It was a pretty good film. Homo-eroticism aside. (Sensitive souls may want to skip that link.)
It was a really great school.
ADM Rat Willard was a part of all of it. Except the ghey bits.
Willard, nicknamed ‘Rat’ by his Navy colleagues, to help you identify, was the pilot in the black helmet flying the fictional MiG-28 during the dogfight that so easily made Tom Cruise the action star he is today. The helmet still sits under a glass box in his office, reminding him of “his claim to fame.” Cruise, the Lt Pete Mitchell in the movie, was identified by the nickname ‘Maverick’ that also featured Val Kilmer as Lt Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky.
“It has been 22 years. I had the unique opportunity to be involved in the making of the movie because I was the executive officer of the Navy Fighter Weapon School, nicknamed TOPGUN. I was responsible for all of the flying coordination and I flew almost every flight in that, including the A-4 Skyhawk,” says Willard.
Not, you know: That there’s anything wrong with that.
We never shot any movies while I was the XO of TOPGUN.
Prolly too hetro for Hollywood.
Hadn’t hollywoods military homoeroticism kick moved on to Submarine movies by your XO tour?
How come when Rat talks about watching Top Gun, he mentions the volleyball scene vs the flying or Kelly Gillis?
Not quite so sure about your exception in the 3rd sentence…
There was another Navy advisor that shows up in the movie too. Forget the name but helped coordinate the film crew with flight deck shots. He also is the normal looking guy in the bar scene where a group of them all sing in unison “You’ve lost, that lovin’ feeling.”
Flex Destafney did the flight sequence dialogue reality check – ‘cept the ones that were already filmed before he got there. He was recuperating from an ejection at the time. I think he’s in the sequence with the guy from “Walker, Texas Ranger” where there walking back to maintenance control after a many vs. many hop.
It was the 80s…weren’t all the guys gay?
Hey, I was a stud in the 80s! Just ask all the girls I chased!
And I was never in a locker room scene with a towel wrapped around my waist. Of course, the only six pack I had was the one I just walked out of the store with 
Wow, that link was funny.
Timing is everything, that must have been cool to be the air boss for the movie Top Gun AND a fighter pilot in the eighties. That’s about as good as it gets.
Shameless plug for my husband (Pigpen), he was the Air boss for the next Transformers movie. They shot out here back in September at the base, and at white sands. It was a really neat set (and the kiddos got to ride in Optimus Prime and Rachet). Anyway, if there are any air scenes with the F22 it’s him! There were only about three pilots to fly them that month, and only two Raptors total here. He was on ET for 10 seconds of fame too.
Guess I should add: No, he isn’t gay!
Sir,
I’ve heard that CDR Randy Cunningham was also one of the ‘MiG’ pilots in Top Gun – is that true?
Mike
Man, every old fighter jock who was even peripherally associated with that movie has a marked proclivity toward bragging about it.
I worked for an 0-6 Tomcat turned Hornet driver call sign Puppy who had Top Gun movie plaques hanging in his office from the work he did. He kept telling me about until I basically said, “Sir, that’s cool and all, but I’m far more impressed by your 1000 traps and 100+ combat missions. Can I hear about those?”
I believe LT Tracy “Too Cool” Skeels is listed in the credits. We went through Flight training together, but I am not sure what role he played as an advisor. He would have been a JO in a fleet F-14 squadron at the time of the filming.
Always thought it was sort of a silly movie, phony- institutionalized- airwing pecking order made into a Hollywood movie starring a 5′ 5″ Napoleonic dude I encountered in the wardroon at midrats in a zoom bag too big. ‘Mo-erotic? Probably. You’d understand if’n you been around Tomcat squadrons much.
Top Gun carrier sequences were filmed on my ship the USS Enterprise/CVW-11 back in ’85 or was it ’86 (who cares)? After the ‘Final Countdown’ fiasco of 1979 we charged for every fly-by/elevator run conducted for the camera….Additional scenes were filmed at the NASNI BOQ in/around the world famous I-bar. Many sailors and JO’s of the airwing volunteered to be extras (not moi- I got me dignity). Oceanside, was the location for all the other stuff…Not the Marine side o’town with all the strip joints and pawnshops, though.
BTW, Rat looked a lot better with a head o’ hair then. Sorta like a white lab rat..LOL.
b2
Always thought it was sort of a silly movie…
IIRC, I was in my early teens when that movie came out. Prime candidate to go gaga over it, yes? No. The only scene that left an imprint on me was the bar scene with You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling–as a budding musician, it was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
I hated the rest of it. My younger sister was insulted when I told her it was stupid.
Fast-forward 20 years and I find this blog… Now I’ve got a Blue Angels poster (“Attitude is Everything”) hanging above the computer I’m typing on, this is my desktop pic, and I consider the 24 hours I spent aboard a carrier at sea one of the highlights of my life so far.
All your fault, Lex.
P.S. After my first intro to this blog (and reading through the archives), I went back and rented Top Gun, expecting to finally understand what I’d missed. I spent the entire movie waiting for the next flying scene and feeling completely gypped because they were too short and too infrequent. Still can’t stand the movie.
Yes, I’m weird woman. Ya got a problem with that?
Man one of my CO’s who is now a Vice Admiral (VADM J. A. Winnefeld) was one of the bad guys in the F-5Es I mean MiG-28s.
What was really funny is that both he and the ship he commanded (the Big E) were featured in the movie. The only downside was that while we were on cruise in 2001 it seemed that every Thursday, Top Gun was the movie of the day. After September 11th, I remember it was on the rotation at least three times a week.
XO?
Or N7A?
There was a difference. Don’t let Bernie Smith hear you using that XO word.
pity they didn’t get an advisor for the astrophysicist. Believe me, any female scientist wearing black leather skirts at TOPGUN would make sure they had lots of sharpened metal spikes adorning them. More likely, a competent female astrophysicist wouldn’t even have a black leather miniskirt in her working wardrobe. Just aren’t practical for freezing server rooms, freezing observation facilities (the optics don’t like heat gradients), upgrading the equpment for the AMANDA Antarctic neutrino detector facility… I was pleased, though, when some movie assistant type wandered through Berkeley getting pictures of what physics grad students (including women) *actually* wore. Somewhere in a filing cabinet my officemate and I are immortalized in all our jeans-and-tshirt splendor.
What a flash-one of the first things I did when computer power and editing software got good enough was to go thru Top Gun and if it wasn’t flight deck, flying, shooting missiles or guns; it was sent to the big bit bucket in the sky. Very nice 39 something minutes of movie after that!
I always preferred “The Final Countdown” to Top Gun.
“Hot Shots, Part Deux” was better than both. It was actors making fun of actors pretending to be aviators. Quite funny, and also had Folland Gnats, and y’all know how I lurves _them_.
Umm, where “better” = “more silly.”
Well, I know “Heater” Heatly was in it. Was in the first bar scene over Kelly’s shoulder at the bar, and over Tom’s shoulder at the graduation order handing out thing. Claims to have done the aerial photography, in particular the Alert 5 launch, complete with “pre-” victory roll.
I know the dude had lots and lots and lots more really cool photos, and I believe Lex knows of him based on comment threads gone by around here.
Heater was the CO of VF-21 when I was a JO. Came to the merge in a 2v2 with hizzoner leading the opposing section. After barely 180 degrees of turn, he calls “knock-it-off, knock-it-off” on the radio. Me thinking he had compressor stalls or something equally serious.
Turns out the light was just right for him to take a few happy snaps of me and my wingman. Called us close aboard, and you’d never credit how sloppy a big bird like the Tomcat can look when the pilot is flying with his knees, looking through a viewfinder.
It’s a good thing my visor was down and my mask on. Trade a 2v2 for a photo-op?
Not in my Navy.
Well, Lex, you can hold your head up. You are both a fighter pilot and an attack pilot. As the latter, you got to make some history. Those fighter-only guys made a movie.
(Somebody had to say it, sorry.)
Ah, the real “stuff” of life. Thanks for the context…and I’m hopeful no mishap investigations were done on him for a Class A while “shooting.”
I did have an AF classmate from NWC have to punch out of an F-16 during Northern watch, all because a full piddle pack “escaped” and got lodged somewhere way, way down in the cockpit, most directly affecting “flyability.”
I never talked to Don after school, but I’m sure he got him a new call sign after that.
They started having to do “card checks” at the Miramar O’Club after that movie came out. Seems too many underage women were trying to “know” Topgun pilots……………..
Supposedly, the California Liquor Control board was not amused….
Put me down on the opposite side….I liked “TopGun”. Maybe its a hotdog/sausage thing with you guys…if you know how they are really made, you just can’t enjoy them. If you watch a Hollywood movie just waiting to pick apart the technical errors, how could you ever enjoy the fantasy?
I pull out my copy once a year when I get on a nostalgia kick. The F14 was being rolled out when I was in (1972-1978). I was an AT in AIMD keeping your junk (most of the time) flying up there, so working on cold iron, I didn’t see much of them actually doing what they were supposed to do, fly around sending certain death to the enemy. (Ok, ok, maybe I read too much Grumman propaganda.)
Maybe I am anthropomorphizing machinery, but to me the F14 just felt like what a real fighter jet should be. Raw. Loud. Fast. Deadly. A beast with personality, barely tamed, always straining at the leash. And the TopGun movie lets the other 100 people who maintained the animal get a small glimpse of what the animal could do.
So whenever I get that nostalgia feeling, I pull out the movie. It brings back other things to memory that reminds me that real Navy life wasn’t like that. (Makes me want to go take a shower and just as I soap up, turn the temperature over to COLD. Or maybe drop a bit of diesel in the water and drink it. Or get up a midnight for midrats and have a single pork chop, nothing else, and tell myself its because the UNREP has been delayed. Again. Because of (insert specious reason here). or….)
None of ‘em can hold a candle to “Hell Divers” which had Wallace Beery and Clark Gable before he grew a moustache. They must not have been very litigious back then compared to nowadays, otherwise Curtiss would have sued their pants off for showcasing structural failures in their airplanes. Oh, AVCN Cantrell, I’d like to do that with “Dive Bomber.” It always annoyed me when a neat old airplane would be obscured by a coupla actors kissing in the foreground. The fist fight between Fred McMurray and Errol Flynn was pretty good, though. Loved the F3F with McMurray in the pressure suit
I always thought “Topgun” was NAVAIR’s equivalent of Steve Macqueen’s “LaMans” – outstanding photography, limited basis in reality and no discernible plot.
I have a fondness for the movie because I was stationed at NASNI when it came out (got there just as it was wrapping, IIRC). I like it for the fact there are so many San Diego county scenes of places that I was familiar with (both in SD proper and Oceanside, after I moved up to CampPen).
The homo-eroticism, not so much…
Best Naval Aviation movie ev-ah: “The Bridges Over The Toko-Ri”
heh,
Every time I think of that movie, I can’t help but remember the “Village People” bit the Navy used for recruitment…
Yea, The Bridges of Toko-Ri is a classic. Also loved Hell Divers, and really pissed when at the end of “Final Countdown” they pulled the strike back… sigh. I also thought the F-14 V Zeros photography was much better than anything in “TOPGUN”.
Byron/
Roger that on “Bridges.”
Best Top Gun stories I heard:
Cruise wanted to be flown off the ship every night — told him the COD isn’t a taxi. He’s in the wardroom lounge on Ranger (some scenes were filmed on there as well) — has his feet on the table. Crusty old WO says “Young man, do you put your feet on the table at your house?” Cruise looks up and says, “Yea, as a matter of fact, I do.” WO says, “Well, this is my house, not yours, so you’d better get your feet on the deck where they belong.”
Morning GQ, followed by flt qtrs. As usual, huge line at the dirty shirt by the event one crews waiting for it to open. Good buddy (whom I’m sure you know, Lex) is a former UCSB linebacker — about 6’4″, 240, and first in line. Cruise comes be-bopping up to the head of the line. Said aviator says “Where do you think you are going, little man?”
If you look at the helo rescue scene, look at Cruise’s eyes — sheer panic. He almost drowned. Helo rescueman hauled him up by the shroud lines with sheer arm strength, as he was sinking like a rock. Got a NCM for it.
On a personal note, the mother of my children said the only way she’d go see it is if I swore to not say ever twenty seconds, “well, that is BS”. OK. Get to the VB scene behind the NASM Q. Goose is saying, “stay, we can take these guys.” Maverick says, “I gotta go. I’m gonna be late.” Heads off to McGillis’ house in PB, walks in the door, and she says “You’re late.” Only previous sound is the panting in the theatre over the sweaty bodies. Suddenly punctuated by her gales of laughter. She says “I knew it was BS that one of you would leave your friends to be on time for a woman.”
Gary Cooper in ” Task Force” my all time fav..
Nothing tops “Launch Em”. You young studs should check it out.
Scott, McGillis’ house was in Oceanside, not PB. It’s about a 1/4 mile from the Oceanside pier.
Good stories, none the less.
Pogue, you correctly state that LeMans was without a plot. That implies that a plot was needed. That is incorrect. It had Porsche 917′s and Ferrari 512′s in it. They did the acting.
Mark Donahue’s 917 developed 1580hp and weighed less than my pickup. It would out-accellerate an F-16 until take-off.
Kind of like Top Gun, take away everything but the aircraft and it’s actually an enjoyable movie.
The folks flashing smiles get in the way of the real story.
Which reminds me, anybody watch the Battlestar Galactica series? One thing I absolutely love is the physics are right, the jargon is used, the position and role of a Chief is correct. I suspect there’s some former Navy in the writers. Too bad they don’t understand computer networks.
— Max
Oh, AW1? I learned a good trick from watching Hell Divers. It is possible to disguise the smell of drunkenness on one’s breath, somewhat, by chewing cloves. This knowledge has been helpful to me at several times since.
Cloves, eh?
Perhaps that explains the popularity, back in the day, of Clove chewing gum… Clove, along with Beeman’s and Blackjack were my favorites.
respects,
I heard once that Top Gun was in reponse to the TV show about the AF…“Call to Glory” (With Craig T Nelson). It seemed (as the teller of the tale said), the Navy was getting it’s butt kicked in recruiting ‘coz the AF was getting the glory weekly on the idiot box…so…Top Gun was “Counter battery” ( by this account). He also said that’s why the “depth” of USN support for the filming (I understand “Crimson Tide” was shunned by the Sea Service for assistance).
Ah, Top Gun. Proof that it’s possible to both love something and mock it mercilessly. My friends never forgave me for my running commentary in the theater. “MiG-28? With an Exocet? What the hell is this ****?”