f14

Avionics and flight controls
The cockpit has two seats, arranged in tandem. The pilot and radar intercept officer (RIO) sit in Martin-Baker GRU-7A rocket-propelled ejection seats, rated from zero altitude and zero airspeed up to 450 knots.[20] They have a 360° view in a canopy that is also fitted with four mirrors, one for the RIO and the others for the pilot. The canopy is still fairly traditional; being in three parts, but the overall structure is large and gives good visibility. The crews have classical controls and many older instruments, with an analog-digital hybrid lay out. Only the pilot has flight controls.[7] No dual control version was ever made for the F-14, so the pilot starts to learn how to fly the machine using other aircraft and simulators. The main control systems are a HUD made by Kaiser, a VSI and a HSI display, that gives data on airspeed, navigation and other information. The F-14A and F-14B Tomcat do not have multi-mode displays, unlike the later F-16s and F/A-18s.

The nose of the aircraft is large because it carries not only the two person crew, but also a large number of avionics systems. The ECM and navigation suite are extremely comprehensive and complex. The main element is the Hughes AWG-9 X-band radar, which in the initial version included a lightweight 5400B digital system with 32 kilobytes of RAM. The antenna dish is a 36-inch (91 cm) wide planar array, uses 10 kW of power, and has integrated IFF antennas. There are available several search and tracking modes, such as Track-While-Scan (TWS), Range-While-Search (RWS), Pulse-Doppler Single-Target Track (PDSTT), and Jam Angle Track (JAT). A maximum of 24 targets can be tracked simultaneously, and six can be engaged in TWS mode up to around 60 miles (100 km). Pulse-only STT mode has a maximum range of around 96 statute miles (150 km). The maximum search range can exceed 120 statute miles (190 km) and even a fighter can be locked onto at around 72 - 90 statute miles (120–140 km). Cruise missiles are also possible targets with the AWG-9, since this radar can lock onto and track even small objects at low altitude when in a Pulse-Doppler mode. The radar antenna dish is in the nose, and most of the radar avionics are located just behind the nose, near the pilot's position. Other avionics (such as IFF, communication radios, direction-finding equipment, etc) are near the RIO's position, and are mostly integrated into the AWG-9 display system.

Tomcats also feature electronic countermeasures (ECM) and radar warning (RWR) systems, chaff/flare dispensers in the tail, fighter-to-fighter data link, and a precise inertial navigation system. The early navigation system was purely inertial. Initial coordinates were programmed into the navigation computer, and a gyroscope in the system would track the aircraft's every motion. These aircraft motions were sent to the navigation computer, allowing it to calculate the jet's distance and direction from the initial starting point. Later, GPS was integrated into this inertial system, providing not only more precise navigation, but providing redundancy in case either system failed.

The chaff/flare dispensers were located on the belly, at the very tip of the tail, just to one side of the arresting hook. The dispenser contained several cylinders, into which either flares or chaff could be loaded in any combination. The RWR system was arranged with 4 antennae around the aircraft, and could roughly calculate the direction and the distance of many different types of radar from various aircraft and missile types. The RWR set could also display the status of the tracking aircraft's radar. It could differentiate between search radar, tracking radar, and missile-homing radar. The electronic countermeasures system could analyze incoming radar signals and send confusing radar signals back to the source.

The original set of sensors also comprised an infrared sensor under the nose in a "chin pod": it was AN/ALR-23 with indium antimonide detectors, cooled by a self-contained Stirling cycle cryogenic system, but this proved ineffective, and was replaced with a new system. This was an optical system, Northrop AAX-1, also called TCS (TV Camera Set) and was used to help pilots visually identify and track aircraft, at least on day missions,[7] up to a range of more than 60 miles for large aircraft (a zoom function was included to help with small fighters). The TCS could be "slaved" to the radar to follow whatever the radar is tracking, and the radar could be slaved to the TCS to track whatever the camera "sees." Both the crew have access to the images on their displays. Despite its utility, for a long time most F-14s did not have the system added. Bill Gunston reported that even in 1983, only one in eight aircraft had the system fitted.[21]

A dual IR/TCS system was adopted for the later F-14D variant, with an ECM antenna fitted as well in the same mast. This meant Tomcats could be configured with only an ECM antenna, or the IR sensor, or TCS, or many combinations thereof. The Tomcat's ESM system consists of many subsystems: RWR, ECM, and chaff/flare dispensers in various parts of the fuselage, nose, tail and wings. This was a marked difference with many previous fighter aircraft in that some did not even include a simple RWR.