Grumman F-14 Tomcats have been involved in two main projects at NASA Dryden. NASA 991, an F-14 Navy Tomcat designated the F-14 (1X), the 1X signifying that it was Grumman's experimental testbed, was used at Dryden between 1979 and 1985 in extensive high-angle-of-attack and spin-control-and-recovery tests.

The NASA/Navy program totaled 212 flights. NASA 991 was delivered back to the Navy on September 6, 1985. NASA 834, an F-14 Navy Tomcat, was used at Dryden in 1986 and 1987 in a program known as the Variable-Sweep Transition Flight Experiment. This program explored laminar flow on variable sweep aircraft at high subsonic speeds.