Well, the F-14 and the F-18 are two different animals, originally with two different missions. The F-14 was designed and built to be a fast interceptor to take out incoming Soviet Backfire bombers and cruise missiles with the Phoenix missile system. It only became a dogfighter by chance after when we started tangling with the Libyans in 1981.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/08/20/us-navy-fighters-shoot-down-2-libyan-jets/324a4b20-d0c7-42c2-a61a-92b51c7012eb/
The F/A-18 was envisioned as a shorter-ranged, multi-mission fighter/attack aircraft similar to the USAF F-16. It's not as big or powerful as the Tomcat, but was a generation ahead.
The original intent was for the F/A-18 to replace the aging F-4 and A-7. The F-4 and A-7 were two different planes with different maintenance, from parts to schedules and procedures. The F/A-18 was one modern plane that could be configured for either fighter or attack missions. The F/A-18 was developed from the XF-17, which competed against the XF-16; the USAF liked the lower maintenance of a single engine; the USN liked twin engines for planes that would be flying over water.
... a generation ahead.
Alluding to my post above, "Siberia" at the displays company I worked at was the F-14 Power Supply test area. The thing was a switchmode power supply cobbled together using parts not really intended for that application. It was what could be done, ca. 1970, and its reliability sucked. This was after the design had been improved by one of the gurus of the switching power supply industry, Bob Boschert. Fast-forward to 1978, and the F/A-18 power supply had a pulse width modulator IC and switching transistors designed for use in switch mode power supplies. The performance and reliability improvement was dramatic.
The F-14 HUD didn't have its own combiner to reflect the display into the pilot's vision. The wind screen was used for that. While that sounds simpler, it limited the optical performance of the system, and alignment had to be done in the plane, probably not fun. The F/A-18 HUD used a one-and-a-half pane combiner, which could be aligned at the display level, in the factory
, or in the field. The brightness and optical performance was superior, with the extra half pane improving pilots' viewing angle. I saw HUD S/N 001 ship and tested parts for S/N 002. I probably aligned S/N 003 or 004. The F/A-18 HUD was also better than the A-10 Projection Unit
(you figure out the acronym), so it was a generation and a half or two generations ahead of the F-14 HUD.
