apparently Top Gun is great entertaining value. The list of errors is a long and ..distiniguished one BUT plenty of the greatest 'sticks' in the USN give it a thumbs up. It is a mix of ..well everything. Good entertainment value, fighter pilot spirit (that's the best part although taken to extremes in the movie) and the best flying sequencies up till then and probably unsurpassed to this day of computer imagery dominating the scene.
Having watched the ' Making of Top Gun' and interviews with the producers, directors but most improtantly with the Topgun instructors who made the film happen one realises that ...sacrifices had to be made in order for it to become the phenomenal blockbuster hit that it became. A long and distinguished list of Topgun instructors helped out
Viper Pettigrew as the mig killer ex instructor who admitted that if he had his way throughout the film it would have turned out more as a documentary rather than a blockbuster
Rat Willard as the real life Topgun XO who coordinated/briefed the flying sequencies
Heater Heatley who appears in a cameo role (along with Pettigrew) in a couple of scenes
and others.
One of the 'Mig' pilots was Tom Cassidy then a rear admiral and former VX-4 pilot flying secret Migs in the late 60's against the initial Topgun instructors and USAF pilots...
If you are a stickler to realism there's hardly a good aviation film. A few of the enjoyable and good films that come to mind now:
Bridges of Toko-ri
Memphis Belle (not least because it was partly shot at Binbrook too!)
That czech film of a few years ago (wide blue yonder??) which had some great aura (...and Spitfires!) although the actual dogfight scenes were computer animations I believe.
and of course the Battle of Britain...
Not a hell of a lot of good films with post war jets in (apart from Toko-Ri)unless one counts the Right Stuff which is excellent and some of the early brit films on test flying...