F-14D Tomcat Patch Any Time Baby

The six-shooter on this cat's hip is there for a reason: the Tomcat mascot was asked for with a pistol on his left side, right where the F-14 carries its gun. Jim Rodriguez, a Grumman artist from 1962 to 1984, drew the cat in the early 1970s at the request of Norm Gandia, a former Blue Angels slot pilot who drove nearly all of the Tomcat's printed material. Rodriguez photographed a mackerel tabby from the Bay Shore animal pound to get the face right. The pose came from a lion cub in a cartoon book, with stripes added to turn him into a tomcat. Gandia also wrote the line on the scroll, Anytime Baby, as a dare aimed at the Air Force F-15 Eagle.

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat first flew on December 21, 1970, and joined the fleet in September 1974 with VF-1 and VF-2 aboard USS Enterprise. Its name partly honors Thomas F. Connolly, whose program nickname, Tom's Cat, stuck. The F-14D was the last of the line, 37 built new and 18 converted from F-14As, with General Electric F110-GE-400 engines and the APG-71 radar, and it first deployed in 1992. Tomcats flew combat air patrol over the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in Desert Storm, led some of the first strikes into Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, and flew in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Hung with LANTIRN pods and bombs, crews called it the Bombcat. The last combat mission came on February 8, 2006, from USS Theodore Roosevelt, and a VF-31 F-14D made the final U.S. Navy Tomcat flight on October 4, 2006.

The patch measures 4.5 inches wide by 4 inches tall, a rounded blue field over a gold scroll, all of it closed in with a black merrowed edge. The gray striped cat sits on three white ring ropes with one arm hooked over the top rope and a smug grin under his whiskers. A gold cartridge belt and a holstered six-shooter ride on his hip, and his striped tail curls back over the rope. Four white stars float around him, the same scatter of stars Rodriguez added to finish the emblem. The scroll reads ANY TIME, BABY..! in black block letters, and the iron-on backing can also be sewn on for good.

For 32 years the Tomcat flew from carrier decks with a pilot up front and a Radar Intercept Officer in back, and the cat with his line was how crews summed up the airplane. The slogan was a challenge, and squadrons wore it that way. Behind every launch stood plane captains, ordnancemen, troubleshooters and maintainers working the deck in heat, wind and spray. Two seats, two engines, two tails and the Phoenix missile made the F-14 the Navy's fleet defense fighter for a generation. Anyone who flew it, fixed it or launched it knows exactly what the cat is grinning about.

Put it in a shadow box with your squadron patches and a photo of your jet, or on the flight jacket or vest you wear to Tomcat reunions. It also makes a good gift for a son or grandson who grew up hearing about the F-14. One cat, one line, and no apology for either.