Corrected entry: The movie had Top Gun in San Diego. The Naval Air Weapons School (Top Gun) is in Fallon, Nevada, nowhere near water or an ocean. Part of the reason for this location is to have more exercises with nearby Red Flag at Nellis AFB.
Corrected entry: An enemy aircraft launches a sidewinder heat seeking missile, and that enemy aircraft is immediately destroyed by a US aircraft. What happened to the inflight sidewinder? It disappeared. Sidewinders have their own internal guidance system, it's a fire-and-forget weapon. Once launched, the launching aircraft can be destroyed but the sidewinder will continue flight to its target and destroy it. So the original plane that was saved should have actually been destroyed.
Correction: The missile was destroyed in the explosion of the launching aircraft as it was still next to it.
Correction: Why would an enemy aircraft have AIM 9L Sidewinders? Rather, they would have the own missile such as an AA-2 Atoll, of which we know little of its fire and forget capabilities.
Correction: All of what you said was correct. However, it can be argued this is intentional. The group of pilots are all TopGun graduates, not students. They are referred to a few times as a "detachment." My interpretation is that they were assembled by the TopGun command, but trained out of North Island. Doesn't explain the Fightertown USA banner featured prominently in a few scenes.
kayelbe