Goose, We're Going Back: Congress Wants to Save the Last F-14 Tomcats

If you've ever felt the need... the need for speed, you're going to like this one. The U.S. Senate just passed something called the Maverick Act, and yes, it's named exactly the way you think it is. The bill could pull three retired F-14D Tomcats off the chopping block in the Arizona desert and send them somewhere they can actually be seen, and possibly even flown, again.

What the Maverick Act Actually Does

Sponsored by Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana, the legislation authorizes the Navy Secretary to transfer three surplus F-14s currently parked at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the famous aircraft "boneyard," to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. A companion bill from Representative Abraham Hamadeh of Arizona is now sitting in the House.

The wildest line in the bill? It directs the Navy to provide "excess spare parts to make one of the F-14D aircraft flyable or able to complete a static display." Translation: one of these jets might actually fly again.

Why Were They Being Destroyed in the First Place?

Here's the part most people don't know. Nearly every retired Tomcat was systematically chopped up after 2006. The reason was Iran. The U.S. sold 80 F-14s to Iran back in the 1970s, before the revolution flipped the relationship upside down. When reports surfaced in 2006 that Iran was scavenging spare parts to keep its fleet alive, the Pentagon decided no more Tomcats would survive in storage.

That policy left only eight F-14s standing at Davis-Monthan today. For comparison, nearly 300 retired F-15s sit at the same base. The Tomcat was effectively erased.

These Aren't Just Any Tomcats

Two of the three jets the bill targets have real stories behind them:

One scored an air-to-air kill against Libyan MiG-23s in a 1989 dogfight.
Another became an accidental convertible when its canopy was jettisoned mid-flight near Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada. The pilot landed it anyway.

You can't make that up. These airframes are pieces of naval aviation history.

The Top Gun Effect Is Real

Representative Hamadeh openly admits the movie matters. "As a young man, I was inspired by the popular Top Gun movie, which featured the F-14, one of the most iconic aircraft ever flown," he said. The Navy actually agrees. In 2024, it awarded Tom Cruise the Distinguished Public Service Award, citing the original 1986 film for boosting pilot recruitment through the late 80s and early 90s.

The 2022 sequel sparked another wave of interest, and now Congress is trying to make sure the actual hardware doesn't disappear.

What Happens Next

The bill cleared the Senate on May 1, 2026. The House version is the next hurdle. If it passes, three Tomcats head to Huntsville, one of them could be restored to flight status, and Maverick fans get one more shot at seeing the real thing in the sky.

Sometimes Congress does something fun. This is one of those times.