Just been looking through one of the YouTube clips above (Recent IRIAF F-14 footage - Part 1/2) with two questions in my head - just how many F-14s are we seeing being flown here and how recent?
START Singleton. Iranian, but old
0:32 5 a/c crewing in but only one seen taxying. Old film.
0:50 F4D, not an F-14.
0:54 Phoenix? upload, probably an F-14. but no evidence of its serviceability.
1:00 What engines are those?
1:11 An F-14 who's canopy works.
1:15 A pair of F-14s flying, but this is old, wet film, not even vid.
1:32 Pairs approach. They look like IRIAF F-14s, but doesn't look like "recent" footage.
2:06 Missile firing, looks like an AIM7
2:11 'Splash' could have been anything.
2:18 That's an F4 gunsight with another F4 in it.
2:25 Single F14 flying.
3:52 Possibly 2 F-14s.
6:38 Very old film of a single F-14, part of it repeated. Looks like a faked emergency for the camera.
7:47 Single F-14 in a HAS, no proof of status.
END One F-14 then Russian.
So, it may look like we're seeing lots of F-14 flying, combatting, bombing, etc, but it is actually old, wet film, so could be from anytime and we only ever see two F-14s flying at any one time. There may be some slightly newer footage to place current faces into the film.
I'm not sure (from this footage at least) that we have evidence of a big op fleet of F-14s. As I said, that's only one of the clips. I do have some credentials with video/film, I do it professionally these days and have a fighter background. I'm not just spouting.
Courtney