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I have a confession to make


CRJ_simpilot

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I'm 38 years old and I have not seen the movie Top Gun. I have seen Days Of Thunder though. HAHAHA :D Actually watched that movie when I was 10 or 11 at the outdoor in Riverside, California.

 

So am I missing anything? I saw the movie Hot Shoots and it mimics Top Gun in a lot of ways I guess.

 

I only mention this because as I was flying I play music on Pandora and Highway To The Danger Zone came on. Was interesting as I was making my descent into Adak, Alaska. :pilot::cool::D

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I'm 38 years old and I have not seen the movie Top Gun. I have seen Days Of Thunder though. HAHAHA :D Actually watched that movie when I was 10 or 11 at the outdoor in Riverside, California.

 

So am I missing anything? I saw the movie Hot Shoots and it mimics Top Gun in a lot of ways I guess.

 

I only mention this because as I was flying I play music on Pandora and Highway To The Danger Zone came on. Was interesting as I was making my descent into Adak, Alaska. :pilot::cool::D

 

Hah - been to Adak several times - Bald Eagles are like crows up there - they’re everywhere - pretty barren island though - kind of cool in a way...

 

Regards,

Scott

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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I'm 38 years old and I have not seen the movie Top Gun. I have seen Days Of Thunder though. HAHAHA :D Actually watched that movie when I was 10 or 11 at the outdoor in Riverside, California.

 

So am I missing anything? I saw the movie Hot Shoots and it mimics Top Gun in a lot of ways I guess.

 

I only mention this because as I was flying I play music on Pandora and Highway To The Danger Zone came on. Was interesting as I was making my descent into Adak, Alaska. :pilot::cool::D

 

I saw Top Gun, the first time, shortly after it came out, at the Base Theater at MCAS Iwakuni. I was on a date after I flashed the Staff Duty NCO (a female. A WM, or Woman Marine), using the trenchcoat I mugged McGruff the Crime Dog for. Fun times at Iwakuni! :cool:

I still have Top Gun on a video tape. Yes, a VHS video tape. One day, I'm going to get it transferred to a CD. I don't know HOW many times my kids made me throw the tape in for them, but I pretty much have the entire dialog memorized. Tell you anything?

 

As to the movie: The flying scenes aren't bad. Unfortunately, the ACM scenes are almost entirely in only 2 axes. Almost no vertical maneuvers. Too hard to film all 3 axes, I understand.

Apparently, Tom Cruise wasn't the greatest passenger they'd ever had in the Tomcat, either. I understand he went through a LOT of bags. Spent some of the combat scenes sound asleep, too. Not because he wanted to, but because his assigned pilot was a major joker, and got a big giggle from putting him sound asleep there in the back seat. Annoyed the director no end, too. Hard to get a good shot of "the star" when he's sound out, in total GLOC!

Or when he has his face in a barf-bag, of course :D

 

The one scene that really offended me the most, though, was the ejection scene. Not because it wasn't realistic, mostly, but watching the parachutist throw the pilot chute out with his hand really bugged me. Ejection seats are totally and completely automatic, once the handles are pulled. After that, the occupant can be totally disabled, unconscious, whatever, but the seat will do everything necessary to get them down to the ground in relative safety. No throwing pilot chutes out! Even if the flyer decides he wants to manually deploy the main chute, they pull a rip-cord, the handle for which is located on their right upper chest area. No throwing a friggen pilot chute! And Goose, who it supposedly was, was dead after hitting the canopy rail. No way for him to throw a pilot chute out manually, even if he wanted to.

Really annoyed me. I had some friends in Seat shop who actually got up and walked out after that scene...

 

Of course, the non-flying scenes are what they are. For airplane fans, and/or pilots, they are pretty much filler between the flight scenes. There is a lot of male homosexual innuendo in them, too. I didn't even notice it, until I saw some comedy takes about Top Gun on the Net. Like in the bar scene: You must have sex, with a lady this time, on the premises." Who did he have it with last time??? :confused:

And I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. You'd think I'd notice. I guess I just didn't pay much attention to the non-flight scenes.

 

There's my take on it all, anyway.

Pat☺

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Had a thought...then there was the smell of something burning, and sparks, and then a big fire, and then the lights went out! I guess I better not do that again!

Sgt, USMC, 10 years proud service, Inactive reserve now :D

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Hah - been to Adak several times - Bald Eagles are like crows up there - they’re everywhere - pretty barren island though - kind of cool in a way...

 

Regards,

Scott

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Cool! I read about it at that Wikipedia article, and I lived in a very, VERY small town in North Dakota about 30 miles South of the Canadian border and I was like, " Adak is even worse than North Dakota!" LOL

 

I read the drinking water has lead, and there's very little there in terms of modern convenience. I wouldn't mind visiting, but living there would be out of the question. Especially with the harsh weather. I read they can get upwards of 120 MPH winds!

 

Pretty cool that there's bald eagles there and yet here in Colorado we also have bald eagles. Amazing how they have migrated. We don't have that many, but you'll find them occasionally.

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I saw Top Gun, the first time, shortly after it came out, at the Base Theater at MCAS Iwakuni. I was on a date after I flashed the Staff Duty NCO (a female. A WM, or Woman Marine), using the trenchcoat I mugged McGruff the Crime Dog for. Fun times at Iwakuni! :cool:

I still have Top Gun on a video tape. Yes, a VHS video tape. One day, I'm going to get it transferred to a CD. I don't know HOW many times my kids made me throw the tape in for them, but I pretty much have the entire dialog memorized. Tell you anything?

 

As to the movie: The flying scenes aren't bad. Unfortunately, the ACM scenes are almost entirely in only 2 axes. Almost no vertical maneuvers. Too hard to film all 3 axes, I understand.

Apparently, Tom Cruise wasn't the greatest passenger they'd ever had in the Tomcat, either. I understand he went through a LOT of bags. Spent some of the combat scenes sound asleep, too. Not because he wanted to, but because his assigned pilot was a major joker, and got a big giggle from putting him sound asleep there in the back seat. Annoyed the director no end, too. Hard to get a good shot of "the star" when he's sound out, in total GLOC!

Or when he has his face in a barf-bag, of course :D

 

The one scene that really offended me the most, though, was the ejection scene. Not because it wasn't realistic, mostly, but watching the parachutist throw the pilot chute out with his hand really bugged me. Ejection seats are totally and completely automatic, once the handles are pulled. After that, the occupant can be totally disabled, unconscious, whatever, but the seat will do everything necessary to get them down to the ground in relative safety. No throwing pilot chutes out! Even if the flyer decides he wants to manually deploy the main chute, they pull a rip-cord, the handle for which is located on their right upper chest area. No throwing a friggen pilot chute! And Goose, who it supposedly was, was dead after hitting the canopy rail. No way for him to throw a pilot chute out manually, even if he wanted to.

Really annoyed me. I had some friends in Seat shop who actually got up and walked out after that scene...

 

Of course, the non-flying scenes are what they are. For airplane fans, and/or pilots, they are pretty much filler between the flight scenes. There is a lot of male homosexual innuendo in them, too. I didn't even notice it, until I saw some comedy takes about Top Gun on the Net. Like in the bar scene: You must have sex, with a lady this time, on the premises." Who did he have it with last time??? :confused:

And I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. You'd think I'd notice. I guess I just didn't pay much attention to the non-flight scenes.

 

There's my take on it all, anyway.

Pat☺

 

So are they in a war or something, or was it all just training pilot scenes?

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Top Gun is one of those 'classic' flight movies what any fly-boy has watched many times.

Have a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gun

 

Basically (an extract)

United States Naval Aviator LT Pete "Maverick" Mitchell and his Radar Intercept Officer LTJG Nick "Goose" Bradshaw fly the F-14A Tomcat aboard USS Enterprise (CVN-65). During an interception with two hostile MiG-28 aircraft (portrayed by a Northrop F-5), Maverick gets missile lock on one, while the other hostile aircraft locks onto Maverick's wingman, Cougar. While Maverick drives off the remaining MiG-28, Cougar is too shaken to land, and Maverick, defying orders, shepherds him back to the carrier. Cougar gives up his wings, citing his newborn child that he has never seen. Despite his dislike for Maverick's recklessness, CAG "Stinger" sends him and Goose to attend Topgun[6], the Naval Fighter Weapons School at Naval Air Station Miramar.

 

Also, look at http://www.fast-rewind.com/making_topgun.htm

for some behind the scenes info.

Robin

Cape Town, South Africa

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So are they in a war or something, or was it all just training pilot scenes?

 

Well, in the first flight scene, they get threatened by a pair of "MiGs" (actually, F5s). Cougar goes into panic mode and turns in his wings, opening it up for Maveric to be able to go to Top Gun.

 

While actually AT Top Gun school, they do nothing but training, with a good deal of book learning thrown in. Not to mention some party time.

 

After graduation, they get assigned to the Fleet, normally one Pilot/RIO pair to a squadron. The theory is that they can pass on what they learned in Top Gun to the other pilot/Rio pairs in their squadron. Something pretty much ignored in the movie is that the RIO is just as important as the pilot. Especially in combat. But even just normal tasks, the RIO and pilot must function as a single unit.

From what some RIOs I had to train on the F-4 radar system told me, most...a lot anyway...of the Air Force pilots assigned to the F-4 never "got" that, treating the RIO (Wizzo, in the Air Force parlance) as ballast. They were of the firm opinion that a "real" fighter pilot doesn't need any help. There are actual cases where the Wizzo was told to strap in and shut up. The pilots would make the Wizzo boresight the radar, and leave it there. The pilot would do everything all by himself, as thought he Wizzo didn't exist. A stupid, hyper-macho, way to do things and a colossal waste of the radar's capabilities. When it worked, anyway. The earlier versions of the AN/AWG-10 radar, that takes up all the space in that Jimmi Duante nose the Phantom has, were very unreliable. The radar system in the F-14 is a lot more complex than the Phantom radar, making the RIO even more critical to the successful functioning of the aircraft. In AND out of combat.

Thankfully, the Navy/Marine Corps never developed that ridiculous attitude. The Rio was treated as integral part of the team, and a critically necessary part of the whole plane, just as the pilot is. This whole situation was largely disregarded in Top Gun, with Goose primarily there as comic relief.

Oh well...:p

 

In the final scenes, Maveric, who lost Goose in a training accident at Top Gun, has totally lost his self-confidence. When Iceman and Slider, as well as another pair, get jumped, Maveric is launched to assist. Iceman's wingie get's shot down (naturally), and he has to try and play keep-away in a 1V5 ACM. Maveric starts to go into the combat, but pulls out in fear. Of course, the ship's cats are broken, so it's Maveric and Ice (who, up to now, have a strong dislike of one another) or nothing. Maveric magically regains his confidence, and returns to save Iceman. They may not like each other personally, but whose side are they on, after all? He shoots several enemy planes down, with Iceman getting one or two.

 

So, not in a a shooting war, no, and not ONLY in training, but there are enemies attacking, and they do spend a lot of time in training. A mix of the two.

 

Does that answer the question? :)

Pat☺

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Had a thought...then there was the smell of something burning, and sparks, and then a big fire, and then the lights went out! I guess I better not do that again!

Sgt, USMC, 10 years proud service, Inactive reserve now :D

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I thought the best job of documenting carrier operations was some of the footage involving the flight deck crews. No one can fully appreciate what coordination there is in launching, recovering, spotting or servicing an airwing until you have been part of it. There is some great footage of cat officers, hookup men, holdback men, QA checkers, directors and deck edge operators in action. of course today, there are many women doing the same thing.

 

I enjoyed one shot of what is apparently the arresting gear Chief giving a very pronounced "tug" signal and a kind of NFL touchdown dance - I believe a plane had just pulled out a purchase cable that had probably just been re-reeved. He would have been very happy that a very big piece of maintenance had worked as advertised.

 

The only glaring technical error (other than the somewhat absurd dramatics in the script) I noticed was a cat officer giving a "hang fire" signal during a launch sequence - no suspend signal, no power back signal - just launch 'em anyway!

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Best way to find out is to watch it!

 

The sequel is coming out July 2020, so you have about a year and half to catch up. :-)

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1745960/

 

 

 

Well how be damned. LOL

 

Thanks PhantomTweak for the explanation. Now what does RIO stand for? :D

 

 

Edit-

 

 

Ah! Reading the Wikipedia article zswobbie1 provided, I see it stands for Radar Intercept Officer. But do they have a 'cherry ice cream smile?' LMAO

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I find it interesting Cruise had to use a barf bag. I saw many years ago on one of those Hollywood snoop shows (could have been Extra) that Tom Cruise owns at least one or more P-51's and routinely flys. (Or is it flies? "I'm not a very smart man.")
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There's a big difference doing aerobatics in a plane holding the stick, and sitting in the back seat, with only radar controls to use, and being told not to touch.

 

Check out the story Cruise tells in THIS ARTICLE. He even admits he puked his guts out in a Blue Angel plane.

Essentially, when he bent down to grab "the bag" on the floor, his pilot, callsign Bozo started pulling G.He kept pulling for a long time, pinning Cruise face down, his nose buried in "the bag". When Cruise asked him what the HECK he was doing the pilot replied "They don't call me Bozo for nothing! :cool: "

 

Not a story that they wanted circulated too early. It might ruin Maveric's rep!

Pat☺

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Had a thought...then there was the smell of something burning, and sparks, and then a big fire, and then the lights went out! I guess I better not do that again!

Sgt, USMC, 10 years proud service, Inactive reserve now :D

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Nope, you're not missing anything. It's a fairly rubbish film. It bears about as much resemblance to reality as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Having said that, if you like laughing at films which are comedically unintentionally homo-erotic, then it's good for a laugh in that regard, and if that doesn't give you a laugh, then it admittedly does have some nice shots of F-14s whizzing around.

 

With regard to the 'are they at war?' question: Nope, there is a cardboard cut-out nondescript fictional middle-eastern enemy nation doing a bit of posturing and so there are a few skirmishes when they get too near to the Carrier. As far as realism and fleshing out the 'enemy' is concerned, if I said Team America actually does a better job of that, it'll give you some idea of what a load of flag-waving nonsense Top Gun is.

 

Moreover, given that the F-14 at that time it was still deployed as a CAP interceptor, it was equipped with the AIM-54 Phoenix missile, which could take out multiple targets from over 100 miles away, this makes the dogfighting sequences fairly laughable as a concept. Not least because the enemy 'MiG 28s' (portrayed by Northrop F-5s), might not have been able to carry the AIM-54 Phoenix, but if an F-5 (meant to basically be a MiG 29) could get in close enough for a turning dogfight, it'd be all over an F-14 like a cheap suit since the MiG 29 at the time was equipped with a helmet-mounted sight which made off-boresight missile locks possible to the extent that it proved superior to the F-16 when this was tested by the Luftwaffe in dissimilar combat scenrios between the two types. And so it's not just me who says that, and Chuck Yeager said it too incidentally, and he ought to know given that he shot down five enemy fighter on one mission once and shot down a Me 262 in his P-51 amongst other things, so he was no slouch at air combat.

 

A far better movie concerning carrier jet combat operations is Flight of the Intruder. That one is worth watching. The scenes where they have SAMs launching against them are particularly well done, as are the bombing run sequences. It's not entirely realistic, some things are tweaked a bit to make it more cinematic, but since this is aimed at making it dramatically more enjoyable, these are quite forgivable. The way the storyline is tied into real political events surrounding the Vietnam War, ones which actually happened, is very cleverly done. The acting is vastly better than in Top Gun too, as is the dialogue. The book from which the screenplay was written is worth a read too incidentally and is very similar in most respects.

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Those that expected Top Gun to mirror reality are clearly mistaken.

It was made purely for entertainment, & did not & was not meant to mirror real-time events at all.

 

Of course certain places & people within the movie was based of the real thing, and, as the movie was the highest grossing movie of 1986, it could not have been too bad indeed. A lot of kids also joined the Air Force because of the movie.

 

Pure escapism at it's best (in 1986)

Robin

Cape Town, South Africa

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A lot of kids also joined the Air Force because of the movie.

Even moreso, the US Navy. The Navy claimed, true or not, that the movie kicked recruitment up 500%, or something like that.

The Navy did retain absolute script approval rights, and they kept control of the Carrier and all the planes. Not counting Art Scholl and his Super-Chipmonk used for filming a lot of the flying stuff. At least up until he was killed doing a flat spin. On purpose, so his on-board camera could get the maneuver on film. Crashed into the Pacific, and the plane, and Art's body, were never found. That's where they got the idea for Goose's death scene. It was supposed to be due to a mid-air between two of the planes, but after Art's accident, they changed it in memory of him.

The cast and crew were permitted along as long as they didn't interfere with the Navy's ops. Of course, all the on-shore scenes were not Navy, much, other than the flight-line stuff. The Navy still kept script approval rights, but the filming and locations, stuff like that, were up to the production company.

I understand that their actual time on-shore in San Diego was an on-going party. Slider even claimed, during an interview, that after the day's filming was done, they'd pile into Iceman's personal van, which he claimed to have lost his virginity, and would go down to Tijuana. Party all night, get back in time for morning call.

They did keep Kilmer and Cruise separate the entire filming, though. Never in the same place at the same time, other than actual filming. It kept their alleged dislike for one another, or rivalry, I guess, more believable.

The locker room scene was because the producers required skin. Mainly Cruise's skin. Same with the Volleyball scenes. The producers figured they were paying so much to get him, they wanted to see skin.

Some of the toughest stuff they had to film, from the director's standpoint, were actually getting Kelly McGillis and Cruise's scenes. She's TALL and he's a short little guy. Made getting the two together a director's nightmare :D

And keeping Bozo under control. He made Maveric look like a complete rule follower! He's the type who goes out and draws "cowboy hats" in the sky with his plane. Ahem... :pilot:

 

There were a few actors, too, who wouldn't take parts in the movie. Too militaristic. Go figure...

 

Have fun, all!

Pat☺

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Had a thought...then there was the smell of something burning, and sparks, and then a big fire, and then the lights went out! I guess I better not do that again!

Sgt, USMC, 10 years proud service, Inactive reserve now :D

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Some good in flight film sequences, some was filmed using a Learjet 23 which I believe was flown by Clay Lacy.

 

According to wikipedia, Art Scholl was killed flying a Pitts Special while attempting a flat spin recovery.

 

The original Top Gun was good in it's day, but not sure whether Top Gun 2 will be as successful, alsp in this day & age what are the chances of modern military aircraft actually getting involved in a dog fight with long range air-to-air missiles & stealth!

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LOL! Nowadays it's probably nerds with laptops guiding drones.

 

P.S. I'm 56 and haven't seen Top Gun either... or Grease... or Saturday Night Fever... or E.T....

Tim Wright "The older I get, the better I was..."

Xbox Series X, Asus Prime H510M-K, Intel Core i5-11400F 4.40GHz, 16Gb DDR4 3200, 2TB WD Black NVME SSD, 1TB Samsung SATA SSD

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Top Gun cast then and now:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV12G_MZaEg

 

 

 

Wow! Isn't it amazing how the ravages of time take their toll?

 

It's like me. I used to be a tall, skinny, handsome (yes, handsome. LMAO) tall guy in my twenties, and now I'm a tall fat faced ugly dude. I'll admit it. I'm six feet and weigh a massive 340 pounds. All due to a medication I had to take. Such is life. Perhaps one day I'll turn this fat into muscle which I had wanted to do. But I'm freaking lazy and I'm missing a disk in my back and my endurance right now sucks. Got to focus on diet first then exercise. I used to lift weights many, many years ago.

 

Me ~25

 

 

 

zB3KCtH.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me now. HAHAHAHA

 

 

https://youtu.be/t2mU6USTBRE?t=81

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