Behold the greatest recruiting tool the US Navy and Airforce ever had. No joke, recruitment rates tripled the weekend this movie opened and there were recruitment booths in cinema lobbies
UsfanlovesMinho This was actually one of the very first movies my family ever owned on home video back in the day. I was a kid and I wanted nothing more than to grow up and join the US navy as a fighter jock, even though I was British, because I wanted to be Maverick.
weldonwin I was in my early 20's when this came out and we also bought the movie on a VHS. Sometimes when we were trying to decide on what to watch someone would yell out, I Have The Need For Speed, and we all know what that meant. LOL
Maverick may have been the star of the movie but this sequence shows why Iceman won the top spot in class. Evading five enemy jets while still engaging the six, and lasting long enough for backup to arrive.
Mav did shoot down three. Ice took down one. Four out of six or seven taken down. One loss on out side. Imagine if Ice and Mav decided to work together in Top Gun rather than against each other. All seven jets would have hit the sea.
The F-14 played it's biggest role in Top Gun but it influenced a generation in other ways. The Macross transforming fighters were based off the F-14. I had several of them as a kid, they were awesome. It's still my favorite fighter plane for all of the above reasons. That said, the F-35 is pretty bad ass too. I am curious to see what they do with them.
I still cheer when Merlin says “Remaining MiGs are buggin’ out”, every time I watch this movie. Just puts the biggest smile on my face after such an epic final showdown.
I had just graduated high school when this movie cane out. After this scene, I called the recruiter and joined the next day. No shit. I was assigned to the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) just after it was commissioned. I got to the flight deck and realized there were no camera's filming. No high five/low five when I walked past another guy after a Tomcat just took off. Too fucking tired. It was the toughest job I could possibly imagine. But in retrospect, I really had a great time. Sailors know how to party when we hit the beach, that much is certain.
I got to see the action, but from my boat, the Mahan-ddg 42, When we did excercises with comcrudesgru-2 USS Eisenhower.... Got to see the f-4's, f-14's, and f-18's fly by's... Of course there were 5 other boats with the group, this is where we tested the SM-2's for the first time
You're telling us the movie Top Gun somehow duped you into signing on with the Navy? No high fives nor 80s background rock music as F-14s took off? Was that the point you were thinking you should get your money back from the movie theater?
The only one that comes to mind would have been his older brother, Sir Ridley. Eventually he got his chance to work with Jerry Bruckheimer too on "Black Hawk Down."
+UsfanlovesMinho too bad they couldn't get the calls right while fighting(was in the Navy SAR)....and a real fight sounds nothing like this...but it is entertaining..lol
I never realized how freakin big the F-14's were until I saw Executive Decision. When they were flying next to the 747 they were almost half the size of it. Pretty impressive considering how maneuverable they are.
protector1990 The idea is to bleed speed. He would want to airbrake in this case, having full afterburners on would simply make the plane climb and would not help in dropping the pursuit. With thrust vectoring it may work, but not on something like the F14.
My Dad was 8 years Navy, aviator and chaplain. Four years in the Marine Corps is an aviator in Chaplin. I had a plane ticket booked to fly to Dallas to see my father on June 26, on the 27th I was going to take him to the movies for his birthday which was July 10. Dad was 90 years old, and God took him home on May 5. He and I got to see the first top gun movie in the theater together, 34 years later we had planned to do it again, and see Maverick top gun. Between Covid, and God Almighty, it wasn’t meant to be. Dad I miss you more than you’ll ever know I still love you to the end of time. Semper Fi
Seriously! Anybody else feel for Merlin in this movie??? He got the raw end of the deal with TWO of the best pilots in the Navy totally freaking while flying with him in real life situations!
I plan on watching this tomorrow to celebrate Memorial Day. The U.S. Navy still doesn't have a fleet interceptor and air-superiority fighter to rival the F-14 Tomcat's capabilities. The combination AIM-54 Phoenix missile and AN/AWG-9 radar weapons system could track and engage 6 targets simultaneously at a range up to 120 nm. The AIM-54 Phoenix used active tracking in the terminal phase, predating the AIM-120 AMRAAM with this capability by several decades. The latest model of the AMRAAM, the AIM-120D, only approaches the Phoenix in terms of range, without quite matching it (though after decades of development and refinement, the AMRAAM likely does exceed the Phoenix in other areas such as maneuverability, which contribute to probability-of-kill). The F-14 was not the most maneuverable fighter out there, though was surprisingly agile considering her overall size, likely maxing out at around 6g of load on the airframe (where 9g is the typical all-out for a pure air superiority fighter like the F-15C or MIG-29). However, the advanced tactics taught by the Fighter Weapons School made up for this disparity by ensuring our pilots were the best trained in the world. She brought other capabilities to the table, of course, that no other comparable jet before the F-22 could match, such as time-to-climb performance and intercept speed. All of these attributes together made her the best carrier defender bar none, still unmatched all-around to this day.
This movie is timeless! No matter what they do with the technology, no movie has ever come close when it comes to classic air battles shown in this movie! Totally an all time classic!
How it should have happened: Seaman: "Both catapults are broken we cant launch anyone" Captain: son...are you stupid? We have FOUR catapults. Use the other two goddammit.
utubenoobie01 There's a difference. A barrel roll is purely for stunting, and it has loops as well as rolls. The one Maverick did was an aileron roll, which is done strategically so you can have a 360 degree view of your surroundings, above, below and beside you.
4:28 I like to imagine that at this point, though we hear Merlin's voice, Maverick hears Goose's voice just at his shoulder screaming, "GET IN THE FIGHT, MAVERICK!"
I know Maverick gets a lot of credit, but can we talk about the fact Iceman and Slider were about to engage three MIGs on their own with no wingman? That takes courage...and a little insanity. 😅
The best tom cruise movie, the best us airforce recruitment tool, and the greatest soundtrack to ever come out of the 1980s. Rest in peace Eddie Van Halen.
On Ace Combat 04, during one of the last missions, there was an enemy on my tail and he was close enough to use his guns. So I pulled Maverick's maneuver and it actually worked. Blew that a-hole outta the sky!
That's really cool that you say that!!! I was watching the making of Top Gun here on youtube and one of the real Naval aviators who worked on the movie (call sign "Flex") talked about the aileron rolls in real life and how it had no tatical advantage. He just said that spinning around looked really cool for the movie and the makers of the movie loved so they did it a lot. However the fact that you did in basically a simulated dog fight even though it was just a video game and it gave you an advantage...that's kinda cool to hear.
Like they most likely have ever been in a real air battle... the USA NEVER usually picks a fight with a nation with much of an air force. All they have done is played too a half written game plan never been in a fight.
REALLY important for the upcoming Top Gun 2, I know they have stressed on no cgi (and so far from the trailers I am VERY pleased) but if there are any dogfight scenes I hope they follow the same example and not use CGI for the explosions and rather use practical effects (such as blowing up model planes) like they did here!
This is my morning motivation. Nearest I can figure as a housewife, if iceman can survive a 1v6 dogfight for 3-4 minutes, I can get out of bed and get my housework done. I know it may sound like a joke but it's not. My depression makes doing even easy tasks hard, so I take whatever I can get to motivate.
Hang in Jessica. It's okay not to feel okay all the time. Take care of your family AND yourself. Please. You have too much to offer the world not to be firing on all cylinders.Baby steps. Doctors, medicine, yoga, whatever. The sun will rise tomorrow I promise. I've been there girl
Fun fact- Merlin is played by the same actor who played Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption. Don't know if anyone cares, just thought that was interesting tidbit of information.
+Bob Ramsey (superbram) Yeah, he's a dipshit liberal but a pretty good actor. Fun Fact- Tom Cruise kills him in War of the Worlds. Which was kind of hard to believe since Robbins is 6'5" and Tom Cruise is nearly a foot shorter and tiny.
The BEST scene of any 80s film that shows THE best definition of at first, backing down from a fight, but then getting back into the fight and saying, i've got your back, and you've got mine
or using the memories from the loss of a loved one or a dear friend not as a sad reminder to the good old times but instead to inspire u to create even better new memories
Ice waas defenitly the well deserved winner of top gun. Amazing how he survived that mig soup after wood went down, and continously was able to evade missle shots and gunfire the entire fight. That dude has some skillz.
Somehow holding off 6 MiGs while Maverick needed 30 seconds to arrive, doze off due to jetwash, then let's him blast 3 MiGs on 4 shots. How did MiG #6 arrive out of nowhere?
I watched this movie a million times growing up and if my mom was in the room when Merlin says that she would just start laughing. It was just such a great line to throw in there in an intense action scene like that. LOL
"Our pilots became dependent on missiles, lost some of their dogfighting skills." Towards end of movie: "Got a problem here, only got 1 missile left." Ummm...Vulcan cannon?
@@jdolaktv missiles are not a guaranteed kill and if a vulcan cannon round hits, the plane is usually disabled or destroyed, cause it's usually a lot hitting at once. Dogfighting like they were training would have made them a lot more adept with guns too
This movie will always hold a special place in my heart just to bad the last F-14 squadron was decommissioned a few months before I made it to the fleet!
The best scene from any 80s film that shows the BEST definition of backing down at first, but then getting back into the fight and then saying,I've got your back you've got mine"
The navy needs an air interceptor u do not currently have an air interceptor and plz dont say the fa 18 is an air interceptor. The f14 in my opinion will always be the best air interceptor of the us navy with so many confirmed and unconfirmed mig kills.
@@demonlordomegaacepilot7090 there's no need for an interceptor (a borderline obsolete concept) when you have rhinos with bags carrying aim-120d's and DDG's with SM-6's
@@ArizonaAstraLLC thats not accurate. Thats mid 90s early 2000s thinking. With Long range a ti ship missiles you need aircraft that can intercept out at sea before enemy aircraft get close enough to deploy. SM6 have short range. You need something to fly out 300 nmi then engage
Ice never once turns his head to look back to confirm when Slider informs him about the position of the enemy crafts or tells him to do something. He has complte faith in the judgement of his RIO. Thats why they were the topgun and how they were able to evade so many enemy jets while waiting for backup to arrive.
A sequel is fine. A remake would be doo-doo. This is a classic film that was FILMED, not CGI’d to death. Look at and learn from Red Dawn, that remake stunk.
This movie still makes me want to be fighter pilot! Honestly supersonic, aerial, fights to the death might be the single most intense activity that humans have ever endeavored. What else competes? Space travel, land speed records, wing suit dives, etc. all extremely bad ass -- but this is that level of excitement plus mortal combat.
There probably not mountains. Clouds above the ocean with help from the sun give the impression of mountains. There was another example of it in the actual movie. I say this with respect👍✌️
It WAS green screened back then :D Tom Cruise etc got to fly couple times with the F-14 to get the experience and talks with the pilots to get to the character (check out the video about that) and they had very limited amount of the footage about these aircrafts doing maneuvers etc, why they repeat them very much in the movie. And the movie would have been boring if it would have been realistic, as all those barrel rolls etc are useless in real dogfight, but it looks cool....
Bruh, u think Tom cruise is a real pilot?? U think they are really up in the air flying like that?? It is green screen.... did u mean to say CGI or something?
When this movie came out I was a senior in high school. Seeing this clip bring back memories. I heard Hollywood announced top gun 2 will be out next year. Can’t wait!!!
I watched this in theater on a Friday night. Monday morning I went to my recruiter and joined. After basic I was assigned to the USS Theodore Roosevelt just a month after she was commissioned. Did 4 years as an Aviation Ordnaceman 3rd class in the G-3 Division of the weapons department which are called "mag rats" because we worked in the weapons magazines down in the lower decks. Got out just as Desert Storm began. Some of my fondest memories were from those 4 years.
Thank you for your service! My first husband was in the Navy, 6 years on the Richard E. Byrd. No flying. He worked the radar, and thank God, no wars. Our only daughter was born during that time, and I'm still mad that he didn't take one month leave, as I knew I was going to go a little early. He missed it by only a few days, and instead, I had the 'honor' of my mother-in-law 'down there'. Oh God. She kept telling me not to push as the contractions were intensifying, and I was about ready to scream shut up! Lol It was a girl, my only child after 2 marriages, but I have 6 grandchildren, so I'm happy. She did me proud.
For us old military guys we think Jennifer Connelly was the greatest piece of casting ever. She's early 50s and still gang busters. Hi five to Tom Cruise (and the the Dept of boat people) for making it happen. USAF retired
I wonder how this movie would have ended if Peppy from Star Fox was instructing these guys. "Do a barrel roll!" "Roger that!" *proceeds to spin out and crash*
Take a look at the Gulf of Sidar incident back in 1989. 2 Mig 21 vs. 2 F-14 Tomcats off the Kennedy. The video of the Tomcats shooting down both Mig's is on RU-vid. It took 25 years before we ever found out who the pilots and RIO's were.
Actually, the Navy gave the producers of Top Gun a lot of access and support, and in exchange they mandated several changes to the script. One of those changes was to remove any mention of Russian or Soviet pilots as being the 'aggressors' in the final sequence. So we're left to assume what we will about the identity of the 'enemy' forces, since it's not explicitly stated. And given the year the movie was released, the best assumption would be that they were either Libyan or Iranian.
When Maverick first encounters this final dogfight scene, the naval aviators are pulling off a maneuver called, "rolling scissors". If you're able to watch this in slo-mo, it really looks like 2 or 3 pairs of opened scissors rolling around each other, following a triangular pattern. There's one other time in the movie when you see this text book maneuver
Yep, if you watched the show "Dogfights" on the history channel, on one episode the pilots from the Vietnam War era that are being interviewed on that show talks about that maneuver a lot. Top Gun stole a lot of textbook maneuvers from the Vietnam War era pilots that they used in dogfighting during the Vietnam War including the "Hit The Brakes" maneuver.
@@shawnwomack3446 Wasn't there a version where you hit the brakes, you do a barrel spin halfway though to track and lock on to the enemy almost immediately after he passes underneath?
1:55 you can see they have ACFT stacked up on Cats 1 & 2. Would have taken a lot of time to re-spot them, especially if they needed to send them down the elevators.
Former ABE here, rate that operates the cats. First like the other guy said the bow was covered in parked aircraft. Can't launch from cats 1 and 2. Second, equipment breaks. Seen it many times.
Besides even if the carrier cant launch any more jets and the MiGs reach them, the carrier must likely have escort ships with SAMs and CIWS. I dont see anti-ship missiles on the MiGs either.
It’s funny 😁 to me how Maverick said on the count of 3 break hard right then he started counting backwards also he told he to break right anyway after he finished counting like Iceman didn’t know how to count lol 😆
