The Times - UK (2022-05-27)

4 Friday May 27 2022 | the times

cover story

I

know that all my pilot chums

reading this over their toast

and marmalade are already

spluttering, why have they

asked a former RAF Tornado

navigator, a mere back-seat

driver, to write about Top Gun?

I guess it’s because we navigators

clearly have better communication

skills than the “stick-monkeys” I used

to sit behind in a jet-fighter and order

around the skies.

Moreover, I’ve been lucky enough

to have a blast — just once — around

California in the star of the new film,

the F-18 Hornet, flown by an actual

US navy pilot. Perhaps most

importantly, I’ve been to Friday

afternoon happy hour a couple of

times at the Officers’ Club at Naval

Air Station Miramar, the home of the

original Top Gun school. So I’ve spent

time drinking with the crews and

singing all the old songs. I can still belt

out a decent rendition of You’ve Lost

That Loving Feeling if the need arises.

I loved the first Top Gun and I’ve

seen it at least a dozen times. Most

fast-jet aircrew have. In 1987, a few

months after the film came out, I was

a young, enthusiastic trainee

navigator. A large group from the

RAF’s “Nav school” headed into

Doncaster to watch it. To say we were

enthralled is an understatement.

Even to young student flyers used to

thrashing around the skies at a

relatively sedate 300mph, it was

incredible to watch Tom Cruise and

his fellow aviators’ exploits in their

F-14 Tomcat fighters. To live and

breathe their experiences of combat,

love, life and death. Most of us

watching agog would later fly our

own jets into battle at 700mph-plus.

A number — like me — were shot

down over Iraq during the 1991 Gulf

John Nichol in a

Tornado in 1988 and,

above, with a US navy

F-18 Hornet. Top:

Tom Cruise and, right,

Monica Barbaro and

Jay Ellis in the new

Top Gun: Maverick

War. Not all of those friends survived.

That first Top Gun was riddled

with aviation errors. From some

toe-curlingly awful airborne dialogue

to real technical stinkers. My personal

favourite came during the ejection

sequence when the young Maverick’s

back-seater Goose (spoiler alert) is

killed. A panicked radio call goes

out: “Mav’s in trouble. He’s in a flat

spin and headed out to sea.” In

reality, if a jet is in a flat spin it is no

longer a flying machine — it’s a large

lump of metal and it’s plummeting

straight down. Fast.

Yet while some aviators expressed

concerns at the first film’s errors, the

director Tony Scott rightly said: “I

don’t make movies for fighter pilots,

I make movies for moviegoers.”

That seems perfectly reasonable.

So if the first Top Gun was both

brilliant and littered with errors, how

does this latest version measure up?

Watching Top Gun: Maverick on

the big screen (an absolute must),

I witnessed some of the most

astonishing, technically beautiful,

awe-inspiring flying sequences ever

filmed. They are simply breathtaking.

Needless to say, there is still some

wonderfully corny, totally unrealistic

dialogue. And there are, as in the

first film, many dodgy depictions of

flying, combat and military life.

In an early scene we see the now

Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell

(Cruise) in his incredible man cave

surrounded by motorbikes,

memorabilia and his very own

Second World War P-51 Mustang.

A top US navy captain probably earns

about £160,000 a year. Never mind

the antique motorbikes, that P-51

alone would probably set him back at

least £3 million. So unless Mav is

selling secrets to the Russians, this

scene raises a serious financial

question. Although interestingly,

Cruise actually owns a vintage

Mustang and took some of the cast

flying in it before filming started.

Apparently, many were airsick.

Obviously the US navy didn’t let

Hollywood actors borrow their

multimillion-dollar F-18 Hornets to

make a movie. Training a fast-jet pilot

can take three to five years. So

whenever we see an actor “flying” the

jet from the front seat in the airborne

sequences they are actually sitting in

the rear, weapon systems officer’s

cockpit (the “navigator” in old RAF

terms) of the two-seat version of the

F-18. A US navy pilot is at the

controls up front. So if you know

what to look for, some of the actors’

hand positions are slightly awry,

especially when they launch from

the carrier.

In the film some of the briefings are

held in the massive hangar on the

aircraft carrier, with countless

arbitrary members of the ship’s crew

listening in.

This is unrealistic. They have secure

briefing rooms and only those directly

involved in a mission attend.

An aircraft engine fire results in an

astonishing sequence of diving,

turning and rolling.

While an engine fire can be

concerning, completing a series of

harsh, aerobatic manoeuvres isn’t

going to help. And performing a

high-speed, low-level fly-by of the

tower in a damaged jet really isn’t

the done thing.

Maverick begins a dogfight training

exercise by blasting up from low

level beneath two trainees and

through a tiny gap between their

jets, causing them to flip on their

wings, yelling an anguished: “What

the hell?!”

Perhaps the most dodgy scene, widely

shown in the film’s trailer. In the best

case scenario, this terminally stupid

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How true to

life is the new

Top Gun?

Former RAF navigator and author

John Nichol, who was shot down and

captured during the Gulf War and has

flown around California in an F-18 Hornet,

separates fact from fiction in the sequel