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CHAPTER 1
"I FEEL THE NEED ... THE NEED FOR SPEED,"
On May 16, 1986, in more than a thousand theaters across the country, American audiences flocked to see one of the year's most hyped movies. Produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Tony Scott, and distributed by Paramount Pictures, Top Gun was a movie full of supersonic sound and speed, starring one of Hollywood's rising stars, the handsome and charismatic Tom Cruise, as well as the beautiful (but relatively unknown) Kelly McGillis. Would its preview's claims of thrilling, action-packed aerial dogfights and push-it-to-the-limit-and-beyond relationships on the ground play out as promised? Or would Top Gun turn out to be a big-budget bomb like the previous year's Cutthroat Island and Revolution? Advanced screenings had called for a major change in the original plot. And one nervous Paramount executive complained that there was "too much flying." Earlier screenings in New York and Los Angeles had garnered mixed reviews from critics. Now it was up to the people who mattered most — the paying customers.
Before that first weekend was over, everyone involved with the film knew they had a major hit on their hands. Opening weekend sales totaled $8.2 million, more than half the movie's $15 million budget. And that was just the start of Top Gun's success. By the time the movie closed in theaters on December 11, 1986, it had grossed more than $179.8 million domestically, with another $177 million internationally, making it the highest grossing film of 1986. Top Gun was a blockbuster.
Its heart-pounding appeal began not with sight, but with sound. The movie opened with German composer Harold Faltermeyer's score, beginning with a steady synthesizer drumbeat regularly punctuated by the haunting chime of a synth bell, evocative of a monk tolling a church bell to warn a town of trouble. As the white letters of the title, opening credits, and text appear and sequentially fade against the stark black background, the musical tension and urgency build. This dissolves into the silhouetted closeup imagery of flight deck operations in progress on a US Navy aircraft carrier.
An elaborate martial ballet commences as pilot and flight crew prepare an F-14 Tomcat, because of its size and power called the "King of Naval Aviation," for takeoff. The musical score overlaps with the clamor of jet engines and dissonant vocal orders and instructions. Then, with a dramatic outthrust of his arm, a flight officer signals the launch. This triggers a powerful steam catapult. The raw, testosterone-powered music of Kenny Loggins's "Danger Zone" pounds over the soundtrack, accompanied by the afterburner roar of two Pratt & Whitney jet engines, and the 61,000-pound Tomcat roars off the flight deck and claws its way into the sky.
A popcorn-crunching action-adventure movie, Top Gun was based on the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics program, nicknamed Topgun. (Note that the movie spells it as two words, while the Navy uses only one word. For consistency, whenever the movie title is used here, it will be two words; the Navy program will be one word). The movie propelled the careers of Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, and Val Kilmer, spawned numerous knockoffs and satires, influenced fashion, caused naval aviation recruitment to skyrocket, and ended up defining the high-powered action-drama movie genre of the 1980s.
The movie's story is straightforward, with as much subtlety as the F14 Tomcat, its main (and most exciting) prop. The plot centers on the rivalry between US Navy pilots Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and Lieutenant Tom "Iceman" Kazansky (Val Kilmer), the former a push-the-envelope pilot with an insubordinate reputation bordering on the dangerous, the latter generally regarded as the Navy's best fighter pilot, one who plays by the rules.
Maverick and Iceman meet at Topgun, then located at Naval Station Miramar outside San Diego, California (in 1996 it would be transferred to Naval Station Fallon in Nevada). Only the best of the elite Navy pilot and radar intercept officer (RIO) teams are selected for Topgun training. Although their commanding officer has reservations about their conduct, he recommends Maverick and his RIO, Lieutenant (junior grade) Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), for the program on the basis of their flying acumen.
Maverick and Goose soon discover that they're on a whole new level. In his first flight, Maverick can only defeat his "enemy," an instructor pilot, by breaking two rules of engagement, a move that doesn't go over well in the after-action debriefing.
Later, the class is introduced to astrophysicist and civilian Topgun instructor Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood (Kelly McGillis), whose looks arouse a good deal of interest from the class. Maverick tells about an encounter with a Soviet MiG where he flew inverted over the fighter and flipped off the pilot, piquing Charlie's interest. She starts seeing Maverick.
The movie's real focus, however, is on the pilots, their airplanes, and a rivalry between Maverick and Iceman that ultimately results in tragedy. During a dogfight under Topgun, Maverick and Goose's Tomcat suffers an engine flameout and loss of power, resulting in the fighter entering an out-of-control flat spin. Goose suffers fatal injuries when the two eject.
Blaming himself for Goose's death, Maverick considers retirement. His self-confidence is restored after "Viper," Topgun instructor Commander Mike Metcalf (Tom Skerritt), reveals that he flew with Maverick's father. He gives Maverick heretofore classified information that shows Maverick's father died not in disgrace, but as a hero. Maverick returns to Topgun and graduates, watching Iceman take the Topgun Trophy as the best pilot in their class.
Maverick and Iceman are deployed to the carrier Enterprise and quickly find themselves ordered to provide air support for a rescue operation of a stricken ship that has drifted into hostile waters. This sets the stage for the climactic battle that serves as the movie's dramatic showpiece.
While providing air cover, Maverick, Iceman, and another Topgun classmate, Lieutenant Rick "Hollywood" Nevin (Whip Hubley), engage a superior force of six MiG fighters. Hollywood is shot down, but Maverick avenges him by shooting down three MiGs, with Iceman nailing a fourth. This causes the remaining two MiGs to break off and head for home. Maverick and Iceman return to the Enterprise and receive a heroes' welcome.
The movie concludes with Maverick, having been offered his choice of assignments, returning to Topgun, this time as an instructor. There he reunites with Charlie.
Top Gun was inspired by Ehud Yonay's 1983 article in California magazine. The article focused on US Navy pilots training in the Navy Fighter Weapons School program, then based at Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego County.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer read the article and thought its story had the makings of a great action movie. He convinced his partner with the pitch that it was "Star Wars on Earth." Simpson was sold, but getting the right screenwriter proved more difficult, and they were turned down by several of the top industry names. Eventually, Jim Cash, a former writing and film history professor from Michigan State University, and his partner Jack Epps Jr. signed on to the project.
For obvious reasons, the producers needed the US Navy's help. The Navy charged a reported $1.8 million for use of its ships, aircraft and facilities — a bargain, all things considered. But the Navy also saw Top Gun as a potential recruiting tool, and only agreed to participate if it had script approval. Outside script approval is always a delicate issue with producers and studios, and they'll usually fight tooth-and-nail to avoid it. The most important script change demanded by the Navy was the nature of Goose's death. Originally, it was the result of a fatal crash landing on the carrier's flight deck. The Navy thought this would have been "bad optics," and demanded the circumstances of the RIO's death be changed. The result was an ejection seat accident during training.
The Navy didn't get approval on everything, though, and the movie features a number of factual errors that still inspire anyone who served in naval aviation to cry out mockery or outrage. A Google search of "list of errors in Top Gun" will show that quite a few have documented their complaints online.
The clashed reality versus cinema is epitomized in an incident involving a Navy officer, one of many used as background extras in the film, and director Tony Scott. During a break in one of the hangar briefing scenes (an error of setting, as such an environment would be too noisy for such a meeting), one of the officers approached Scott to complain about the unrealistic collection of patches on the actors' flight suits. Scott is reputed to have growled, "We're not making this movie for fighter pilots, we're making it for Kansas wheat farmers who don't know the difference."
Epps's legwork for the script included attending unclassified classroom briefings at Topgun as well as flying in F-14s. All the actors who portrayed pilots and RIOs were also given rides in Tomcats (flying in the RIO backseat). Only Anthony Edwards didn't need a vomit bag.
Script changes are the norm in any production, and the final version often bears little resemblance to the first draft. Such was the case with Top Gun. The nature of Goose's death is one such change. Another arguably more important change followed.
Various actors recall that a lot of the dialogue was improvised. Two improvisations became the most talked about. The first was in the hangar briefing scene in which Charlie Blackwood makes her entrance. Maverick explains to her the unconventional maneuver he performed with his F-14 during an encounter with a MiG. During his explanation, Iceman coughs, "Bullshit." Iceman's comment was improvised, and the other pilots and RIOs' reaction was a real response, not scripted.
Another such scene occurs at the conclusion of a car chase between Maverick and Charlie. After she confesses she doesn't want anyone to know she's falling for Maverick, he is supposed to make a verbal response. But Cruise forgot his line and ad-libbed the impulsive kiss. Director Scott loved the action so much he let it stand.
By far the biggest change in the film was that of the character of Charlie Blackwood. In this case, the change was not imposed by the Navy, but by Paramount, the studio. As originally written, not only did the McGillis character have a different name, but also a completely different personality: Kirsten Lindstrom, an air-headed groupie or (depending on the version discussed) a gymnast.
Reportedly, Dawn Steel, then the head of production at Paramount, refused to greenlight the project unless the character was made into a mature, intelligent woman. Orders were issued: make the change. But, replace Lindstrom with what? That's when serendipity intervened.
During one of their visits to Miramar, the producers and writers met Christine Fox, a civilian mathematician (call sign "Legs") who worked at the Center for Naval Analysis located across the hall from Topgun. Additional meetings were arranged, and the team had its replacement. Fox would go on to have a highly successful career in the Defense Department, eventually serving as acting deputy secretary of defense, becoming the highest-ranking woman to serve in the Pentagon before retiring from government service in 2014. Her stellar résumé also includes this glamorous footnote: she became the inspiration for McGillis's revamped character, astrophysicist Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood.
Apocryphal or not, director Scott's comment about it being a movie for "Kansas wheat farmers" and not Navy pilots was spot-on. Many critics, though, regarded it as less a movie and more a big-budget recruitment film. In fact, that was the most common criticism of Top Gun. Were they right?
Historian Craig L. Symonds was the head of the history department at the US Naval Academy and a member of its Admissions Board in the 1980s. He recalled that, after the movie opened, "We read the essays of applicants who wrote about why they applied. By far the most common explanation was that they had been inspired by the movie Top Gun."
Recruiting for the Navy's aviation program jumped 500 percent over the previous year. And Naval Aviation wasn't the only program to get a boost — Navy recruitment jumped across the board. Recruitment for the Air Force and Marine Aviation also spiked.
When the first DVD edition of the movie was being assembled for release, Paramount contacted the Navy and offered to let it include a recruitment commercial in return for forgiving its outstanding bill of $1 million. The Navy's advertising agency recommended that such a commercial would be redundant, because the film itself was such a great recruiting tool on its own.
Indeed, scores of young men throughout the country walked out of theaters echoing the words of Maverick and Goose. Like them, they "felt the need — the need for speed."
TOP GUN TRIVIA
• At Topgun, a $5 fine is levied on any staff member who quotes the movie.
• Director Tony Scott wrote an on-the-spot personal check for $25,000 to the Navy, the amount the commander of the carrier said it would cost to have his ship make an unscheduled maneuver that Scott insisted he needed. Reportedly, the check was never cashed.
• The F-14 flying sequences cost Paramount $10,000 per plane per hour of flying.
• Kelly McGillis (5'10") is taller than Tom Cruise (5'7"). In their close-ups, she was either barefoot and he wore lifts, or she stood in a trench.
• The "Top Gun Trophy" featured in the film is a piece of Hollywood myth-making. No such trophy exists.
• The Navy only authorized two missile shots for the film. Used in the climactic battle, they were shot from several angles to give the appearance of multiple shots. Other missile shots were conducted using miniatures of both the airplanes and missiles. They were so convincing, the scenes even fooled the Navy, which launched an investigation to determine how many real missiles were shot.
• The cameras used to film the aircraft-POV flight sequences were built and mounted onto the F-14s by Northrop Grumman, the Tomcat's manufacturer.
• Tom Cruise had never ridden a motorcycle before Top Gun. He learned how to ride in the parking lot of House of Motorcycles in El Cajon, California.
• Top Gun was one of the first movies selected for the Cinema 52 project, in which a "Cinemanaut" watches a movie fifty-two times over the course of a year, compiling notes during and after each screening. A full report can be seen on www.cinema52.com. Among the trivia notes: Tom Cruise blinks 469 times and the word "the" is spoken 223 times.
• The "Russian" MiG aircraft in the movie (and at Topgun itself) are actually American F-5E and Tiger II aircraft made by Northrop Grumman.
CHAPTER 2
THE ORIGIN OF TOPGUN
Pursuant to CNO message DTG241506Z July 1968, during the period 8 August–8 November 1968, a five member review team, directed by Captain Frank W. Ault, USN [redacted]/1310, NAVAIRSYSCOM, (AIR-001), conducted an in-depth review of the entire process by which the Navy's Air-to-Air Missiles Systems are acquired and employed in order to identify those areas where improvements can and should be made.
Thus, in the dry, acronym-filled text that is the military style, begins the fifty-eight-page report, with six appendices, officially titled "Report of the Air-to-Air Missile System Capability Review (U)." Its author, Navy Captain Frank Ault, lent his name to the document: "the Ault Report," as it came to be known, forever changed US Naval Air fighter doctrine and tactics.
Written during the height of the Vietnam War, the report sought to explain what was taking place in the skies over North Vietnam: supposedly inferior North Vietnamese pilots (in equally inferior Soviet- built MiG-17s and MiG-21s) were going toe-to-toe with the US Navy's best pilots flying McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms and Vought F-8 Crusaders — and shooting them out of the skies at an alarming rate.
In World War II, the kill ratio for US Navy pilots was 14:1, meaning that, for every fourteen enemy planes shot down, the Navy lost one. In the Korean War, that ratio was 12:1. In the Vietnam War, it had fallen off the eastern face of Mount Everest: a shocking 2.5:1.
The Ault Report posed five hard questions:
1. Is industry delivering to the Navy a high-quality product, designed and built to specifications?
2. Are Fleet support organizations delivering a high-quality product to the CVA's [aircraft carriers] and to the forward area sites ashore?
3. Do shipboard and squadron organizations (afloat and ashore) launch an optimally ready combat aircraft-missile system?
4. Does the combat aircrew fully understand and exploit the capabilities of the aircraft-missile system? (Corollary question: is the aircraft-missile system properly designed and configured for the air-to-air mission?)
5. Is the air-to-air missile system (aircraft/fire control system/missile) repair and rework program returning a quality product to the fleet?
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Top Gun"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Dwight Jon Zimmerman.
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