quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
I think some of that stuff about Rooster not understanding the F14 is being taken too literal. For me it was simply a Hollywood liberty taken to explain to the audience that Maverick was about to do something unique with the aircraft that is not usually done.

Plus you have to have the trope where the new guy doesn't understand something the geezer knows all too well and gets shown up as an ignoramus.

Plus it allows some exposition for the audience, too.

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Originally posted by Gocad:
It was ok, although some parts bugged me, then I found this in the Trivia section on the imdb:

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A theory from Vulture suggests that there's a logical plot reason for why everything is so heightened: it's all the dying fantasy of Maverick.

It's as if the entire movie is like the ending scene of Taxi Driver. The main character gets to die as a hero, at least in his own mind.

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Originally posted by Hound Dog:
What I want to know is why was Tom working on a P-51 Mustang? He's a Navy guy! Shouldn't it be an F4U Corsair or an F6F Hellcat, or something else that was capable of carrier landings?

Bigger question....how does an O-6 afford a P-51? Housed in the man cave hanger at Inyokern airport?

Its all rhetorical, it shapes the character.

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Originally posted by corsair:
Bigger question....how does an O-6 afford a P-51? Housed in the man cave hanger at Inyokern airport?

He was recalled to active duty for the mission in the movie. He could have been spending the last decade in the private sector earning good money.

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Originally posted by Orguss:

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
Bigger question....how does an O-6 afford a P-51? Housed in the man cave hanger at Inyokern airport?

He was recalled to active duty for the mission in the movie. He could have been spending the last decade in the private sector earning good money.

Huh? I do not remember reference to this in the movie. They wouldn't need to recall someone to active duty to fly a super secret space plane, just pay him as a contractor (as if they had to use a contractor...I don't think there's a serving fighter pilot alive who wouldn't literally stab another human being to be the next Chuck Yaeger and break Mach 10).

The impression I got is they just kind of hand-waved the time by being deliberately vague about exactly when the movie was made. If there were brand new/late model cars in the movie I must have missed them.

Oh: and I absolutely loved this flick. I didn't go to the theater expecting a docu-drama, I went expecting Tom Cruise breaking the fourth wall at the camera and top-notch fighter jet porn. TGM well exceeded my expectations and I consider it a very worthy (albeit outrageously delayed) sequel.

Honestly it felt like it should have been Top Gun 5 or whatever, the capstone send-off love letter to the original that some successful and long-running movie franchises do.

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Originally posted by Dwill104:
The P-51 in the movie is actually owned by Tom Cruise and he’s a licensed pilot. That is him flying his own plane. Don’t know why it wouldn’t actually be Jennifer Connelly in the back seat. She probably enjoyed the ride.

Yeah, I just read that. He also designed a training program for all the actors to learn to fly in the F-18s. Half of them got violently ill while flying.

IMDB.com has a lot of cool trivia on the movie.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt174...via/?ref_=tt_trv_trv

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Originally posted by Rob Decker:

quote:

Originally posted by Orguss:

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
Bigger question....how does an O-6 afford a P-51? Housed in the man cave hanger at Inyokern airport?

He was recalled to active duty for the mission in the movie. He could have been spending the last decade in the private sector earning good money.

Huh? I do not remember reference to this in the movie. They wouldn't need to recall someone to active duty to fly a super secret space plane, just pay him as a contractor (as if they had to use a contractor...I don't think there's a serving fighter pilot alive who wouldn't literally stab another human being to be the next Chuck Yaeger and break Mach 10).

There was a discussion about how plausible a 58-yr old, dead-end Captain could possibly be still in the Navy. The one that seemed most believable would be Captain Pete Mitchell is in the Navy Reserve, has some high-paying civilian job (who could afford and maintain a P-51 ), and is apart of the Navy's Test Pilot program where China Lake NAS is one of the locations. What was a stretch and not plausible, besides his age, is the test pilot career path takes you away from the deployable cycle so, you're not going downrange. As an FYI, Navy aggressor squadrons are apart of the Navy Reserve.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

Bigger question....how does an O-6 afford a P-51? Housed in the man cave hanger at Inyokern airport?

Its all rhetorical, it shapes the character.

Well, you can buy a P-51 Mustang in flying condition today for $2.5 to 4 million. It would have been a lot less if he bought it even 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Assuming Maverick was the 'celebrity' he was at the end of the first movie (bald CO said his name was on the front page of every magazine/newspaper in the country), it's entirely reasonable he could have made a book deal. That alone would have gotten him several million $$$. I don't know if the Navy would let him do endorsements ("When I'm shooting down MiGs, Breitling/Ray Ban/Fruit of the Loom/Heinz is the only brand I trust"), but that would bring in more cash. He could also have done a movie deal ("Based on a real story" - heck, there probably was a 'top gun' movie in the Top Gun movie cinematic universe).

It seems a stretch, but not as big of a deal-breaker than one might assume. . .

Everyone keeps mentioning the P-51 as a sign that Maverick is rich; however, nobody seems to have noticed there is a car in the hangar that went for roughly $20 million at a recent auction.

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Originally posted by pedropcola:
Yea this is a “push the I believe button” movie. Enjoy the popcorn, drink your soda, and soak in the fun. It ain’t a real mission, it’s a movie.

Agreed. It ain't a friggin' documentary!!

*Just got home from the morning matinee. I thought it was friggin' AWESOME!!! Entertainment value - 10!!!

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Originally posted by erj_pilot:

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Originally posted by pedropcola:
Yea this is a “push the I believe button” movie. Enjoy the popcorn, drink your soda, and soak in the fun. It ain’t a real mission, it’s a movie.

Agreed. It ain't a friggin' documentary!!

LOL that's the truth, it's entertainment, not documentary, sometimes things are just for enjoyment.

quote:

Originally posted by Orguss:
Everyone keeps mentioning the P-51 as a sign that Maverick is rich; however, nobody seems to have noticed there is a car in the hangar that went for roughly $20 million at a recent auction.

Was that a Bugati Atlantique?


Edit: ok, I googlificated it. It was a 1956 Aston Martin DBR1.

Nice car. . .

quote:

Originally posted by Orguss:
Everyone keeps mentioning the P-51 as a sign that Maverick is rich; however, nobody seems to have noticed there is a car in the hangar that went for roughly $20 million at a recent auction.

Hey maybe it was a POS barn find that he got a great deal on and he restored it with his hands over the last 20 years. You never know

Been waiting 2 years finally saw it tonight. Great entertainment for $10 ticket and 2+ hours. People clapped and cheered at the end.

They say Maverick and Jurassic Park could save the movie theater industry… I dunno. Every sneak preview trailer looked atrocious and /or too woke to waste time and money on

My wife and I saw it yesterday and we both thought it was great entertainment; once again, the highly reliable Tom Cruise.

I read through this thread and I’ll throw out the one question that’s been bothering me since the scene in the movie. What was the one-sentence explanation for not flying F-35s with their stealth characteristics on this mission (our own Fifth Gen fighter)?

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Originally posted by TMats:

I read through this thread and I’ll throw out the one question that’s been bothering me since the scene in the movie. What was the one-sentence explanation for not flying F-35s with their stealth characteristics on this mission (our own Fifth Gen fighter)?

They said the enemy GPS jammers prevented the use of GPS-aided munitions. They imply the F-35 lacked a laser target designator, forcing them to use F-18s with laser-guided bombs. Somebody smarter than me can chime in on whether this is true or not. . .

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The Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) for the F-35 Lightning II is an affordable, high-performance, lightweight, multi-function system that provides precision air-to-air and air-to-surface targeting capability. The low-drag, stealthy EOTS is integrated into the F-35 Lightning II's fuselage with a durable sapphire window and is linked to the aircraft's integrated central computer through a high-speed fiber-optic interface.

As the first sensor to combine forward-looking infrared and infrared search and track functionality, EOTS enhances F-35 pilots’ situational awareness and allows aircrews to identify areas of interest, perform reconnaissance and precisely deliver laser and GPS-guided weapons.
- Lockheed Martin L-M link

It just seems a little silly to spend billions of dollars developing an advanced fighter only to have them parked on the hanger deck because the enemy “is jamming GPS signals.” My guess is that the Navy said, “We’ll provide sufficient FA-18s, Hornets and Super Hornets, for the movie, but we’re not going to provide and film F-35s.”

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Originally posted by TMats:

It just seems a little silly to spend billions of dollars developing an advanced fighter only to have them parked on the hanger deck because the enemy “is jamming GPS signals.” My guess is that the Navy said, “We’ll provide sufficient FA-18s, Hornets and Super Hornets, for the movie, but we’re not going to provide and film F-35s.

A MAJOR feature of this movie is having the actors filmed while in flight, often pulling heavy Gs. They showed Tom Cruise during a real cat launch off the carrier (he was in the back seat, though most people would not notice). Since there are no 2-seat F-35s, they HAD to have a reason for using -18s. Plus, it enhanced the drama with the 'superior' enemy fighters.

Hound Dog, no argument with your last statement at all. Cruise talked at length about the flight training he and the other actors went through to film this movie. They were pulling high Gs

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:

quote:

The Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) for the F-35 Lightning II is an affordable, high-performance, lightweight, multi-function system that provides precision air-to-air and air-to-surface targeting capability. The low-drag, stealthy EOTS is integrated into the F-35 Lightning II's fuselage with a durable sapphire window and is linked to the aircraft's integrated central computer through a high-speed fiber-optic interface.

As the first sensor to combine forward-looking infrared and infrared search and track functionality, EOTS enhances F-35 pilots’ situational awareness and allows aircrews to identify areas of interest, perform reconnaissance and precisely deliver laser and GPS-guided weapons.
- Lockheed Martin L-M link

It just seems a little silly to spend billions of dollars developing an advanced fighter only to have them parked on the hanger deck because the enemy “is jamming GPS signals.” My guess is that the Navy said, “We’ll provide sufficient FA-18s, Hornets and Super Hornets, for the movie, but we’re not going to provide and film F-35s.”

The screen writers needed something simple the audience could grasp, despite the 'jamming GPS signals' reason line not being entirely accurate.

The plausible explanation I've heard is: 1) Navy was not going to have multiple cameras featuring the insides of F-35 nor did they like the idea of a Hollywood crew monkeying around its newest jet, 2) there's no two-seat F-35s, and with the story imperative that 'real flying' be filmed, the super bug was the jet to use, and 3) there's A LOT of Hornets available with plenty of squadrons and pilots rotating, whereas there's not a lot of Lightnings available; the C-model just completed its first deployment several months ago.