Aviation Specials - July 2018

T

HE QUIET, REMOTE, desert of

north Nevada isn’t quite where

you’d expect the US Navy to

perfect its war ghting skills.

However, this is actually the

perfect overland environment

for pilots and weapons systems o cers

(WSOs) to be honing their skills.

TOPGUN isn’t just a  lm from the 1980s,

it isn’t a competition, it’s a training

school, and today it remains an intrinsic

part of high-end Navy strike  ghter

aircraft tuition. While TOPGUN was made

famous by the  lm, the reality is far

removed from Hollywood.

The Navy Fighter Weapons School

(NFWS) is now a department within the

Naval Aviation War ghting Development

Center (NAWDC, pronounced ‘nor-dick’)

at NAS Fallon, Nevada. Better known as

TOPGUN, the school was the brainchild

of a group of inspirational aviators who

sought a way to remedy the Navy’s poor

kill ratios in the Vietnam War. Previous

kill ratios — the number of enemy

aircraft shot down by US aircraft versus

the number of US aircraft lost to enemy

aircraft — were up around 12:1 in favor of

US  ghters. In Vietnam, US F-4 Phantom

IIs took a pasting at the hands of the MiG-

In 2019, the famous Navy Fighter

Weapons School (NFWS) — better

known as TOPGUN — celebrates

its 50th anniversary. It remains

a world-renowned center of

excellence for naval aviation.

report: Jamie Hunter with Brad Elward

Below: A  eet

of F-16A/Bs

is  own by

the TOPGUN

instructors for

dissimilar air

combat training

at TOPGUN.

Inset: One of the

F/A-18Fs  own

by the School’s

instructors. All

photos Jamie

Hunter unless

stated otherwise

US NAVY & MARINE CORPS AIR POWER YEARBOOK 2018

TOPGUN^21

20-27 TOPGUN C.indd 21 31/05/2018 16:07