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Goose: The Defense Department regrets to inform you that your sons are dead because they were stupid.

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Top Gun (1986) - 62 corrections

Directed by Tony Scott, starring Anthony Edwards, Kelly McGillis, Michael Ironside, Tom Cruise, Tom Skerritt, Val Kilmer (add more)

Genres: Action, Drama, Romance

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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After Mitchell drops out of TOPGUN, Viper tells him: "That isn't something the State Department tells dependents when the battle happens on the wrong side of some line." The State Department does not notify military dependents of the death of a service member. The Defense Department does. Goose got it right when he joked in the cockpit after being nailed by Jester. [While technically correct about which Executive Department sends notification to next of kin of deceased service members, its obvious from the context Viper means something else. When American military personnel are involved in "black" operations, or anything potentially embarrassing, e.g. combat "over the wrong line on some map" as Viper says, State would no doubt have some influence over the details released to family, being the department charged with overseeing our foreign relations. So what Viper means is, "The State Department doesn't let the Defense department tell people the true story."]
Edit
In the scene where Maverick is in Top Gun flying against Jester. In one scene he says he's going to hit the brakes. He hits the brakes and goes up so it look like Jester should fly underneath. In the next shot you can see Jester fly over Maverick. [This is not a mistake, the Aircraft is pulling a high alpha maneuver, in this case 'hitting the brakes' by rapidly orienting the aircraft in a different direction, using the body and wings to slow the aircraft down rapidly. The Russian SU-27 Flanker is famous for this (search cobra maneuver) and the F-14 was capable of doing it as well. The aircraft continues in level flight even though the nose is oriented upwards (high angle of attack). As much as Top Gun makes mistakes with reference to aviation, this is not one of them.]
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When the MiGs fire a missile, its not a Exocet, its a AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. [Exocet's are anti-ship missiles. They are not effective against other aircraft. The MiG's were not yet within firing range of the ship, but were involved in a dogfight, for which the air-to-air Sidewinder missile is the more effective weapon. Most aircraft are able to carry multiple munitions.]
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In the two dog fight sequences, when Maverick uses his speed brakes to "bleed off" air speed to cause the MIGs on his tail to overshoot him, the nose of his Tomcat pitches up and the MIGs pass beneath him. When pilots do this maneuver to evade pursuit by faster aircraft, loss of airspeed results in loss of lift which cause the aircraft to nose down and lose altitude, and the pursuer to pass above them. Closing the speed brakes and applying afterburner then brought the nose back up in a position to fire missiles into the opponent aircraft's exhaust pipe. [The speed brake on the Tomcat is on top of the fuselage, and when actuated causes the aircraft to momentarily pitch nose up.]
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In the last battle. Mav is ordered to launch his alert five. While hooking up to the catapult we see a man holding his left hand flat and placing two fingers sideways into it. That means you are plugging in an external power source. You would not do that during launch. [You obviously haven't stood many alert 5's. Alert 5 or Alert 7 means that the aircraft must be able to be launched 5 (or 7) minutes from the time the order is given. This means that the crew has to be strapped into the aircraft, on the catapult and hooked up to external power in order to have the aircraft's systems checked and ready for immediate launch. Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) take several minutes to align. If they were not already aligned when the launch order was given, the crew would not be ready to launch on time. Once the order is given to launch, all you should have to do is start the motors, disconnect external power, wipe out the flight controls and hit the road. The man in this shot is requesting to disconnect the external power.]
Edit
During scene when Tom Cruise is considering his options to graduate with his class and looking over the Miramar run way as an F-14 passes by to land, it is shown with the tail hook extended down for landing on a ship. [Navy pilot regularly practice landings with the tailhooks down. At certain Naval airbases such as Pax River, Oceana, Pensacola, etc., there are markings on the runways that resemble the carrier deck, and even include the IFOLS lighting system. This is not a mistake.]
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In the scene at the beginning of the movie when the Admiral walks into to flight control room on the aircraft carrier and asks "Who's up there. Great Maverick and Goose"; he is only wearing pilot wings on his uniform. As the scene progresses when Maverick and Cougar tangle with the Migs, the admiral is in the control room and his uniform changes to being completely decorated. [The subject that enters the scene is not an Admiral he is a Commander.]
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Goose is killed by hitting the canopy of the F14 during ejection. The way he hit the canopy should not be possible in real life. The first action of the seat, upon being fired by the crew member, is to secure the crew member to it securely. It does this by explosive charges which generate gas to operate two mechanisms which 1)pull the body back into the seat (you can see the straps that do this in the scene from the film) and 2) pull the legs back to contact with the seat. At this point it is assumed that the hands/arms are being used to operate either the seat pan handle or the face blind. So now we have all our body parts secure, the rest of the seat can be fired. If you look closely at Goose as he ejects, you can see he is not attached to the seat at all: he flops around and hits the canopy. If he had been strapped in correctly, his head would still have not hit the canopy as the top of the seat is above the top of his head (otherwise he could not use the face blind to fire the seat). [The whole reason he was killed was due to a malfunction with the seat. It pulled him back initially as it should, but then released tension, allowing him to flop around and hit the canopy. Even with fail-safes and redundant safety features, if it's mechanical it can, and may, fail.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior Time
While in the trailer reviewing Maverick's flying, "put on the brakes and he'll fly right by..." Charlie is wearing a grey skirt.  In the next scene while she is out by Maverick's bike she is wearing a black skirt. [Charlie is wearing an entirely different ensemble, not just a different skirt, as is Maverick. During the trailer briefing he is in uniform, but at his motorcycle he is in civilian clothing. This indicates a run-in at a later time.]
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In all sequences where Maverick "puts on the brakes", he is shown pushing the throttle quadrant forward and pulling the stick back. This would put him in a full-afterburner climb as the airbrake on the F-14 is actuated by a small slide button on the side of the quadrant itself. [This is actually very accurate. The F-14 the throttle is reverse to what most airplanes of it's day. So to throttle up or faster you pulled the throttle and to slow down you pushed. The reason for this is so that during the jarring launch of a pitching deck. The throttles could not accidentally retard and thus not provide enough thrust. Throttles have sense been updated and the F-18 has a friction screw that will not allow the throttle to retard.]
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In the opening dog fight scene (which took all of a couple minutes) they go from bright sun (Cougar loses his bogey in the sun) to being almost night time when Mav attempts to land on the carrier the first time. [Two things: When an aircraft is at altitude, it will be brighter longer than down on sea level. Second, we don't know how long it took to fly back after the dog fight. If it was late afternoon for the dog fight, it could very well be getting dark on the return trip.]
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Before "classes" begin, the pilots are told that they would be flying against planes that are faster than their F-14's. The F-14's top airspeed is over 500 mph faster than the F-5's, and more than DOUBLE that of the A-4. [The statement doesn't mean BOTH the F5 and A4 are faster. Only that the F14s will fly against faster planes. And since the F5 isn't playing an F5 in the film, but is playing a ficticious MIG 28 made up for the story, no one can say it isn't faster.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
At Top Gun, Maverick does a fly by of the tower. He flies by, the camera cuts to the guy drinking coffee who spills it on himself. Then the camera cuts back to the sky and Maverick flies by again. [This is an artistic choice to heighten the impact of the moment, not a mistake of editing, just as "slow-motion" isn't an accidental drop of film speed that makes everything happen unrealistically slow.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
When Cougar lost the edge after, he wouldn't have given his wings to his Commanding Officer. Handing in your wings is merely a phrase, not something people do. [Character choice. It may not be required, but it's certainly his option to hand them in, throw them out or even swallow them.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
During the opening sequence of "cat shots" off the carrier deck, an F-14 is hooked into a catapult. As it's being launched, the camera switches to a deck member ducking as it goes by in the background. However, the plane going by is actually an A-6 Intruder. [This is a montage of shots randomly depicting the daily routine of carrier duty on the deck. The shots are not meant to be a continuous stream of real time. No mistake.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
The film makes several references to a 'MiG 28' when in fact all MiG aircraft are odd-numbered. No 'Mig 28" ever did or ever will exist. [And "Maverick", "Goose" and "Iceman" don't exist either. The jet was actually an American F5, not a MIG at all, and since it doesn't look like any real MIG, the makers created a ficticious MIG model for the ficticious pilots to ficticiously fight. It's a fantasy, not a documentary. The MIG-28 designation was intentional, not a "mistake".]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
When Maverick and Goose are in the water after ejecting you can clearly see the boat that films them.   [Not true!]
Edit Corrected by Jacob La Cour
There is no way Maverick would have been pinned forward during the spin sequence, either - that's why shoulder harnesses are worn. In any case he should have been able to reach the second set of handles underneath his seat. [In an F-14, the front seater is far forward of the aircraft center of gravity and in a flat spin WOULD be pinned forward in an 'eyeballs out' negative G type condition. This is amazingly accurate in this film; however, such forces would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reach either of the ejection handles (upper or lower).]
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In the carrier scene where "things are going to get pretty hairy", the aircraft shown crashing upon landing is a Korean war jet, probably a Grumman Banshee or Phantom. The black and white sequence also dates the scene in the '50s. [Wrong movie. You are referring to a well-documented mistake in "The Hunt for Red October". No aircraft crash landed on a carrier in Top Gun (though Cougar came close).]
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In the final dogfight, Hollywood is being pursued by a MiG that has radar lock on him. A few seconds later the camera shot changes to the cockpit of the MiG showing his radar locking in on Hollywood's plane (again), but didn't he already have radar lock on him? [That's the point. Hollywood supposedly broke radar lock, and the MiG had to reacquire him as the target.]
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