Pilkington: Urgent F-14 order

The F-14 aircraft, made by Northrop Grumman, and the F/A-18 C/D, E/F, make up the bulk of the US Navy carrier aircraft.The F-14 first flew in December 1970 and remained in production until 1992.During that time a total of 712 aircraft were delivered from Grumman's facility on Long Island in New York. And although over the years there have been many upgrades to this aircraft,the special feature of the F-14, the moveable wings, has never changed.

The sweep of the wings is automatically controlled for peak flight performance and the pilot can manually move the wings by overriding the controls.

Pilkington Aerospace has provided canopies and windshields for the F-14 from the development through to production. And over the past 30 years, Pilkington has built thousands of canopies in support of the aircraft.