Charlie Wolf wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:15:58 -0500, vincent p. norris
wrote:

IIRC, there where two guys who came up with the original design - both
named Tom. The name Tomcat came from that origin.

Don't know about that, but it shouldn't be too difficult to find out
if there wre two Toms. However, don't overlook the fact that Grumman
fighters had been named for cats since the F4F.

I've seen a reference to the early F-14 design as being "Tom's Cat"
and that naturally would have lead to "Tomcat". I think the "Turkey"
was based on the landing appearance but seeing as how "Tom Turkey" was
already in the common vernacular, it's easy to see how maybe some LSOs
could come up with "Tom Turkey" when talking about F-14s in the chute.
So...um, yeah. Probably all of the above.