Any pilots here? Top Gun Maverick

I just watched this and was surprised that all of the flying scenes were authentic. Not CGI.

The one thing that I noticed is that he is always slamming the throttle instead of bringing it up slowly. Guess that makes it more dramatic.

Tom cruise does movies the right way

Unpopular opinion but horrible movie.

Great flying of course.

Aaron N said:

Tom cruise does movies the right way

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One hell of an actor. Don’t think I’ve seen a bad movie he’s been in. Too many to count!!

Altitude sickness said:

all of the flying scenes were authentic. Not CGI.

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Made the movie so much better. There was obviously still a fair bit of CGI - he didnt really ride in an F14 or Darkstar, but it was a very well produced movie.

The movie was pretty far fetched IMO. However realism can get in the way of a good story.
I thought that he should have been with NASA when he did Mach 10 as I feel the Navy has little interest there.
I did find it ironic that when we actually bombed a real life Iranian Uranium Enrichment plant, we used B2 and bunker busters instead of a near suicide mission with FA-18s.
Fun fact the F-14 cockpit used for filming was also used in the original Top Gun film. It was found in an old warehouse. They are very rare as the US destroyed all their F14 to keep the Iranians from getting any parts to repair their fleet.

Wyatt Smith said:

The movie was pretty far fetched IMO. However realism can get in the way of a good story.
I thought that he should have been with NASA when he did Mach 10 as I feel the Navy has little interest there.
I did find it ironic that when we actually bombed a real life Iranian Uranium Enrichment plant, we used B2 and bunker busters instead of a near suicide mission with FA-18s.
Fun fact the F-14 cockpit used for filming was also used in the original Top Gun film. It was found in an old warehouse. They are very rare as the US destroyed all their F14 to keep the Iranians from getting any parts to repair their fleet.

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Then we blew up some f14's during the operation a few months ago. Enough to make an aviation geek sick.

Roosterlund said:

One hell of an actor. Don’t think I’ve seen a bad movie he’s been in. Too many to count!!

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"Legend" ??

He did the flying in American Made, a story about Bobby Seal. Also owns a P-51 Mustang.

jeanes said:

"Legend" ??

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Definitely one of the great ones from 80’s on. He’s no Clint Eastwood or John Wayne but makes one hell of a movie. Love the Mission Impossible series. Watched the first one the other night and info said it was from 1996. Getting old fast!!!!

There is an F14 at the Tillamook air museum. There’s a ladder right to the cockpit and it’s open. Very cool.

The movie was meh but we still have watched it several times. Lol.

Wyatt Smith said:

The movie was pretty far fetched IMO. However realism can get in the way of a good story.
I thought that he should have been with NASA when he did Mach 10 as I feel the Navy has little interest there.
I did find it ironic that when we actually bombed a real life Iranian Uranium Enrichment plant, we used B2 and bunker busters instead of a near suicide mission with FA-18s.
Fun fact the F-14 cockpit used for filming was also used in the original Top Gun film. It was found in an old warehouse. They are very rare as the US destroyed all their F14 to keep the Iranians from getting any parts to repair their fleet.

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Worked for Bell Helicopter in Esfahan, Iran 1977-1979 when evacuated. Seen the F-14’s there. We had 400 helicopters in Esfahan and other stage fields. Wife and I were both there. Worked with a lot of good people.

Bell 214 was paid for by the Shah, basically
a Huey with an engine from a Chinook.
And the Marine Corps twin engine AH-1J.

Love that movie. Was watching it in the gym tonight as a matter of fact. Especially love Cruise’s personal P-51 that he flew at the end

Right after the movie came out, I was at a California Waterfowl Association dinner and our guest speaker was Scott Kartvedt, who was a retired Navy pilot who served in Afghanistan and went on to become one of the Blue Angels pilots. He was also one of the pilots who flew jets for the movie.

We ended up talking after he finished his presentation; which was really neat given that he brought clips of flying some of the scenes that were edited out the movie, including looking back at a few of the actors that got to ride back seat with him. He told the assembled crowd that Tom Cruise is actually a skilled pilot and even though he didn’t fly any of the F-18’s, he got to ride in the back a fair bit. He also told us the P51 Mustang in the scene at the end of the movie belongs to Cruise and he flew that himself.

But the coolest part of his presentation had nothing to do with the movie. He brought gun camera footage from his time in Afghanistan where he came in at night to eliminate a bunch of Taliban who had a Navy Seal team pinned down under heavy fire. The footage was all black & white of course and all you could see was the ridge line and tracers from his machine guns. He dumped nearly 500 rounds across the face of the ridge where the Taliban were located and right after his shooting ended you could hear Seals on the ground yell over the radio “Hell yeah, way to f*ck em up, give em another pass!” It was cool video.

Speed over the ground, guilty as charged.

None of the helmets worn were correct. They all would have been HUD that obscures the actors faces.

akrifleman said:

None of the helmets worn were correct. They all would have been HUD that obscures the actors faces.

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I think they were HGU-68's in the movies and painted. No one has painted helmets since the early 1990's when I came in. We hand reflective taped them. Took hours. Hated doing it. There was quite a bit of art to it.

I have not been a Navy Parachute Rigger for about 13 years though. I was in VX-9 the black and grey F-18 in the movie as a civilian after I retired. The gear is totally different. Other than the green CMU-32 flight suit, everything is changed out since my fighter squadron time.

But I had not been in fighters since 2003, so I don't know much about modern fighter gear. I finished up in P-3's for the last 12 until I retired.

akrifleman said:

None of the helmets worn were correct. They all would have been HUD that obscures the actors faces.

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There's at least one video on YouTube pointing out the flaws in the movie. Fun to watch.

Sure there were a lot of flaws. I could give you a bucket full with respect to any Army centric movie ever made. I mean what O6 in any service has his own personal Chief Warrant Officer who follows him from job to job and then directs recovery ops on a carrier?!? But these are movies, and not documentaries, and the good ones like TG Maverick, Paton, Saving Private Ryan, and the Longest Day rise above the technical silliness or historical errors to tell great stories.