ISFAHAN, June 29 — The last of the Persian Cats are gone. By nightfall, satellite imagery confirms what airstrikes have done here: the final Iranian F-14 Tomcats, the same aircraft that once sat gleaming on this very ramp in the 1970s, have been destroyed. The scene at the major Iranian airbase outside Isfahan is one of wreckage.
American and other reconnaissance satellites photographed the destruction, primarily from Israeli airstrikes, ending a story that began nearly half a century ago. In May 1978, an American HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite overflew this same base and photographed rows of brand-new Iranian Tomcats parked on the ramp.
Forty-eight years later, the last of those aircraft are gone. The story of how the F-14 ended up here begins with the Soviet Union. Moscow began exporting its formidable MiG-25 Foxbat interceptor and reconnaissance jet by the early 1970s.
That prompted the Imperial Iranian Air Force to seek an advanced fighter that could intercept the Foxbat. In 1972, President Richard Nixon offered Iran the latest in American military technology.
The IIAF evaluated two aircraft: the F-14 Tomcat and the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. In January 1974, Iran placed an order for 30 F-14s and 424 AIM-54 Phoenix missiles. That order later grew to a total of 80 Tomcats and 714 Phoenix missiles, plus spare parts and replacement engines for ten years.
Iran already operated American F-4 Phantoms, but the F-14 was a brand new, top-line aircraft — one of the most sophisticated in the world. It had been designed to protect US Navy aircraft carriers from Soviet long-range strike aircraft. The Phoenix missile was intended to hit Soviet Badger and Backfire bombers.
In the 1970s, Iran was a close ally of the United States. That changed.
But the Tomcats remained. The only other country that flew the F-14 was Iran. For decades, they were a ghost fleet — aging, cannibalized for parts, but still flying.
On the ground here, residents describe the sound of the strikes. The base has been a target before.
But this time, the imagery tells a final story. The last of the ancient Persian Cats are gone. The F-14 Tomcat is best known to American audiences from the film Top Gun: Maverick, where the hot shot hero steals one, takes out some baddies, and lands on an aircraft carrier.
The movie never states who he stole the Tomcat from. But the only other country that flew them was Iran. What happens next is unclear.
The base at Isfahan has been a fixture of Iranian air power for decades. With the Tomcats destroyed, Iran loses its most capable long-range interceptor.
The Phoenix missile, designed for a different era and a different enemy, is gone with them.
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