Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: Going through a deceased service person's items is often handled by their closest friend or person in their chain of command. They do that to spare the family of embarrassment by accidentally sending things home that would upset them. In the movie, Goose's wife is waiting for the stuff, possibly because it's an all male BOQ.
Corrected entry: When he introduces Charlie to the class, Jester's cover has an EGA (Eagle, Globe and Anchor) on it, making him a Marine. Later, when Maverick is called into Viper's office, both he and Viper refer to Jester as "Commander Heatherly." Commander is a Navy rank - a Marine in the same pay grade would be a Lieutenant Colonel.
Correction: The insignia is not an EGA (Marine insignia); it is a proper Naval insignia. In addition, he is wearing the proper beige Naval garrison cover; a USMC cover is OD green.
Corrected entry: The scene in the TCTS room, when they are evaluating dog fight maneuvers, Charlie is sitting on the desk wearing a beige pencil skirt, a few moments later when chasing Maverick down outside, she is in a black pencil skirt.
Correction: It is not "a few moments later" between those scenes. During Charlie's review of Maverick's flight performance Maverick is wearing his uniform, and Charlie is wearing a polo top with a light colored shirt (00:51:30). Then sufficient time has gone by because in the next scene (00:52:30) when Charlie is trying to get Maverick to listen to her, both are dressed differently, Maverick is now wearing his civilian clothes, and Charlie is now wearing a different blouse and a black skirt.
Corrected entry: Final scene, Enterprise CO and Maverick dialogue in locker room: the lockers behind them appear to be labelled for Maverick and Goose, the latter of course never lived to be based on ship.
Correction: Goose was Maverick's RIO on the Enterprise before they were sent to Top Gun.
Corrected entry: In a hostile situation, there is no way on Earth that carrier would only have had two fighters airborne, not to mention two aircrews that were not even part of their squadron.
Correction: There is a comment made in the control room that the catapult is broken and will take up to 10 minutes to repair. They tried to put more planes in the air, but were unable to do so.
Corrected entry: During the scene when Tom Cruise is considering his options to graduate with his class and looking over the Miramar runway as an F-14 passes by to land, it is shown with the tail hook extended down for landing on a ship.
Correction: The runway at Miramar is painted to simulate the deck of an aircraft carrier. Navy pilots would practice arresting hook landings all the time, as this pilot clearly was.
Corrected entry: In the opening dogfight, Cougar says "I'm gonna break high and right, see if he's really alone". When Cougar breaks he is only armed with 2 sidewinders and 2 sparrows. Any F-14 on patrol would at least have 4 sparrows under the fuselage, but most likely would have the pallets and 4 phoenix missiles.
Correction: Not true. I flew Combat Air Patrols (DCA) missions over Iraq in the Tomcat A, and we flew with 1/1/1, meaning one each of Sidewinder, Sparrow, and Phoenix missiles, as well as a full gun drum. In six years of flying the Tomcat, I never heard of one flying with more than 2 Phoenix.
Corrected entry: During the dogfight with Jester, as both planes are going 'ballistic', from the ground view, the F-14 is in front. Aren't they pursuing?
Correction: Actually, they are pursuing. The scene is filmed from below and the F-14 is engaging "Jester" from a higher altitude giving the illusion of being above of the lower altitude F-5 E.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: When the MiGs fire a missile, its not a Exocet, its a AIM-9 Sidewinder missile.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: 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?
Correction: That's the point. Hollywood supposedly broke radar lock, and the MiG had to reacquire him as the target.
Corrected entry: In the scene after Maverick goes to Viper's house to ask for "his options", he is shown sitting on his motorcycle at the end of a runway watching a plane coming in to land. The plane has its tailhook down, which should only be down while landing on the deck of a carrier. This obviously was footage of a carrier landing being reused. And in the very next shot it shows him watching the plane accelerating away with afterburners glowing, which contradicts the earlier shot of the plane landing. (01:25:00)
Correction: Where do you think they practice the tailhook manoeuvre? If the first time that a pilot learned to use the tailhook was on a carrier, many a pilot might die flying off the end of it into the ocean. Remember that this is a "training" program for pilots as well. Also, the afterburners are bringing him up to speed, possibly to circle back and repeat the manoeuvre.
Corrected entry: In the scene in the bathroom, you see Maverick walking through the doors, they say 'ladies room'. When they are in the bathroom, though, the writing should be backwards, as it is the back of the door and reflected in the mirror but it is written exactly the same, the words are on the wrong side of the doors as well.
Correction: The writing on the back of the door would be backwards from the inside, but because it is reflected in the mirror it looks as if it is written properly.
Corrected entry: In the whole movie the pilots are controlling the throttle with their right hand. But in reality, the throttle is placed on the left hand side and the right hand is used to control the stick.
Correction: At no time do the pilots control the throttle & joystick with the opposite hands, it only looks like it when they shoot the scene from the front looking back.
Corrected entry: Any pilot that disobeyed a direction by air traffic control and conducted a "fly by" would immediately lose their flying status, yet Maverick does it twice.
Correction: Viper made it clear that he was cutting Maverick a break the first time he did a fly by, by not losing his flying status. The second time was at the end of the movie, so we don't see if he lost his flying status or not, although it is doubtful that they would take it away from him since he was a hero.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Charlie is introduced, you would not have to tell a bunch of experienced officers (ie Lieutenants), that they don't have to salute civilians.
Correction: Jester is informing them that the woman is a civilian, and not military personnel. They already know you don't salute civilians. It was also contextual because Jester immediately follows up with "But you better listen to her because the Pentagon listens to her."
Corrected entry: Maverick followed Jester below the Hard Deck, yet only Maverick got into trouble.
Correction: Because Jester was the target and could do that - Maverick followed him below the Hard Deck and then engaged his weapons - a direct violation of the rules.
A "hard deck" is technically the ground, in regards to the training exercise. So Jester certainly went against the spirit of the rules by essentially crashing his plane to avoid Maverick. When you consider the fact that, by doing so, he put Maverick into the position of following him (and when you have extremely egotistical, adrenaline pumped pilots chasing you...they are going to be apt to follow you), he essentially put everyone at risk. That said, Jester could have gotten his discipline off screen, so this really can't be considered a mistake.
Corrected entry: In the opening dog fight scene, the wings on his F-14 change continuously from "swept" to "unswept". "Swept" wings are a delta shape and "unswept" are more clearly open. The changes in shape are dependent upon speed and would not change so quickly between scenes.
Correction: The wing sweep feature of the F-14 can be either computer controlled or pilot controlled, allowing for greater manuverability during dogfights. Un-swept wings allow for tighter turns during a dogfight, especially when using the 20mm cannon.
Correction: It is common for service members to have multiple sets of dog tags so Maverick could certainly have a set of Goose's dog tags.