While it's true The F/A - 18 Hornet is slower than the F-14 Tomcat and The Cat can beat the hornet in high speed vertical dogfight , The Hornet can force the Cat to go horizontal instead, Hornet is much more agile and can do tight horizontal turns, like the pirouette maneuver, a high AoA maneuver that allows the pilot to reposition the nose laterally at very low speeds. It can be very handy in a low speed and thus all boils down to the skills of the Combat Pilot.You can't beat the speed of The F-14 Tomcat with F/A - 18 when it comes to a dog fight. I'd have F-14 Tomcat please.
Like in one of the missions I flew in DCS. Guns Dogfight vs 2 Su-25s. Did a really tight slow speed 180 degree horizontal turn in an "instant" in the Hornet, not possible in the Cat, at 8:34 ish:
The Cat is The Queen Of Vertical Dogfights, no doubt about that.
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