcat performing in Lakeland:




LAKELAND -- Beginning Wednesday, an F-14D Tomcat will call Sun 'n Fun its home. It's the last Tomcat ever to fly in combat, a bombing mission over Iraq in February.

For free, you can see it circle around and land at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport about 11 a.m. Wednesday and make its way to the Sun 'n Fun campus. And you can see the entire Florida Air Museum for free also on Wednesday.

The Grumman F-14D Tomcat is a twin-engine, two-seat supersonic airplane that in the years since the early 1970s was the Navy's primary fighter. Its battles with Russian-built MiGs over Vietnam made both planes famous. A total of 675 Tomcats were built.

The 1986 movie "Top Gun," starring Tom Cruise as a Tomcat pilot, made the F-14 a near-household name. The film accumulated more than $350 million and at the time broke home-video sales records. The Tomcat is on a five-year loan to the museum, but will be kept in a nearby hangar.

Sun 'n Fun President John Burton said at least six planes would have had to have been removed from the museum to accomodate the Tomcat. That's why it will be housed in the hangar adjacent to Sun 'n Fun's offices.

The fighter coming to Lakeland is the oldest Tomcat left in the Navy's arsenal, it first flew in 1975 as a F-14A, returned to the factory in 1991 and emerged from a refit in 1992 as an F-14D.

On Feb. 7, 2006, it became the last F-14 to fly a combat mission over Iraq, dropping a GPS-guided 550-pound JDAM armament. The plane is a veteran of 1,762 catapult launches from carrier decks, made 1,769 carrier landings and fired 6,041 bullets.

Jim and His Reds

Our ole buddy, Jim Kerce, caught these beauties a a couple of days ago, Labor Day.

He says; "LABOR ON LABOR DAY! A 20 - 22- 23- 26 INCH RED FISH. HARD WORK BUT SOMEONE HAS TO DO IT!!"

Last week, he said; "You are allowed to keep the red fish with a minimum 18 inch length and a maximum 27 inch length. Therefore the reference to {slot size} in my previous email. I will be sending more pictures tue or wed if you would like them. We are doing well with the reds this weekend."

Man! Were they ever! Fished in the Homassassa River grass flats. Hey, Jim, it's not LABOR if you love it, huh?