Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller
Stupidity: When Maverick dives the F-14 into the hills to confuse the targeting system on the enemy aircraft, the enemy aircraft fires its guns, and the F-14 fires off flares in response...waste of flares that they could have used after the 3rd enemy fires a missile at them.
Suggested correction: Huh? This didn't happen at all in the film.
Factual error: The radar guided SAMs are consistently evaded/triggered by the pilots' flares, which in reality only work against heat seeking missiles. Radar guided missiles would be defended against using chaff, basically clouds of aluminium foil strips. It was mentioned in some interviews they didn't want use chaff as it wouldn't really be visible for the audience - hence why they only deploy flares.
Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw: My dad believed in you. I'm not going to make the same mistake.
Trivia: The P-51 Mustang that "Maverick" Mitchell flies in this film is actually Tom Cruise's own airplane.
Question: Isn't Hangman's ammo still full after he hits the bandit chasing Mav and Rooster? Shouldn't it be short of the fired rocket?
Answer: You're correct - when you see Hangman's loadout before he lands back on the deck - he still has all weapons on the rails - it should be that he is short an AIM-9 or an AIM-120 AMRAAM depending on what was fired.
In all shots of Hangman's F/A-18E after the final battle (especially in the close-up right before he lands on the carrier), it is shown that there is an AIM-120 loaded onto the right air intake weapon station. The left air intake station is empty - indicating either no weapon was loaded or an AIM-7/AIM-120 was fired.
You can see that all his missiles are still intact and even if one is missing it would be very unlike to only load on the right and not the left as well. But where he says "This is your savior speaking" you can see all missiles are still on the plane and unfired.