Factual error: When Mav explains to Charlie his dogfight with the MiG-28, Charlie askes him: "You were in a 4G inverted dive with a MiG-28?", "Yes Mam" he replies. Imagine the two aircraft. The F-14 was inverted (the back of the F-14 was "looking" at the ground, and it was pulling 4 positive G's), and the MiG-28 was flying horizontally (belly of the MiG-28 was "looking" at the ground) so it should have been pulling 4 negative G's to keep their distance constant, or more to increase it (otherwise they'd have collided). For the MiG to pull 4 negative g's is almost impossible for two reasons: 1) the negative g-limits of the aircraft are somewhere in the area of 3.5, and 2) the Russian pilot's eyes would have popped out of his head at this g-force. Even the most modern and agile fighter aircraft of the world (like the F-16 and the Eurofighter) have a negative g-limit of 3.5 while their positive limit is at 9, mainly due to human body constraints.

Continuity: In the first dogfight, when Cougar freaks out he removes his face mask. When Maverick takes-off again to guide him down the shot shows Cougar and Merlin's plane from the side where Cougar is again wearing his mask. Then it cuts back to a face shot of Cougar and his mask is off again.

Deliberate "mistake": At the beginning of the movie, during the first encounter with the Migs, Goose whips out a Polaroid camera and takes a picture of the Mig while inverted. There is no chance that the other plane would be visible in the photo. Goose used a flash bulb. The glass of the canopy would reflect the majority of that flash right back at the camera. The only thing that would appear in the photo would be a big white flash of light.

Continuity: In the scene where Kelly McGillis hands Tom Cruise the note saying "meet me at my house 5:30 sharp" or something like that, if you look carefully you can see when she hands Cruise the note that there is a lot of print on the sheet, but when he looks at it in a close up the sheet is totally white blank except for her writing.

Continuity: 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.

Factual error: In his first flight at Top Gun, Maverick and Jester are seen flying at low level, yet there is a 10,000 foot hard deck, so they must be flying over mountains that height above sea level, in which case the hard deck to be any use would have to be higher.

Deliberate "mistake": In the shot where the F-14 and F5 canopies are only 3-feet apart, you can see that the writing on the side of MAVs F-14 is backwards. Also, if the F-14 was inverted, with the sun more-or-less above, its cockpit would be in shadow, not with sunlight on the nose, as seen.

Continuity: 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.

Continuity: 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.

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.

Plot hole: In the debrief in Viper's office following Maverick and Goose's first flight at Top Gun (in which they defeat Jester), Viper states that "Commander Heatherly lost sight of you and called no joy." However, during the actual flight scene, you never hear Jester call "no joy." I've always assumed that this part of the scene was accidentally left in the editing room.

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.

Continuity: In the bathroom, Charlie has a tube of lipstick, next cut it's gone.

Continuity: In the first dogfight there are several shots where the planes are very close to the ground - especially one flying over a flat desert where you can see the planes' shadows. In those shots they are definitely below 10,000 feet. However it is only later said that they are going below the hard deck. Submitted by Jacob La Cour

Continuity: The flight where Goose dies begins over land - where the pilots are chatting. When they see the enemy they are over water. In the next shot they are over mountains and desert again, until they land on the water. That doesn't add up. There are no places in California where the desert goes all the way to the coast with no towns at all. Submitted by Jacob La Cour

Factual error: No part of the Indian Ocean could be described as 'enemy territory' for US ships in 1986. Submitted by Jacob La Cour

Deliberate "mistake": In the locker room scene after the final dogfight, Wolfman's helmet is seen hanging in Hollywood's locker. Hollywood's helmet is blue.

Continuity: In the scene where Maverick and Slider are studying and Charlie slips Maverick the piece of paper with her address on it, Slider changes seats. First he is at one end of the table near the wall, then at the end of the scene he, and all of his stuff, is at the opposite end of the table.

Continuity: When Goose dies, "Sundown" acts as Mav's RIO.  On the plane his helmet has a Sun with rays, and walking on the runaway it does not.

Factual error: 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.