The f 14 tomcat followed a history of cats in the military the f4f wildcat and the f6f hellcat that fought in the skies years before the tomcat ever bit the air in the late 1960s the us navy dropped its tfx program and decided to focus on an aircraft dedicated to fleet defence grumman had already begun developing the f 14 and was definitely headed for a cat designation the person responsible for this project was admiral tom conolly deputy chief naval operations for air the aircraft was