Here is why the F-14 is the best interceptor there is. And dont tell me the Lightning can do this, cuz it cant, and dont tell me all this would not matter because the Lightning would fly around and hit all the targets before the Tomcat could even track them. The Lightning never had these capabilites that the Tomcat does.
The F-14 can track up to 24 targets simultaneously with its advanced weapons control system and attack six with Phoenix AIM-54A missiles while continuing to scan the airspace.
Overall, the Navy's Grumman F-14 Tomcat is without equal among today's Free World fighters. Six long-range AIM-54A Phoenix missiles can be guided against six separate threat aircraft at long range by the F-14's AWG-9 weapons control system.
The cockpit is fitted with a Kaiser AN/AVG-12 Head-Up Display (HUD) co-located with an AN/AVA-12 vertical situation display and a horizontal situation display. A Northrop AN/AXX-1 Television Camera Set (TCS) is used for visual target identification at long ranges. Mounted on a chin pod, the TCS is a high resolution closed circuit television system with two cockpit selectable Fields Of View (FOV), wide and narrow. The selected FOV is displayed in the cockpit and can be recorded by the Cockpit Television System. A new TCS, in development, will be installed in all three series aircraft. Electronic Support Measures (ESM) equipment include the Litton AN/ALR-45 radar warning and control system, the Magnavox AN/ALR-50 radar warning receiver, Tracor AN/ALE-29/-39 chaff/flare dispensers (fitted in the rear fuselage between the fins), and Sanders AN/ALQ-100 deception jamming pod.
All this taken from:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-14.htm
Oh and by the way unlike the Lightning, the Tomcat has actual combat intercepts. (If I am wrong and the lightning has ever intercepted anything but the Concorde, please correct me)
an E-2C of the VAW-124 detected two Libyan fighters taking off from the Ghurdabiya-Sirte AB, and moving north at high speed. Two Tomcats - actually belonging to two different CAP-pairs - were sent to intercept, in what was expected to be an exact copy of similar events from the previous day. However, shortly before the two formations passed by each other, the lead Libyan Su-22 apparently fired a K-13M missile towards the lead Tomcat. A controversy developed subsequently if the Libyan indeed fired a missile, or jettisoned a tank, which then - due to the fuel streaming out of it - looked like a missile, but the USN pilots were not to stop the Libyans and ask any questions. As the Sukhois flashed by, both Tomcats turned hard port, reached favorable positions and started to fire AIM-9L Sidewinders. The Libyan leader was shot down by the Tomcat wingman, the "Fast Eagle 102", and the Libyan wingman was shot down by the leader of the US formation and CO VF-41, Lt.Cdr. Henry Kleeman, which flew as "Fast Eagle 107". Both Libyan pilots ejected, and were apparently recovered by Libyan rescue teams.
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_356.shtml