Aviation Specials - July 2018

although it was still exclusively air-to-air

combat training.

As the early 1990s progressed, TOPGUN

moved into a brand-new facility at

Miramar and began to incorporate

air-to-ground work into the syllabus. In

1995, TOPGUN adopted the Strike Fighter

Weapons and Tactics (SFWT) program.

This was followed in July 1996 by the

relocation to NAS Fallon, Nevada, and

a merger with the Naval Strike and Air

Warfare Center (NSAWC), which has since

been renamed as NAWDC.

Today’s focus

TOPGUN holds three classes per year for

what is now a 13-week course. Graduates

of TOPGUN are known as Strike Fighter

Tactics Instructors (SFTIs), who return to

the fleet as squadron training officers

with a coveted TOPGUN ‘blue’ patch or

otherwise remain at Fallon to become

TOPGUN instructors to see out the

remainder of their three-year assignment.

TOPGUN today flies a handful of F/A-18C

Hornets, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets plus

F-16A/Bs. The students fly loaned fleet jets,

primarily Super Hornets. Instead of flying

as ‘Red Air’ against students, as the original

TOPGUN instructors did from inception

through to late 1994, instructors now fly

both ‘Red Air’ and ‘Blue Air’, which means

they also fly with the students as part of

their section or division flights.

LT Joe ‘Ruffles’ Rice is the current

TOPGUN training officer, who pretty

much runs the show when it comes to the

courses. ‘Most people come to TOPGUN

after their JO [Junior Officer, LT] tour,’ he

explains. ‘Ruffles’ came from VFA-192 flying

the F/A-18C/E and says that coming to

TOPGUN was one of his goals from the

outset. ‘Fleet crews come to TOPGUN for

a three-month course, which is split into

four distinct parts. It starts with lectures,

then moves into flights. This starts with the

1-v-1 BFM [basic fighter maneuvers] phase

— essentially it’s dogfighting.’ From BFM

the course moves into an air-to-surface

phase, then section phase (working as a

pair), then division phase (four-ship).

TOPGUN follows a strict syllabus for

each event. ‘The students typically fly each

event three to four times,’ ‘Ruffles’ explains.

‘It’s normal for them not to pass first time;

this is about repetition, the more you fly

the better you’ll be. They don’t typically fly

much BFM in their fleet squadrons, so they

don’t get the razor focus that we do. The

students will fly more BFM in a two-week

period here than they have done in the

past year or two.’ The BFM portion is split

into offensive, defensive, and high aspect

and the students fly each of these four

times at least. Due to the elevation above

sea level at Fallon the course detaches

to Lemoore, Oceana or Miramar for the

BFM phase.

The remaining phases are all flown

at Fallon, with air-to-surface seeing

the students being exposed to the

full inventory of weapons. Despite the

addition of air-to-ground, the main focus

remains the air-to-air work. With crews

flying a lot of close air support in their fleet

squadrons, TOPGUN is more about what

they don’t do every day.

US NAVY & MARINE CORPS AIR POWER YEARBOOK 2018

(^26) UNIT REPORT
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