Combat Aircraft – September 2019

deployment, sent them through the nine-

week course, and then placed them into

one of several destinations: TOPGUN staff

or one of the east or west coast weapons

schools for the remainder of their

three-year shore tour. SFTI destinations

would later expand to include the test

and development (VX) community and

‘Strike U’ staff. After this three-year period,

SFTIs were then sent back to a fleet

squadron, where they served 18 months

in a dedicated squadron Training Officer

billet. SFTI arose from training deficiencies

in the fleet, which led to variances in the

squadrons’ tactical proficiencies and a lack

of standardization.

The big move

A year after the introduction of SFTI,

TOPGUN was on the move — bidding

farewell to the wonders of San Diego and

moving north to NAS Fallon, Nevada, as a

part of the aggressive Base Realignment

and Closure (BRAC) Act, where it joined

‘Strike U’ and TOP DOME (the E-2 weapons

school) under the command of the Naval

Strike and Air Warfare Center (NSAWC).

TOPGUN lost its Echelon II status

and curtailed much of its industry and

acquisitions involvement, concentrating

largely on producing SFTIs. For the

remainder of the decade, the school

worked to implement SFTI and populate

the coastal weapons schools, which

administered the Strike Fighter Weapons

Training (SWFT) syllabus — providing

standardized training of combat wing,

section, and division leads. One drawback

of the SFTI program was the resistance

from the US Marine Corps to send its

pilots to TOPGUN for the full nine-week

course — it was felt that some of the

air-to-ground instruction conflicted

with what the marines were teaching

at Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics

Squadron One (MAWTS-1) at MCAS

Yuma, Arizona. In 1997, marines attended

a separate five-week course in air-to-air

only, while navy students attended the

full SFTI course.

TOPGUN’S

SECRET

SAUCE

TOPGUN’s success has been

astounding. Much credit goes to its

founders, who unknowingly put in

place a set of training standards and

an approach to tactics unparalleled

by any other organization. At the

height of the Vietnam War, TOPGUN’s

founding instructors were simply

looking for a means to stay alive and

to return tactics to the high standards

of prior wars. They also set in motion

an approach to standardized training

and tactics that focused on a culture

of excellence, humility, and the need

for credibility that has produced high-

quality instructors year after year. In

part, this can be seen in the school’s

demanding ‘Murder Board’ process,

which it uses to develop subject

matter experts (SMEs) in lecture topics

such as tactics and threat systems.

TOPGUN instructors understand what

the phrase ‘to stand on the shoulders

of giants’ means — it is an honor to

the legacy of those who came before

them and a motivator to become the

best of the best, to never let those

who came before down, and to

always understand that wearing the

patch carries with it great weight of

responsibility.

Above: TOPGUN

received

embargoed

Pakistani F-16s

in 2003 and

continues to

operate these

as a primary

adversary aircraft.

Ted Carlson/

Fotodynamics

Right: NSAWC

painted a

handful of its

F-14A Tomcats

in adversary

schemes,

including BuNo

160913 seen here

in June 2000.

Michael Grove

UNIT REPORT // TOPGUN

92 September 2019 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net

86-93 TOPGUN at 50 C.indd 92 18/07/2019 13:16