Comparison: Squadron Signal F-14 Tomcat "in action" books

Squadron Signal's F-14 Tomcat in action books

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat didn't need a movie to make it one of the most beloved aircraft in US Navy history. Anyone that likes aviation could fall in love with its looks. It featured a rakish profile, often accompanied by colorful squadron plumage on the twin vertical tails.

Squadron Signal Publications liked the jet enough to make five books (to date) about it in the "in action" series. We'll take a quick look at these books with collector's notes on which ones best fit your needs.

1977 - Starting in Afterburner 

The story of these books starts in 1977 with book 1032, F-14 Tomcat in action. It's a beautiful debut for the Tomcats in this line, with a sparkling clean Tomcat of the VF-84 Jolly Rogers squadron, set against a blue sky and launching an AIM-54 Phoenix missile. 

This was the perfect squadron to start with. The Jolly Rogers have an illustrious history. They also have one of the most photogenic squadron emblems in the skull and crossbones. Besides going back to WWII, the squadron's birds also featured in several movies (The Final Countdown, The Philadelphia Experiment, Executive Decision). This was also the motif used in the Japanese animation series Macross (converted to Robotech in the United States), proving the universal nature of the appeal. Although VF-84 was disestablished in 1995, the navy kept the iconic skull and crossbones alive, transferring the logo and name to VFA-103, formerly known as the Sluggers.

Lou Drendel authored and illustrated the first F-14 Tomcat in action book. I'll cut right to it: the book is highly recommended. Yes, even with the books that would follow, Drendel's 1977 entry is the most unique of the bunch and a stellar example of how good the early "in action" books could be before they started to favor graphics over text. 

Drendel starts at the beginning in the book's introduction, touching briefly on the navy's realization that the F-111B was not going to work for them, and then heads into the first chapter to cover flight testing of the then new Tomcat. This chapter is fantastic and captures the words of LCDR Emory Brown. I can't speak for all aviation fans but listening to pilot testimonials is one of my favorite aviation-related activities. Brown goes for several pages, with great photos of early Tomcat test flights. There are also some technical drawings of things like the Tomcat's hard points and onboard cannon. One picture is of General Daniel "Chappie" James after an orientation flight in the Tomcat (James is featured a bit in the Robin Olds biography, Fighter Pilot, and though he was in the air force at the time, he was commander of NORAD later in his career, explaining how he got to ride a navy airplane). 

The next section is a joy to read too. Drendel puts in a page on the Tomcat vs Phantom air combat trials, and that stuff, though short, is candy for military aviation fans. The next few pages include nice cutaway drawings, yet again very cool stuff absent from the later Tomcat "in action" books. 

Following that is a mini-walkaround photo page, then diagrams of the pilot and NFO (naval flight officer, the radar operator in the back seat) instrument panels, an ejection sequence diagram, and ordnance configuration diagrams. 

Early "in action" books were printed in black and white, with a centerfold color insert featuring profiles of the subject aircraft in different insignia. The 1977 book has the color insert but it is split between squadron profiles and some color photos. 

Next briefly covers the Tomcat's introduction to the fleet, followed by featuring many photos of the F-14 in carrier operations. 

The next section is just awesome, as Drendel details his experience in a check flight in the back seat of a Tomcat. Several photos accompany this section and also fill out the last few pages of the book before readers are treated to another pair of great Drendel Tomcat paintings on the back cover.

Don't be put off by the vintage status of the 1977 book. For an aviation enthusiast, it might be the best one of the bunch. Drendel did a lot of research and work for this one and it shows.

1990 - New Update, New Author

Book 1105 F-14 Tomcat in action came out thirteen years after Drendel's book and also after the Tomcat had appeared in several movies, including one about the Navy Fighter Weapons School at Miramar, California...the name of the movie escapes me, but rumor is it was popular. 

The names behind this book are different. The author, Al Adcock, has written other Squadron books about naval aviation, so that's not a surprise. This time around, the artist is Don Greer. Greer and Drendel were the two heavy hitter artists for most of Squadron's history prior to 2022. 

Adcock had more than a decade's worth of material to work through in building this second "in action" Tomcat book. The introduction is new, written in a more professional style than Drendel's folksy narration, and is a bit more detailed in describing the history of the F-14's creation.

The course of the book follows the standard "in action" practice of stepping through each version of an aircraft's variants in chronological order. I'm happy to report that Adcock's book still features a good blend of photos and lots of text. The F-14A gets many pages of the jet flying or on carriers, interspersed with detail diagrams featuring things like ordnance, refueling probe, cannon, the Tomcat's chin electronics pods.

The color centerfold features just squadron jets in profile. 

The next section is more meaty material for military history fans, covering the Tomcat's combat record at the time. This is primarily the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident. 

Adcock then dedicates a couple pages to the export of Tomcats to Iran before covering the F-14B and F-14C and advanced experimental variants, along with material on the NASA F-14 and finally the F-14D.

Both the 1977 and 1990 editions are fifty pages.

2007 - Drendel and Greer team-up Issue

Book 1206 F-14 Tomcat in action would appear seventeen years after Adcock's entry, and shortly after the retirement of the F-14 by the US Navy on 22-Sep-2006. Lou Drendel returned as the author. Interestingly, Don Greer provides the painted cover and Drendel the title page. Mike McMahon, the publisher at the time, wrote of the two long-tenured Squadron contributors in the front notes, explaining that with the F-14's retirement, he felt Greer's use of a Tomcat with a sunset made for an appropriate cover. The winner is the reader, who gets yet two more great paintings from these Squadron stalwarts.

This book is also what McMahon called the debut of the All Color In Action series, where the photos in the book are mostly color. 

In addition to an introduction page, this book also has an author's foreword page. Drendel acknowledges the 1977 book and reviews how the Tomcat has seen changes and fame since then, and how the end of the Soviet Union took away the adversary the Tomcat was made to intercept, how the Tomcat found new life as a strike aircraft, and when it made its final catapult launch. His love for the plane is clear.

The formal introduction that follows is similar to the 1977 book's introduction, though Drendel reworked it with a more formal style. 

The F-14A starts the usual survey of the plane's variants. While there is some overlap in the general material, the text here reads very differently than Adcock's F-14A introduction page. Drendel also includes more details on the various manufacturing blocks of the Tomcat and adds a list of BuNos for each block. 

The color photos are great, and like the 1977 edition, this book includes diagrams of the instrument panels for both pilot and RIO (radar intercept officer). But this edition's color, larger pictures, and larger print all work to make these parts more readable than the original. This is a nice improvement.

Drendel continues to track the Tomcat variants and BuNo ranges for each. The pictures and paintings are an awesome sight and a real treat for Tomcat fans. The book ends with sections on Tomcat weapons and the Tomcat as a bombing platform. The final page shows Tomcats being dismantled at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the famous airplane graveyard. Drendel provides two paintings on the back cover. 

On one hand, it's sad to not see some inclusion of the material from LCDR Emory Brown's testing and Drendel's recollections of his Tomcat ride, but on the other, there's minimal duplication of content between the 1977 and 2007 books. 

Book 1206 weighs in at fifty-two pages.

2018 - David Doyle and the Coffee Table Book Format

Book 10206 F-14 Tomcat In Action would appear eleven years after book 1206. The book numbering, 10206 versus 1206, seemed to be a quasi-standard Squadron was using to number books that were updates to previous books on the same aircraft.  

The good: 

• Most of the photos are in color and Squadron bumped up the page count to eighty.
• Doyle packs in a lot of photos, and from Squadron TV I've learned he takes great effort to not reuse photos from previous books. There are some great pictures here, including one of a Tomcat still flying after receiving collision damage.

The not as good:

• This is one of the books where the entire book is mostly photos and captions. Still great stuff, but you're not going to get that great detail from pilot interviews. The photo captions are still good and can add useful detail.
• No Drendel or Greer artwork. Both covers and all interior graphics are photos or diagrams. 

I joke about "coffee table book format" but of course I still love the books, it's just different and I kind of get how Doyle simply couldn't be as prolific if the books were in the old format. It would take much longer to get all that data, in addition to scouring over all the photos and curating to avoid duplication.

Book 10206 clocks in at eighty pages.

 

2022 - A little later, a little Update

Book 10267 F-14 Tomcat In Action didn't wait long after the last book to show up, just four years this time. These four years were tumultuous for Squadron as it went through period of near dormancy, the pandemic, and ownership changes. 10267's numbering also is odd, as it is an update to 10206 with an additional eight pages.

I've mixed opinions on this one but the first impression is a good one, with a new artist's work gracing the cover. Now under the ownership of Brandon Lowe, Squadron is getting great digital art made by Piotr Forkasiewicz. There's an episode of Squadron TV  featuring Forkasiewicz [YouTube] where Forkasiewicz tells his story and gives a glimpse into his art process. Although the digital art can reduce some of the inefficiencies of traditional art (it's a lot cleaner not having to clean up paints, and 3D models make creating reproductions and variations much easier) it's still a ton of work.

It's interesting to note too that the indicia shows the copyright goes to David Doyle instead of Squadron. I've said in an earlier post what a smart move by Doyle that is. Traditionally the publisher gets everything and the writer gets very little in the contract rights (unless you were willing to fight for it like the scrappy Harlan Ellison, but for most of us that would mean not getting published). Not sure though if this was just a one-off special case due to the Squadron ownership changes. 

Outside of the cover, title page, and indicia page, book 10267 is identical to book 10206 through the first forty-five pages. In 10267, page 45 features the photo that was book 10206's cover. Although the picture is a lovely shot of a Tomcat with wings forward over the water, I like 10206's page 45 featuring three photos of Tomcats in service (a pair of Tomcats on a carrier deck, an F-14 catapult launch, and a Tomcat in profile in flight in low-visibility paint). 

The books re-sync for pages 46 through 62. 

Then on page 63 there's some weirdness. Both books sport a four-picture quadrant spread, and both have the same pictures in the top two quadrants. Book 10206 does something really cool; it shows in the bottom pictures Tomcats of the VF-41 "Black Aces" in a refueling op. The bottom left Tomcat is in low visibility paint, the bottom right picture shows a Tomcat with the brighter colors and red in the squadron tail markings. Both photos are from 1991, the left Tomcat is number 104, and the right is number 101. There's a story to be told here, but Doyle doesn't tell it! Why during the same time frame are these two Tomcats painted differently? Is 101 a CAG bird, which were sometimes allowed more colorful schemes? Was 104 more actively involved in combat operations and why it had the more subdued colors?

And it gets weirder. Even without the story behind the two VF-41 birds, the two photos in 10206 are an interesting contrast, enough to spark the questions I ask above. Book 10267 has the same low vis Tomcat picture in the lower left, but swaps out the lower right for a VF-1 plane preparing for a cat launch. Why did Doyle make this change? I'll have to ask someday in a Squadron TV episode. Boy what a nerd I'll look like in that show: "Uh, Mr. Doyle, why on page 63 of book 10267 was the quadrant four picture changed?" Yeah, absolute SNL "get a life" skit fodder.

Page 64 is identical in both books.

Page 65 is a win for book 10206, which features the aforementioned shot of a damaged Tomcat still flying. Book 10267 at this point starts some squadron color profile drawings. While I like the profiles, book 10206's picture is incredible and absent from 10267.

Page 66: Book 10206 has a full page for the same photo that was the curious replacement in the bottom right corner of book 10267's page 63. Despite being smaller in book 10267, the photo color looks better as book 10206's rendition seems slightly tinted.

Page 67: Book 10206 has a triple photo layout, book 10267 has the third page of the color profile drawings. But on 10267's page 68, it starts with the vertical half-page photo used on the right half of the previous book's page 67, and then the second half is the same two photos that make up the first half of book 10206's page 68. Book 10267 loses a shot of a Tomcat on a carrier during Operation Southern Watch. 

Pages 69-74 are identical between the books.

Pages 75-77 are hard to compare. There are some of the same photos used in both books but Doyle has re-sequenced several while also dropping a few of 10206's for other operations photos. One change I liked is of the special "final Tomcat cruise" emblems painted on the Tomcat's last tour (this picture is also in book 1206). 

Book 10206 ends at page 80, but both books have the same last three pages, showing the airplane graveyard and a Tomcat at sunset. 

I remain curious as to how Doyle decided what to keep and what to change, but who am I kidding, it's the Tomcat, so all the pictures are going to be good. 

Book 10267 counts in at eighty-eight pages total. 

Conclusions

If you're a Tomcat fan and can't get enough photos of the Tomcat, you'll love all of these books. And of course, if you're a completist, the advice is the same, get them all because each has something different.

If you're looking to save money and space, I would omit 10206 for 10267. If you're mostly looking for photos, I think 10267 is your top choice for the best selection of color photos, although book 10206 does have a closeup of landing gear and the damaged flight picture, photos dropped for 10267.

If you're a historian, get 1032, the 1977 book that has all the great information about the early days of the Tomcat, and maybe supplement it with Adcock's 1105 to capture some of the operational history.

If you need modeling reference photos for later variants like the F-14D, you'll have to start with Adcock's 1105 or later.

If you can buy only one? Tough call, but I would contend that the first book, 1032, is one of the best in terms of educational value and useful material. None of the other books comes close to providing the same insights into flying the Tomcat. 

Book 1206 is sort of an oddball in the mix. I like it as a sort of farewell to the Tomcat, and as a nice sequel to Drendel's original book 1032. But it doesn't have the original's storytelling, and the subsequent books would have more photos. However, it does have more of those wonderful Drendel paintings. Still a worthy acquisition for Squadron collectors.

If all the above isn't enough, Squadron published yet more Tomcat books. 

• Book 5006 is part of the short Modern Military Aircraft series. It's a trade paperback dedicated to the F-14.
• Book 5503 is the F-14 Tomcat Walk Around, featuring a full photo tour around the aircraft
• Book 6092 is part of the Squadron specials line and another dedicated study of the F-14. How it differs from 5506 is something for a future post.