View of the cockpit of NASA's F-14, tail number 991. This aircraft was the first of a series of post-Vietnam fighters, followed by the F-15, F-16, and F-18. They were designed for maneuverability in air-to-air combat. The F-14s had a spin problem that posed problems for its ability to engage successfully in a dogfight, since it tended to depart from controlled flight at the high angles of attack that frequently occur in close-in engagements. Following their initial deployment to the fleet in October 1972, the Navy's F-14s began to experience out-of-control mishaps. As it turned out, the analog automatic flight-control system on the aircraft had a simple control-law architecture that caused departures from the intended flight path under certain flight conditions. Furthermore, the control system did not provide the pilots full control authority (flight-control-surface deflections) for a recovery from spins and other departures, resulting in the loss of several aircraft and crews. In the course of the project, a NASA-Grumman-Navy team updated the F-14 simulator model since the one the Navy was using was inaccurate. The Navy then used the updated model to upgrade the fleet trainer. In partnership with Grumman and Honeywell, Langley engineers developed new control laws involving what was called an aileron/rudder interconnect (ARI) that succeeded in limiting departures and providing recoveries from spins. The F-14 with the new control laws proved to be "very responsive and maneuverable above 30 degrees angle-of-attack, with no abrupt departure or spin tendencies." The program was an unqualified success, but the Navy did not immediately incorporate the new control laws into its F-14s because of insufficient funding. As a result, mishaps with the Tomcats continued. Finally, the Navy contracted with GEC Marconi Avionics of the United Kingdom to incorporate the control laws into a digital flight-control system with minimal changes, and this was deployed on fleet F-14Ds aboard the USS Kitty Hawk and USS Roosevelt in March of 1999, decreasing the danger of out-of-control flight and making powered approaches to carrier landings much safer. Meanwhile, already in 1980 Dryden research pilot Einar Enevoldson had received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his contributions as project pilot on the F-14 stall and spin resistance tests.
