Iran Flew US Military F-14 Tomcat Fighters to War and Launched a Mach 4 Missile ‘Made in the USA’ To Destroy 78 Aircraft

Summary and Key Points: The United States sold Iran 80 F-14 Tomcats — the most advanced interceptor in the world at the time — built to defend American aircraft carriers from Soviet bombers. Two years later, the Shah was gone; the Islamic Republic had the jets, and Washington could do nothing about it. Then Saddam Hussein invaded. Over the next eight years Iranian crews flew American fighters carrying American missiles against Iraq’s Soviet-built air force, and by some accounts they claimed as many as 150 aerial victories with them. Iraqi pilots learned to check whether Tomcats were airborne before taking off, and to turn around when the answer was yes.

The F-14 Tomcat Flew for Iran 

The Iran-Iraq War that dominated the headlines in the 1980s is viewed as one of the most vicious wars of the twentieth century. Lasting a decade, defined by incredible brutality, trench warfare of the kind that the world experienced in the First World War, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq attempted to annihilate what was then the new Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Ultimately, Saddam failed. Iran proved itself too hard to destroy. One of the things that the Iranians had at their disposal was the F-14 Tomcats that the Americans had given the Shāh of Iran shortly before the Islamic Republic overthrew the Iranian monarch in 1979.

The F-14 Tomcat Gets 78 Kills in Iran-Iraq War

Shortly before the Iraqis formally invaded Iranian territory, on September 7, 1980, an Iranian Tomcat destroyed an Iraqi Mi-25 helicopter with its powerful 20mm cannon. A week thereafter, another Iranian Tomcat shot down an Iraqi MiG-21 with an AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missile. This was the first wartime Phoenix victory credited to an Iranian F-14.

After that phase of the conflict, Tehran recognized the importance of the F-14 Tomcat to the besieged nation’s air-defense network and fully incorporated it into that system. 

Several of these warplanes were promptly stationed around Tehran and the important industrial facilities on Kharg Island, the country’s main oil-export terminal.

The Tomcat’s potent AWG-9 radar allowed Iranian Tomcat crews to see Iraqi aircraft over-the-horizon. Meanwhile, the mighty AIM-54 Phoenix gave Iranian pilots powerful options to strike Iraq’s Soviet-made warplanes from beyond visual range (BVR), increasing their chances of survival when fighting their Iraqi foes.

The psychological effect on Saddam’s Iraqi Army was severe. Indeed, reports from the era suggest that Saddam’s typically cowardly forces would abandon missions if they knew that the F-14s were being deployed to counter them. 

So, a pair of F-14s could scatter an Iraqi force without ever having to fire a shot.

And when those Tomcats did engage the Iraqis with the AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, the Iranians could pack quite a punch against Saddam’s forces, which, on paper, looked more powerful than the Iranian military.

Yet, the Iranians were very much the underdogs.

The Iranian Revolution that occurred the year before the war began, followed by the harsh sanctions that the West subjected the Islamic Republic to, ensured that maintaining the F-14s under the intense conditions of total war with Iraq was difficult.

Between 1984 and 1986, the operational strength of Iran’s F-14 fleet declined to a mere 40 percent. Iran was forced to be more cautious with its finite fleet of F-14s thereafter. 

Still, aviation historians Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop claim that Iran’s F-14s scored 78 wins during the Iran-Iraq War, thanks to the potent AIM-54 Phoenix missile.

The two aviation historians expanded on those claims, assessing that Iran’s F-14s achieved a total of 150 aerial victories.

Of course, Smithsonian Magazine cautions that Iran’s spotty record-keeping from that era makes it difficult to confirm Cooper and Bishop’s claims. 

Living In the Danger Zone: The AIM-54A Phoenix Attacked at Mach 4

The US-made AIM-54A Phoenix air-to-air missile was clearly the definitive weapon of the air war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s.

The Americans first developed this missile to counter the Soviet bomber threat to US Navy aircraft carrier battle groups. 

The AIM-54A is a nearly 1,000-pound missile carrying a 132-pound warhead. That weapon employs its own radar seeker during the terminal portion of an engagement to score a lethal hit on a targeted enemy aircraft. 

Indeed, the pairing of the AWG-9 radar and the AIM-54 missile on the Tomcat ensured that the F-14s could attack up to six enemy aircraft at once–at ranges exceeding 100 miles! 

And it wasn’t only accuracy and distance that made the AIM-54 such a lethal aid to the Iranian defense against Saddam’s invading army.

Speed was one of the missile’s greatest attributes.

And against Iraq’s Soviet-made warplanes, that combination of speed, radar capability, and range let the Iranians punch well above their weight. 

In fact, the Iranians employed the AIM-54 on other American-made warplanes, such as the F-4E Phantom.

Smithsonian Magazine recounts a July 1982 engagement between an Iranian F-4E Phantom and an Iraqi MiG-23.

According to that story, the Iranian plane fired an AIM-54 at the MiG-23, destroyed it, and destroyed the other Iraqi plane that was flying nearby. 

Iran’s F-14s Made the Difference Against Iran

Thus, the F-14 Tomcats in Iran’s arsenal were not just a holdover from the bygone era of the Shāh.

The Tomcats formed an essential element of Iran’s defensive air war against neighboring Iraq.

Iranian pilots, using the F-14 and the AIM-54 Phoenix, demonstrated that the Americans had developed one of the world’s best fighters of that time and a truly dynamic missile. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran has demonstrated repeatedly over the course of its existence that it is both a brutal operator and a highly competent, dedicated force that will use anything it can to ensure its strategic objectives are met.

The Iranian use of the F-14 Tomcat and the AIM-54 Phoenix during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s proves this to be true.

About the author: Brandon J. Weichert

Brandon J. Weichert is the Senior National Security Editor at 19FortyFive.com. He also manages The Weichert Brief on Substack. Weichert also hosts “National Security Talk” on Rumble. He is the author of four bestselling national security books, the most recent of which is A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine (Encounter Books). Follow him via Twitter/X @WeTheBrandon.