Top Gun (1986) - 52 corrections

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

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Entry On the last flight that Maverick takes a line of dialogue is heard - "He's on your left at three o'clock." Three o'clock tends to be on the right. [Actually, the time referenced (3 o'clock) doesn't refer to the right or left side on it's own. By saying "on your left, 3 o'clock" it means, turn to your left, imagine a clock on your right, then imagine 3 o'clock on that clock. It could be on your right, 12 o' clock, on your left, 6 o'clock, dead ahead, 3 o'clock. The time alone isn't the indication of location, as a rapid height reference is needed too.]
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Entry Throughout the movie, Charlie keeps referring to Maverick as Lieutenant, even though his rank insignia (2 silver bars connected) is Captain. One silver bar is the rank for Lieutenant. [This is wrong. In the Air Force and the Army, the double silver bars are the insignia of a Captain (grade 0-3). In the Navy, the double silver bars are the insignia of a Lieutenant (grade 0-3). The Navy does have a Captain rank, but it is a few grades higher (O-6) and is represented by a silver eagle (like an Air Force or Army Colonel).]
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Entry A Navy Commander (O-5) will NEVER be the Commanding Officer of an aircraft carrier, he or she will ALWAYS be at least a Captain (O-6). [The O-5 in the movie is not the commander of the carrier, he is the commander of the airwing (aka CAG by Navy terms). He is the officer in charge of all the squadrons on board the carrier. The Aircraft Carrier Commander is a completely separate individual, never portrayed in the movie. His job is to deal with driving the carrier around and the overall mission picture.]
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Entry When Mav and Goose eject (and Goose is killed), notice how the hatch hovers over the plane for nearly a full second. Pretty tough thing to do at 750 mph, huh? In reality the hatch goes first, then there is a delay before the seats go, but there is NO WAY to collide with the hatch in mid air - when the F-14 canopy is jettisoned it flies straight back between the vertical stabs like a field goal kick in the NFL. [There was an actual incident where a RIO was killed during ejection during a flat spin exactly as Goose died in the movie. This is where the idea for Goose's cause of death came from. Then the Tomcats ejection seats were fixed to incur a longer delay so this would not happen again.]
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Entry Tom Cruise states that the song 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay' was a favourite of both his parents. However, his father disappeared in 1965 and the song wasn't written until 1967. [I believe he says it was his mother who loved the song and asked him to play it over and over. He says she died "shortly after him" but doesn't state exactly when.]
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Entry In the opening scene where Goose takes a photo of the the Russian MiG you can see that if he was inverted at such a close range the tails on the planes would be touching. This is an impossible move (and the cut of sequence looks a little rocky too). [Not so...the F5 (Russian Mig) has a single tail. The F14 has dual tails, so the Mig's would just slide between.]
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Entry Definitely the biggest mistake in the movie. Goose would have never died in the way that he did. On all of the F14 models, including the F14As that they were flying, the canopy has explosive bolts holding the glass to the metal on the canopy itself. When the ejection sequence is initiated, the bolts explode, shattering the canopy plexiglass. This was invented to prevent what happened to Goose. [Actually this is not a mistake, it is based on a number of real-life incidents with the F-14, which did indeed have a problem which led to some severe injuries (and I believe at least one fatality) before it was corrected. The problem was that in a position where the aircraft was subjected to severe asymmetric thrust it would enter a flat spin (i.e. one where the nose is roughly level with the horizon). As there is little or no airflow over the control surfaces (the aircraft is moving rapidly downward, but has virtually no forward airspeed at all) it is a very difficult situation to recover from. The original F-14 ejection sequence discarded the canopy first, which was supposed to be blown backwards by the airflow. However in the flat spin situation this did not happen - the canopy remained in approximately the same position relative to the aircraft. When the seats blew a few seconds later, the pilot and RIO were ejected into the canopy. After several accidents of this type modifications were made, firstly to decrease the likelihood of a flat spin developing in the first place, and secondly to increase aircrew survivability in the event of a spin occurring. The second part of this included modifying the eject sequence so the canopy was shattered, rather than jettisoned.]
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Entry Goose could not have died by his head slamming into his cockpit. In addition to Tomcats having canopies that shatter automatically, the ejection chair is extremely tall, tall enough to protect the pilot's head. In the movie his chair is tiny. [Tomcat canopies used to have explosive ejection. Only recent models introduced the shattering canopy].
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Entry In the final battle scene the carrier's captain is told both of the ship's catapults are out, so no more planes can be launched to help Iceman and Maverick.  The USS Enterprise has FOUR catapults. [When the statement was made that both catapults were broken and no planes can be launched, that can be a true occurrance. I have worked on Aircraft Carriers and if you have the Waist catapults go down on you, you can't just jump to the other two on the bow. In a situation where they were launching alerts, the bow would be fully loaded with other aircraft. The only time they would probably be open is if 3/4 of the jets were in the air already, which they weren't.]
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Entry When they are playing volleyball, you can see that between each scene sometimes they have dogtags on and some scenes they don't. [Because of the jumping around while playing, the dogtags are flipping around from front to back. So, depending on the camera shot, you may not see the tags.]
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Entry In many of the training scenes, there is a "hard deck" established - a flight level you cannot go below. Even though in one scene Maverick gets in trouble for breaking the hard deck, in other scenes all the planes are seen doing it and getting away with it. [The hard deck can be the barometric altitude, not necessarily the altitude above ground level.]
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Entry In the scene where Maverick is preparing for launch as the "Alert 5" aircraft, he's shown to slide the canopy forward to close it. The Grumman F-14 has an aft-hinged, one piece canopy that locks in place when it closes, after being lowered into place. The canopy does not slide in any direction once closed. [Actually this scene is correct (and actually filmed in a real F-14). The Tomcat's canopy comes down to the canopy rails and then slides forward about 3 inches to lock. The reverse happens when opening. It slides aft 3 inches and then lifts.]
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