{"id":801408,"date":"2026-05-11T10:51:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T08:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/maverick-act-f14-tomcat-fly-again-congress-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T10:51:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T08:51:03","slug":"maverick-act-f14-tomcat-fly-again-congress-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/maverick-act-f14-tomcat-fly-again-congress-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tomcat May Fly Again \u2014 Congress Passes the Maverick Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n\nThere is a sound that no aviation fan forgets. A rising howl of twin Pratt &amp; Whitney TF30s at full afterburner, the variable-geometry wings sweeping back as the jet accelerates from a carrier deck at a rate that seems almost physically offensive \u2014 as if physics itself is being corrected. The Grumman F-14 Tomcat was retired from U.S. Navy service in 2006, and since then, that sound has existed only in old film stock and the memories of the men and women who flew it. For the past twenty years, getting a Tomcat back in the air has been the aviation equivalent of trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Except the bottle, in this case, was mostly crushed into two-foot squares and buried in a contractor&#8217;s yard in Arizona.\n\nThis week, that changed.\n\nOn April 28, 2026, the United States Senate passed the <strong>Maverick Act<\/strong> by unanimous consent. The bill \u2014 introduced by Senator Tim Sheehy (R-Montana) and co-sponsored by Senator Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), with a companion bill in the House introduced by Representative Abraham Hamadeh (R-Arizona) \u2014 authorises the Secretary of the Navy to transfer the service&#8217;s last three F-14D Tomcats to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. More significantly, it explicitly permits those aircraft to be restored to airworthy condition and operated at airshows and commemorative events. A flying Tomcat over American skies, for the first time in twenty years. The bill still needs to pass the House, but for the first time, this is not a dream \u2014 it is a law in progress.\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f4f4f4;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:18px 0 28px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\">\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:700;color:#333\">Quick Facts<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px;color:#444\">\n<li>U.S. Senate passed the Maverick Act unanimously on <strong>April 28, 2026<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Bill authorises transfer of the Navy&#8217;s <strong>last 3 F-14D Tomcats<\/strong> (BuNos 164341, 164602, 159437) to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama<\/li>\n<li>Aircraft may be <strong>restored to airworthy status<\/strong> for airshows and commemorative events<\/li>\n<li>Introduced by Senators <strong>Tim Sheehy<\/strong> (R-MT) and <strong>Mark Kelly<\/strong> (D-AZ); House companion bill by Rep. <strong>Abraham Hamadeh<\/strong> (R-AZ)<\/li>\n<li>Bill <strong>still requires House vote<\/strong> before becoming law<\/li>\n<li>Transfer costs zero dollars to the U.S. government \u2014 all restoration and operating costs fall to the Space and Rocket Center Commission<\/li>\n<li>Iran is the <strong>only other country<\/strong> ever to operate the F-14 \u2014 and the reason most U.S. Tomcats were destroyed rather than preserved<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\">\n<img data-opt-id=1155355584  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.twz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/F-14D.jpg\" alt=\"F-14D Tomcat pulls up after flyby past USS Dwight D. Eisenhower\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\">\n<figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">An F-14D Tomcat pulls up after a fly-by past the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) in the Atlantic Ocean, June 19, 2006 \u2014 one of the Tomcat&#8217;s final operational cruises. DoD photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Miguel A. Contreras, U.S. Navy. (Released)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What the Maverick Act Actually Does<\/h2>\n\nThe legislation is precise and deliberately narrow. The three aircraft are identified by their Bureau Numbers \u2014 164341, 164602, and 159437 \u2014 and all are currently in storage at the famous &#8220;Boneyard&#8221; at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, where retired military aircraft sit out the decades in the mercifully dry desert air. The bill requires that the jets be fully demilitarised before transfer: no munitions capability, no combat systems of any kind. The Secretary of the Navy is not required to restore or repair the aircraft before handing them over, but must provide all available maintenance and operations manuals along with any existing excess spare parts.\n\nThat last clause is where things get genuinely exciting. The bill specifically states that the Secretary &#8220;shall provide excess spare parts to make one of the F-14D aircraft flyable or able to complete a static display&#8221; \u2014 with the important caveat that all parts must come from existing Navy stock, with nothing newly procured on the government&#8217;s account. In other words, Congress has cracked open a door that has been welded shut for two decades. Whether anyone can actually walk through it is a separate and formidable question.\n\nThe Space and Rocket Center Commission, which governs what is sometimes called &#8220;Earth&#8217;s largest space museum,&#8221; bears all costs associated with the transfer, maintenance, and operation. The bill also permits the Commission to contract with qualified nonprofit organisations to assist with restoration \u2014 a model similar to the Collings Foundation&#8217;s successful return of the F-4D Phantom to flying condition, currently the only such example airworthy in the United States.\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/b\/b0\/Sen._Tim_Sheehy_official_Senate_photo%2C_119th_Congress_%28HR%29.jpg\/440px-Sen._Tim_Sheehy_official_Senate_photo%2C_119th_Congress_%28HR%29.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"flex-shrink:0\"><img data-opt-id=1992722229  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/b\/b0\/Sen._Tim_Sheehy_official_Senate_photo%2C_119th_Congress_%28HR%29.jpg\/440px-Sen._Tim_Sheehy_official_Senate_photo%2C_119th_Congress_%28HR%29.jpg\" alt=\"Senator Tim Sheehy\" style=\"width:96px;height:96px;border-radius:50%;object-fit:cover;object-position:top;display:block;border:2px solid #ddd\"><\/a>\n<div><em>&ldquo;I want to thank Senator Sheehy and his colleagues for passing this legislation aimed at preserving for history one of the most iconic aircraft ever flown. As a former U.S. Army officer, I know that many of the men and women I served with felt the same way. That is why I proudly introduced this legislation.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Rep. Abraham Hamadeh<\/strong> &mdash; U.S. Representative (R-AZ), sponsor of the House companion Maverick Act, May 1, 2026<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Iran Problem \u2014 Why the Tomcats Were Destroyed<\/h2>\n\nTo understand why this bill is remarkable, you need to understand why it was necessary in the first place. When the Shah of Iran signed a contract for 80 F-14A Tomcats in 1974, the aircraft was the most advanced carrier-based fighter in the world. Iran took delivery of 79 examples, along with the AIM-54 Phoenix missile \u2014 a weapon capable of targeting multiple aircraft simultaneously at ranges exceeding 100 miles. Then, in 1979, the Shah fell. The Islamic Revolution brought in a government that was, to put it diplomatically, not aligned with American interests.\n\nIran&#8217;s new air force found itself flying American hardware with no American support. Spare parts dried up. Pilots who knew the aircraft died or fled. Iran tried to smuggle components through front companies in Europe and Asia \u2014 and, disturbingly, sometimes succeeded. After the U.S. Navy retired its last Tomcats in September 2006, Congress moved quickly. The Fiscal Year 2008 National Defence Authorization Act specifically prohibited the DoD from selling any F-14 fighters or parts, or granting any export licence. Going further, the Pentagon paid a contractor nearly one million dollars to shred Boneyard F-14s into two-foot-square pieces, then comb through the scrap to ensure nothing useful remained. It was not preservation. It was deliberate, methodical destruction, carried out because the aircraft was too operationally valuable \u2014 and too dangerous \u2014 to leave intact.\n\nIn a remarkable coda to this story, NPR reported in March 2026 that Iran&#8217;s last operational Tomcats \u2014 perhaps ten remaining airframes \u2014 may have been destroyed in joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on the 8th Tactical Air Base in Isfahan since the outbreak of the current conflict in February. Satellite imagery subsequently confirmed the destruction of what appear to be F-14 airframes on the ramp. If confirmed, America&#8217;s long-standing reason for destroying its own aircraft may have finally become moot.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\">\n<img data-opt-id=386248435  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/theaviationist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/F-14D_VF-31_Abraham_Lincoln_Flyby.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"F-14D Tomcat of VF-31 Tomcatters flies by USS Abraham Lincoln in 2002\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\">\n<figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">An F-14D Tomcat of VF-31 &#8220;Tomcatters&#8221; flies by the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in 2002. This aircraft served the U.S. Navy for 32 years before retirement in 2006. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer&#8217;s Mate First Class (AW) Willie Davis. (Released)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The People Behind the Bill<\/h2>\n\nThe bipartisan nature of the Maverick Act is itself worth noting. Senator Tim Sheehy, the bill&#8217;s primary Senate sponsor, is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former Navy SEAL \u2014 he has skin in the game that goes beyond nostalgia. Senator Mark Kelly, his Democratic co-sponsor, is a retired naval aviator who flew A-6 Intruders off carriers and later became a NASA astronaut. He knows what it means to be strapped to a catapult on a flight deck. In the House, Representative Abe Hamadeh, an Army Reserve officer from Arizona, introduced the companion legislation on April 16 with nine co-sponsors, including one Democrat.\n\nThe Senate passed this unanimously. Not with a narrow majority, not grudgingly across the aisle \u2014 unanimously. Every single senator, regardless of party, chose to put their name behind the idea of this aircraft returning to American skies. That tells you something genuine about the F-14&#8217;s place in the national consciousness. This is an aircraft that recruited more Navy aviators through a single 1986 film than any peacetime recruitment campaign in history. Forty years after <em>Top Gun<\/em> hit cinemas, the mere possibility of one flying again is still enough to unite a hundred senators for five minutes.\n\n\n<div style=\"max-width:550px;margin:0 auto 28px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?id=2052263445551362080&#038;theme=light\" style=\"width:100%;height:400px;border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Can It Actually Fly? The Hard Truth<\/h2>\n\nHere is where enthusiasm must be tempered with engineering reality. Getting an F-14D back in the air after twenty years in a desert is not a small undertaking. It is, to borrow a phrase from project management, a very large undertaking indeed.\n\nThe three candidate aircraft have been sitting at Davis-Monthan since 2006. Desert storage is kinder than humidity \u2014 the dry Arizona air suppresses corrosion \u2014 but twenty years is still twenty years. Before a single engine is turned, the airframe and all critical subsystems would need deep structural inspections. Then comes FAA certification, which for a swing-wing supersonic naval fighter with variable-geometry inlets, a complex hydraulic wing-sweep system, and twin afterburning turbofans represents a challenge that would keep a team of engineers busy for years. The Tomcat was notoriously maintenance-intensive even when new, supported by hundreds of trained technicians and a functioning supply chain. None of that infrastructure exists anymore.\n\nSpare parts are the single biggest obstacle. The bill restricts the Navy to providing only existing surplus stock \u2014 nothing can be newly manufactured on the government&#8217;s account. Given that most Tomcat parts were either used up or deliberately shredded as part of the Iran denial programme, what remains in Navy inventory is uncertain at best. The F-14&#8217;s TF30 engines were notoriously temperamental \u2014 powerful but prone to compressor stalls at high angle of attack. Finding serviceable examples will not be easy.\n\nAnd then there is the cost of actually operating the aircraft. The War Zone calculates that the F-14&#8217;s internal fuel load of roughly 2,280 gallons costs approximately $14,500 to fill at current jet fuel prices \u2014 and the Tomcat can consume that at a truly impressive rate during high-performance manoeuvres. Operating costs for a type this complex in private hands, without military logistics behind it, are likely to be substantial. If the Space and Rocket Center expects to fly this aircraft regularly, they will need either deep pockets or a very generous sponsor \u2014 and probably both.\n\nNone of this is impossible. The Collings Foundation&#8217;s flying F-4D Phantom demonstrates that dedicated expertise with adequate funding can do extraordinary things. Jared Isaacman \u2014 NASA administrator, astronaut, and the man currently returning a Cold War-era Tornado F2 to flight in his private hangar \u2014 has shown that the appetite for this kind of aviation heritage work exists among those with the means to pursue it. The timeline, though, is almost certainly measured in years rather than months. If a restored F-14D appears at an airshow before 2030, it will represent a genuine triumph of determination over logistics.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\">\n<img data-opt-id=855707413  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/www.twz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/9214658.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"F-14D Tomcat silhouetted against the sun over the Persian Gulf 2005\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\">\n<figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A U.S. Navy F-14D Tomcat of Fighter Squadron 213 silhouetted against the Persian Gulf sun, December 4, 2005, operating from USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). DoD photo by Lt. j.g. Scott Timmester, U.S. Navy. (Released)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why This Matters Beyond Nostalgia<\/h2>\n\nIt is tempting to frame the Maverick Act purely as Top Gun-era sentiment dressed in legislative language, and there is certainly an element of that at work. The bill is, after all, named after a fictional movie character. But the story of the F-14 is also a genuine piece of American aerospace and naval history that has been, uniquely among major combat aircraft, almost entirely erased from the physical record. Virtually every other significant U.S. fighter of the Cold War era \u2014 the F-4 Phantom, the F-100 Super Sabre, the F-86 Sabre \u2014 survives in museums, flying collections, and private hands. The F-14, thanks to the Iran situation, was deliberately prevented from following that path. The Maverick Act is an attempt to correct a historical anomaly.\n\nFor those of us who believe that certain aircraft carry something of the era that built them \u2014 that the Tomcat, like the Spitfire or the Mustang before it, is more than metal and fuel \u2014 this is genuinely significant news. The House still needs to vote. The Space and Rocket Center still needs to raise the funds. The engineers still need to solve problems that have never been solved before. But for the first time since a Navy contractor fired up his shredder in 2006, the trajectory of the F-14&#8217;s story is pointing upward.\n\nAnytime, baby.\n\n<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"415\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R2tgByRCLzM\" title=\"The Insane Engineering of the F-14 Tomcat\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen style=\"border-radius:8px;margin:18px 0 28px;display:block\"><\/iframe>\n\n<p><em>Sources: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.navytimes.com\/news\/your-navy\/2026\/05\/07\/maverick-act-saves-last-3-f-14-tomcats-from-destruction\/\" target=\"_blank\">Navy Times<\/a> &bull; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twz.com\/air\/my-god-the-f-14-tomcat-may-actually-fly-again-over-the-united-states\" target=\"_blank\">The War Zone<\/a> &bull; <a href=\"https:\/\/theaviationist.com\/2026\/05\/07\/f-14d-tomcat-might-return-to-the-skies-maverick-act\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Aviationist<\/a> &bull; <a href=\"https:\/\/hamadeh.house.gov\/news\/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=844\" target=\"_blank\">Congressman Hamadeh&#8217;s Office<\/a> &bull; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/senate-bill\/4161\/text\/is\" target=\"_blank\">S.4161 &mdash; Maverick Act Text, Congress.gov<\/a> &bull; <a href=\"https:\/\/taskandpurpose.com\/news\/congress-three-f14-tomcats\/\" target=\"_blank\">Task &amp; Purpose<\/a> &bull; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stripes.com\/theaters\/us\/2026-05-08\/maverick-act-f-14-tomcat-could-fly-again-21615655.html\" target=\"_blank\">Stars and Stripes<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f4f4f4;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:28px 0 18px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\">\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px;color:#444;line-height:1.9\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/top-gun-doubled-navy-recruitment-overnight\/\" style=\"color:#5C91FF\">Top Gun Doubled Navy Recruitment Overnight<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/tag\/f-14\/\" style=\"color:#5C91FF\">All MiGFlug F-14 Tomcat Articles<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/category\/naval\/\" style=\"color:#5C91FF\">Naval Aviation on MiGFlug<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/how-can-i-fly-with-the-blue-angels\/\" style=\"color:#5C91FF\">How Can I Fly with the Blue Angels?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a sound that no aviation fan forgets. A rising howl of twin Pratt &amp; Whitney TF30s at full afterburner, the variable-geometry wings sweeping back as the jet accelerates from a carrier deck at a rate that seems almost physically offensive \u2014 as if physics itself is being corrected. The Grumman F-14 Tomcat was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":801404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[664,670],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-801408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-aviation","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Tomcat May Fly Again \u2014 Congress Passes the Maverick Act | MiGFlug.com Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/maverick-act-f14-tomcat-fly-again-congress-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Tomcat May Fly Again \u2014 Congress Passes the Maverick Act | MiGFlug.com Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is a sound that no aviation fan forgets. A rising howl of twin Pratt &amp; Whitney TF30s at full afterburner, the variable-geometry wings sweeping back as the jet accelerates from a carrier deck at a rate that seems almost physically offensive \u2014 as if physics itself is being corrected. 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