Origins of Top Gun movie
 

Interesting all round interview with ex Top Gun instructor on the origin of the movie plus some other military aspects.

Thank you for sharing that. I have his book, The Cutting Edge, full of wonderful photographs of the carrier air group. I saw Top Gun in Dec 1986, one month before I joined HMS Ark Royal, which had the likes of Moggie and Soapy all serving in at the time.

What a nice video. Thanks.

Reposted to show link.

The Final Countdown was better !

No cowboy hats during briefings. :=

Pushing a a button :E Why didn't the UK need a 'Top Gun' or was it enough to set it up for the US? Did the Brit pilots get trained properly on the way to the front line?

When you get to the end on YouTube - 4 5 8 9 hours in the air over Kuwait - serious flying!

Drift - but Ward Carroll is moving into 'news' - well worth the watch



And this lecture about the development of the F-14

Those where the days "Air Power at Sea":

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The F-14 Tomcat (and the F-4 Phantom in its day) were designed for fleet air defence - not defence of the carrier per se but long range defence against hordes of Soviet bombers.

...the primary mission for the CV/CVN in the North Atlantic was not ASW (it was an additional role) but rather AAW to prevent the Backfire/Bears from attacking the convoys. The A-6/A-7s were the organic tankers to push the F-4/F-14 CAP stations out to a range to shoot the archer, not the arrows. Obviously, those roles swapped a bit when you started facing a surface threat or got close enough to land to start contemplating strikes against those Soviet Naval Air Arm airfields - Former US Navy EA-6B Prowler Naval Flight Officer.

From a discussion (on another forum) about the role of the carrier in Sea Control.

Can only talk for the v early 80s' - Lots of "similar" Air Combat Training (ACT), i.e. against same type, at the Tactical weapons units, don't remember much at the Operational Conversion Units but there was an ACT phase as part of your squadron work up to becoming Combat ready.

When it comes to "Top Gun" or something like that then once on the squadron on a fairly regular basis the UK based Air Defence pilots then got involved in Dissimilar Air Combat Training (DACT) with the USAF Aggressor guys flying the F-5's, out of Alconbury...You'd also go up again them whenever you detached pretty much annually to the Instrumented Range at Decimomannu in Sardinia where they had I think a full time presence.

That video about the F-14 development is fascinating.
Centre fuse acted as a lifting body by design.
Auto wing sweep - and lots more detail.

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