Top Gun (1986) - 90 mistakes

Other: When Maverick is doing the fly-by at the end of the movie, you can notice the crew watching for the F-14's to fly by the carrier. It's obvious the fly-by was set up, otherwise the crew wouldn't be waiting to watch them fly by.

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.

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: US Flight suits certainly have their share of insignia on them, including name, rank, unit and sometimes others. Often aircraft type, school and hours awards are also worn, but they don't look as much like NASCAR fire suits as the movie makes out. Even so, all extraneous insignia are removed when operating in a combat zone. They're attached with velcro for this purpose.

Factual error: At the end Maverick throws Goose's dogtags off the ship. American soldiers wear two dog tags. When killed, one tag goes to administration for paperwork purposes and the other is given to the family (if any). Goose's personal effects should have had only one tag and been mailed home to his wife, NOT given to Maverick. It is not military policy to let a deceased soldier's friends pick through his stuff after he dies, as we see Maverick do.

Factual error: 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.

Factual error: Although it doesn't occur in the land-based tower at Miramar during Mitchell's first high-speed pass (thankfully), when he repeats the pass at the carrier, the camera work tries to make it look like the jet rocks the tower. US supercarriers displace over 80,000 tons, and are not pushed around even by 30,000 pounds of thrust flying nearby.

Factual error: Cougar would not have a photo of his wife and kids in the cockpit as seen in the opening scene, as it would fly around when maneuvering. It could also obscure instruments and before he took off each day he would need to put this photo in place, as pilots don't have their own private planes.

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 Iceman confronts Maverick about covering Cougar, Iceman is shown putting his watch on as Maverick is walking up the stairs. In the next frame, when he is standing next to Maverick, he is shown putting it on again.

Continuity: While Maverick is dogfighting Viper in Top Gun school he is in a F-14, and Viper is in A-4. Viper gets on Maverick's back, but in one scene you see the A-4 flies through the view before the F-14, although he should be behind him...

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.

Factual error: After the graduation at Top Gun, the next scene shown is an aircraft carrier and the caption "24 hours later." To allow pilots time to overcome the effects of jet lag, they are grounded one day for every three times zones they crossed. Maverick wouldn't even have been on the flight schedule within 24 hours of having left California.

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.

Factual error: The aircraft the American pilots are fighting against are described as being "MiGs", but they are American F-5 jets, called tigers, which the USAF is still using for the training of young pilots.

Factual error: The implausibility of holding class in a hangar instead of a classroom has already been mentioned. But how about the desk just inside of the hangar doors, complete with blotter, "in" and "out" baskets and other accessories?

Continuity: The night before graduation, Maverick is parked on his bike at the runway. An incoming jet is seen, with gear and hook down. But in the next shot the jet just keeps flying. And it's not a test landing and take-off. It's two different planes mixed.

Continuity: At the beginning of the film, the squadron commander enters CATTC with a chest full of ribbons, next shot, all ribbons are gone.  There is no smoking in CATTC (for the equipment) and the radar in CATTC cannot be used to monitor air combat movement as they did in the film.  The Combat Centre or CIC is used for that.

Continuity: In the last dogfight, Ice says "two MiGs passing between us."  It then shows the two passing between either Ice or Maverick and a single tail jet.  The Grumman f-14 Tomcat is a twin tail.

Factual error: In describing the first encounter with the MiG, Maverick tells Charlie he saw a MiG do a negative 4G dive. However, in that scene, the two planes are flying straight and level - neither one climbs or dives at any time.