STEVE STEVENS has played better guitar...before and since.

check out his rig rundown on youtube....about as complex as a tomcat radar.

FISH.

That should be Radar Intercept Officer.

Watched it at Roosevelt Roads, the natives cheered when the baddies got it, we cheered when the baddies hit back. It could have ended in tears but it seemed a good idea at the time :)

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

Even better than Harrison Ford.

He probably doesn't get many dollies.

Watched it within weeks of joining up. Marvelled at the super cool aircrew.
Then got to 43.
Real life did not imitate art!

Watched it in the Astra at Laarbruch, with the minions, and the place was howling! Also found the soundtrack in the tape player in the rear of XV Tonka, during a turnaround in Nellis, a sort while later, although the Rear wouldn't own up to it being his!

Stopped for beer in the Top Gun bar (Kansas City BBQ) in San Diego last year, the owner must be laughing all the way to the bank, is the number of people still visiting after 30 years is anything to go by!

More movie location trivia:

The scene where Maverick goes round to Viper's house on a weekend to discuss his options was shot at the New Point Loma Lighthouse. The US Coast Guard quarters still look great today.


https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7049/6...f80af829_b.jpg

'Hot Shots' gets my vote. They still use F5's for the bad guys, but Gnats for the heroes....

incomparably hilarious.

So "Take my breath away " is also 30 years old!

I first saw this on television, aged 12 or 13 maybe. I quite enjoyed it then, and later remembered only the parts about F14s, Goose's impact with the canopy frame on ejection, and some stuff on a motorbike. I didn't see it again for another 16 years or so, when someone put it on for a group of us in a sandier part of the globe.

I was amazed to learn how little of the film was made up of the F14s and motorbikes, and quite how much was utter tosh. I haven't felt the need to watch it again.

Having spent a career around Navy Pilots, I have met zero like "Mav" who survived their first tour. Met a few like Ice. Met a bunch of aviators, NFO and pilot alike, like Goose.

As for Charley, she wasn't that hot.

F-5's were used in adversary squadrons for a few decades. There was a good reason for that.

As to lines used from that movie, I can't count the number of times we used "gutsiest move I ever saw" and none of those occasions had anything to do with flying anything. As an ironic or smartarsed remark, it still gets mileage.

I was bestowed the gift of "The making of Top Gun", summary follows:

* Tom Cruise when being given a feel for the gig by being taken up by a USN FI in a simple training jet would chuck up like clockwork. The other characters were able to hold it in - mostly.
* The film crew were kicked off the aircraft carrier after one and a half days of filming, although not specifically mentioned, probably because of their homosexual extrusions.
* A wing panel detached itself from the F-14 in the scene where Maverick hits the speed brake and the bad guys fly past him.
* There had never ever been an incident where the ejection seat hit the released canopy. This was just an over dramatisation.
* A respected civilian stunt flyer lost his life when trying to create the flat spin camera sequence.
* The closing title scene where an F-14 makes a landing at the school is an absolute shocker of a landing with the nose gear hitting the tarmac hard and bouncing back up in the air several times.

Well, at least it was an update and slightly more accurate than Ian Wooldridge of the Mail waffling more than once about Biggles in an article about a visit to a gliding competition.

Tash ...

Not so ... Listerine first went on sale in 1914 :}

I'll get my coat ...

My son is now a Navy T-6 instructor.
He was a lot like "Mav" in high school and college, but fortunately 'grew' out of it when he went to USN 'officer and a gentleman' school....USMC trained, USN owned.

But he played rugby instead of volleyball.

rugby ?


Are you sure about the sport, or is it a tongue in cheek?

I also watched Top Gun at Roosie Roads - it's fine if you don't take it too seriously! Great music, generally - and Meg Ryan was a babe back then.

On the way back from RR, we diverted into Bermuda. Now that was much more of a fun time...:E as Tengah Type will undoubtedly confirm!

RiS,

I know it sounds out of place for over here. But a number of US universities have 'club' rugby teams and leagues.

He played rugby....I know 'cause I paid his medical insurance premiums. I enjoyed watching the 7s tournaments because they were over more quickly.:}

I on the other hand played on the NCAA championship volleyball team at UCLA in its early years. Rugby scared me.

I once saw the Portland (Maine) Rugby team do an 'elephant walk' in a cellar bar in Orono, Maine. You don't want to know what they used for the elephants' trunks.