In 1976, personnel from the Imperial Iranian Air Force arrived to begin training on the F-14 until the overthrow of the Shah three years later. As a new decade began, the Navy opted to retire its dedicated RA-5C Vigilante and RF-8A reconnaissance aircraft and the role of reconnaissance was introduced to the F-14 community with the Tactical Air Reconnaissance Pod System (TARPS) and VF-124 began to teach air and ground crews how to operate the TARPS pod. By December 1988, VF-124 had trained 1502 aircrew, over 14,400 maintenance personnel and flown over 153,193 flight hours and VF-124 also achieved 124 days without any Foreign Object Damage. VF-124 continued to operate the F-14A while VF-101 began training Atlantic Fleet F-14 crews on the re-engine F-14B Tomcat.