The Fairey Fulmar was the F-14 Tomcat of its day, and I will prove it.

Comparing the Fairey Fulmar to the Grumman F-14 Tomcat is sacrilegious, but I don’t care. One was a stolid British 260-mph, piston-engined monoplane with a reputation for mediocrity; the other, a Cold War sex-and-death god jet eternally glowing in the California sun, attended to by greased, muscular beachball players and beautiful civilian advisors. The 1942 Admiralty instructional film ‘Ditching Without ‘Hedging’ is certainly no Top Gun (and Ships with Wings is no Ditching Without Hedging). ‘Winkle’ Brown lacked the swagger of Maverick. Yet, when stripped of their technological eras, their doctrinal DNA is identical, and they had eerily similar histories. ‘Madness!’ you shout at me as you prepare for a navy-style barroom brawl, but I have a smashed bottle to defend myself and have leapt onto the bar. Fights on!

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10. Grumman & Fairey, separated at birth?

Like Sally Hawkins’ character in The Shape of Water, Grumman made a name for itself by embracing rugged amphibians (while Fairey made its name with similarly wet aircraft with rather more varied aquatic habits). Both manufacturers’ aircraft were known for being tough and pleasant to handle, and both made seaplanes and stars of carrier warfare. Fairey produced the signature FAA torpedo bomber of the war, the Swordfish, and Grumman did the same for the US Navy with the Avenger. Both Fairey and Grumman produced aircraft pivotal to some of their navies’ greatest victories, helping sink or cripple some of the most significant capital ships of the Second World War. Both also created the highest-scoring naval fighters of their respective national navies: Fairey’s Fulmar and Grumman’s Hellcat. Both leapt into the 1950s with ugly twin-engined jobs, Fairey with the grotesquely magnificent turboprop Gannet and Grumman with the piston-engined S-2 Tracker. Both were designed as carrier-based anti-submarine warfare aircraft, and both later spawned airborne early-warning derivatives: the Gannet became the Gannet AEW.3, while the S-2 was related to the E-1 Tracer. Both proposed very large, heavy, complex fighters with long-range active radar missiles, though Fairey’s FD.3 was not made, and Grumman’s F-14 was.

The Fairey Rotodyne and Grumman 698 (1980s) were both wonderfully ambitious attempts to make VTOL transport aircraft practical.

The 698 was a later Grumman V/STOL transport concept developed for possible US Navy use, using tilting engine nacelles. Both ended their independent design lines with a sexy single-engined X-plane exploring a new wing shape: Fairey with the Delta 2 and Grumman with the X-29.

“one squadron is on record as having adopted the tactic of releasing sheets of toilet paper from the rear cockpit in an attempt to deter pursuing enemy fighters as nothing more potent was available..”

9: Fulmar ace versus Tomcat ace

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is credited with five fighter kills across Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick: three MiG-28s and two Su-57s, all while flying the F-14 Tomcat. He survives both films, serves as a test pilot, and continues flying operationally. But he is only fictional. Real-life Fleet Air Arm ace Commander Stanley “Stan” Orr was credited with 17 enemy aircraft destroyed during the Second World War, over eight of them while flying the Fairey Fulmar. He later flew Grumman cats (long before Maverick), the Martlet/Wildcat and the Hellcat. Orr also served in Korea, flying Sea Furies, and, like Maverick, became a test pilot. He died in 2003.

If we choose the real-life greatest fighter aces of each type, the similarities are even more startling. Iranian ace Brigadier General Jalil Zandi and Orr both scored eight confirmed kills in their primary aircraft—Zandi in the F-14 and Orr in the Fulmar. Both survived their respective wars (Zandi fought in the Iran-Iraq War). Both went on to distinguished careers after combat. Zandi was sentenced to ten years in prison and threatened with execution for his opposition to a cruel Lt Col overly loyal to the regime, but was released after six months. He died in 2001 in a car accident; Orr followed two years later, dying in 2003. Colonel Fereydoun A. Mazandarani may have scored more, claiming 11 weapon-confirmed kills and five claimed manoeuvre kills in our 2020 interview with him; regardless, the totals for highest ace on type remain extremely similar.

(Orr is generally quoted as 8.5-11 kill claims on Fulmars, Zandi as eight confirmed and three probable on F-14; it is probably fair to say both had around 8 or 9 confirmed).

8. Urgent Salvage of projects involving bombers and the air force

Neither aircraft began as a clean-sheet design; both were rapidly developed to meet urgent naval requirements, replacing failed programmes (that featured the air force) by aggressively harvesting existing technology.

The Fulmar: The Fairey P.4/34 was originally intended for the RAF for use as a light bomber. After earlier Admiralty requirements failed, Fairey responded to Specification O.8/38 for a long-range carrier fighter by adapting the existing P.4/34 airframe and aerodynamic work for carrier operation, adding folding wings, arrestor and catapult equipment, naval communications, and other modifications. It helped that it was fighter-like in its sleekness. No new gun or engine was developed for the aircraft.

The F-14: When Secretary Robert McNamara’s joint-service General Dynamics F-111B collapsed due to crippling weight issues, the US Navy faced an urgent fleet defence vacuum. Grumman salvaged the situation by transplanting the F-111B’s core technologies—its AWG-9 radar, Phoenix missile system, TF30 engines, and variable-geometry wing research—directly into the new VFX (F-14) airframe. The F-14 Tomcat was approved for development in February 1969, after the U.S. Navy selected Grumman’s design for the VFX fighter requirement. It first flew on 21 December 1970. So, from approval to first flight, it was about 22 months. Like the Fulmar, its apparently miraculous short development was something of an illusion, as work had actually been going on since 1966. As the main subcontractor, Grumman, knew pretty early on that the F-111B was a turkey (1966 test results were bleak and a 1967 report revealed it would be very vulnerable to Soviet fighters). So the Model 303, later F-14, was developed as a potential successor.

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Both were the Fulmar and Tomcat heavy, specialised fleet-defence fighters engineered to solve the same naval strategic problem. Though the F-14 was agile for an interceptor, it could not match the other teen fighters of its generation. Likewise, the Fulmar was nowhere near as agile as the land-based Spitfire. Neither the Tomcat nor the Fulmar was designed primarily to excel in dogfights. Both were conceived around the concept of Outer Air Defence—engaging incoming threat waves long before enemy strike aircraft could launch anti-ship weapons against capital ships.

7. The Dedicated Second Crewman (RIO /Observer)

Beyond the F-14’s swing-wings, the defining hallmark of both aircraft was the second seat, recognising that open-ocean air combat was far too complex for a single pilot.

The Fulmar: The Admiralty specified a two-seat layout so a dedicated Observer could assist the pilot during long over-water flights. Operating without radio beacons over featureless marine environments, the second crew member provided critical dead-reckoning navigation, managed long-range communications, and performed visual scouting. A second pair of eyes was especially useful when scanning the sea for aircrew or sailors on liferafts.

The F-14: The Tomcat paired a pilot with a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the back seat. The RIO was essential to operate the powerful Hughes AWG-9 radar, track multiple high-speed targets simultaneously, and manage complex long-range missile engagements.

6. Most famous backseaters

‘Goose’ and Lieutenant Mark Fownes Somerville were both back-seat aircrew, but their roles differed. Goose was Maverick’s fictional F-14 RIO, handling radar, navigation, communications and weapons systems. Somerville was a real Fleet Air Arm observer in the Fulmar, responsible mainly for navigation, wireless communication and observation. Goose had no confirmed kills; Somerville (and pilot Rupert Tillard) were credited with six Italian aircraft destroyed together. Both died in service: Goose in a training accident, Somerville in combat in May 1941.

5. Outsized Ammunition and Weapon Reserves: Flying Battleships

“The Royal Navy at last had a shipboard fighter packing healthy firepower and coupling this most desirable of attributes with a performance which could at least be considered respectable.”

–—Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown, Wings of the Navy

An actual fulmar, a seabird, will spit a foul-smelling oily substance at predators who get too close. It is similarly unwise to anger a Fairey Fulmar, as it was packing heat. The F-14 was also extremely well-armed. Both aircraft were designed around an armament-first philosophy that prioritised sustained firepower over pure speed or vertical climb rates, serving as flying armouries for attrition warfare at sea. The Fulmar had eight guns; the Tomcat had up to eight missiles.

The Fulmar: its designers equipped it with a staggering 6,000 rounds of .303 ammunition (750 rounds per gun across eight Brownings)—double the standard load of a Spitfire or Hurricane—allowing crews to conduct prolonged Combat Air Patrols (CAP) and multi-wave attacks without running dry. Later variants had a rather wild 1,000 rounds per gun for a total of 8,000 rounds.

The F-14: The Tomcat could carry eight air-to-air missiles (though not if they were the large heavy Phoenix). The Tomcat could take off (if not land) with six AIM-54 Phoenix missiles. Normally, a smaller number of Phoenix missiles were combined with AIM-7 Sparrows, AIM-9 Sidewinders, and 675 rounds of 20mm Vulcan cannon ammunition. The Phoenix was the world’s longest-range air-to-air missile, giving the F-14 a formidable