Question: For any military pilots out there: Is it even realistic that Maverick's accident would've been investigated, concluded, and Mav would have been cleared and put back to flight status within the time-frame of the TOPGUN class? Wikipedia says TOPGUN in the 80's was only 5 weeks and today it's 9 weeks. I don't remember how far along they were when Mav and Goose crashed but I'm guessing 1/2 way through at most, so that gives 2-3 weeks to investigate and clear Maverick.
stiiggy
29th Jun 2020
Top Gun (1986)
21st Sep 2020
Top Gun (1986)
Question: Does anyone else think it was cheating for Jester to go below the hard deck after he was out-maneuvered by Maverick? He knew that it would be against the rules for Maverick to engage after he dropped below 10,000 ft.
Answer: Jester called "no joy" which ends the engagement. After that he can go below the hard deck, Maverick can't be credited with a kill that's below the hard deck and after the call of no joy.
In reality Jester's "No joy" ("I can't see you!") call would've been followed by Maverick's "Continue" ("I see you (and I'm about to shoot you down!")) and after that if Jester still would've gone under the hard deck the fight would've ended with a maneuver kill for Maverick. (enemy crashed into the ground). Only a "Knock it off" call would've ended the fight there and then.
Your answer is basically just explaining what Jester was trying to achieve, but didn't address the question of motive. Jester's claim was that due to an unsafe condition he needed to terminate the engagement, while Maverick believed he was doing it to avoid getting caught in a disadvantageous situation where he could be "hit." The movie makes it appear Maverick was right so Jester doing it was cheating. It would be like an athlete who is behind claiming an injury to end a match without anyone yet winning in order to avoid losing.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: Totally unrealistic, especially since it was a fatal incident. These can take weeks and months to be investigated and the pilot returned to flight status.
stiiggy