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Ally Sheedy was the first choice for Charlotte 'Charlie' Blackwood but turned the part down because she thought that no one would want to see a movie with Tom Cruise flying a fighter jet. See more...
Top Gun (1986) - 87 mistakes
Directed by Tony Scott, starring Anthony Edwards, Kelly McGillis, Michael Ironside, Tom Cruise, Tom Skerritt, Val Kilmer (add more)
Factual error: The final dogfight scene has a huge error when Hollywood's jet is hit with a missile and he ejects. The next scene shows him manually deploying a small pilot chute to open his main parachute. After seat/man seperation, the main chute automatically deploys depending on altitude and airspeed. He would still be connected to his ejection seat until his chute deploys. Having to manually throw a "pilot chute" to the wind would leave too much for human error.
Factual error: In nearly every cockpit scene, regardless of fighter airframe, you can see that half or more of the lights on the caution lights panel on the lower right-hand side of the cockpit are lit. These lights are the illuminated names of all the systems that are not currently operating, ergo if the "Engine 1" light is lit, then Engine 1 is not running. If over half of the lights are lit (as in the cockpit scenes) then the pilots must be flying without half of their systems running, including engines, hydraulics, and radar. None of these lights should be on in flight. This makes it obvious that the scenes were shot on the ground using external power.
Factual error: The training was conducted at Miramar, 5 (or so) miles from the beach. When Charlie confronts Maverick about his flying and he leaves on a motorcycle, he zooms up a hill away from the ocean leaving MCRD (not Miramar) with the Coronado Bay Bridge - and lots of ocean water- in the background.
Factual error: After the final dogfight scene when Maverick and Iceman have landed, we see their two F-14 Tomcats spotted (parked) on the flight deck of the carrier. In the background, you see aircraft already spotted on the fantail (back of the ship) with several blocking the direct path of any aircraft landing on the carrier. While the aircraft directors and blueshirt crews would be fast in moving aircraft, they would not have had the time to spot and tie down all those aircraft on the fantail before Maverick and Iceman had finished parking their jets.
Continuity: The class at Top Gun was made up of the current best pilot/RIO air crews which had not previously attended the school, from various squadrons. At graduation, out of all the pilots in the Navy, including all the pilots from Maverick's squadron still on the carrier (some of which would have already graduated from Top Gun), Maverick, Iceman and Wolfman have to rush back to Maverick's aircraft carrier because they are the only pilots available that can go against the MiGs?
Factual error: When Top Gun first came out, everybody in our squadron made a big joke of the "Deadly Blue Tubes". This refers to the sidewinder missles that were supposedly launched from the Tomcats. Those who are familier with aircraft weapons, would know that the blue tube is a sidewinder simulator. If you was to launch this from the aircraft, all it could do is drop like a rock.
Factual error: In the beginning of the movie when Maverick inverts and gets cozy (canopy to canopy) with the MIG pilot and Goose is taking pictures; could never have happened. First off the Tails of the F-14 are nearly 9 feet tall and the canopies are a mere three feet apart, so this would have resulted in a collision. Second the suction of the air between these two airframes even at stall speed of 120 mph would have cause a violent collision.
Continuity: In the scene where Charlie picked up Maverick from the hospital, you can see the rear view mirror of her car is low, between the actors' faces. The camera zooms in and the mirror can be seen raised slightly above the top of the windshield. The camera zooms out and the mirror is low again.






