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"Top Gun" Voted the Best Aviation Movie by EAA

B

Bob Axsom

Well Known Member
ARGH!!!! Maybe they meant the worst Aviation Movie of all time. I'm sure you all voted for it but the BEST? Sigh.

Bob Axsom
 
It was a good movie!

Yeah it does seem like it's kind of corny now but back in the mid-eighties our little airport (Howell Mi.) was really slow at the time. My instructor/airport manager/Piper dealer Spence Hardy had 2 students and 3 airplanes. He sold 2 of his 3 planes to his 2 students to stay in the green. I had just got my private ticket when Top Gun came out, good thing too, Spence had more students than he could handle and now he only had 1 plane for instruction.
I have a copy of Top Gun and watch it once a year, I fast forward through the dumb stuff, I love the part were Tom Cruise pulls the parking brake handle and the plane goes straight up and the other planes go flying by :)
Robert Ruggles
Surprise AZ
 
I also agree it was a good movie overall (I don't say this about much of the garbage coming from Hollywierd), and the corniness is easily overlooked. It was panned by the critics at the time, but became either the top or near the top grosser for the year. Another interesting fact about that movie is how many of its actors went on to become big time actors.

The era of watchable flying movies is over, with the near universal use of digital simulations. It would appear none of those who create the simulations have ever even casually watched an airplane in flight.
 
When we did the flight sequences for STEALTH at Digital Domain (yes, it too was unwatchable), we built and used a system based on capturing data from X-plane to use for the flight animation. It all depends on the camera angle and the edit pace. The problem is, if you start doing camera moves in CGI that look video-gamey instead of like air-to-air photography, it doesn't look real, no matter how realistic the aircraft and environments are.

However, in that movie, there is a shot of the Talon landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier that looks just as real as anything in Top Gun.

My beef with the EAA's choice is that there are far better aviation movies out there. ****'s Angels, Aviator, The Blue Max, and The Battle of Britain, for example. And if you start looking at Japanese animation, there's Porco Rosso, Nausicaa, and Steamboy by Miyazaki.

I didn't see all the nominations, but was the Iron Eagle series in the running?
 
Yeah, I liked Air America much better than Top Gun, and there are plenty of other good ones out there. Top Gun is just too cliche.
 
I voted for Top Gun not because I consider it the best movie, but because it is the best movie on the list for watching on the big inflatable screen at OSH. Oh, and there's nothing wrong with cheesy, especially on a hot summer night in the middle of Wisconsin!
 
Best Movie

The question posed by the survey needed to be qualified, of course. Best, in what regard? In-flight sequences, best recruiting tool for the Navy, or whatever. Top Gun definitely qualified as the latter, despite it's numerous technical errors.

My favorite Top Gun line: After doing ACM all day long in the NAS Fallon operating areas (in the Nevada desert, maybe 200 NM from shore);

"He's in a spin, he's heading out to sea!"



Yea, right :rolleyes: .


Doug
Seattle area
-4, wings
ex Tailhooker
 
Top Gun

My favorite part is in the opening sequence when the skipper of the aircraft carrier is monitoring the action between the Tomcats and the Migs. He is wearing the uniform of the day, without all his ribbons. The next time you see him, well, he must have gone back to his quarters in the middle of the dogfight, to put his ribbons on!
 
Really????

Really EAA, really Top Gun? Do you want to think about that EAA?

I wounder how they voted on this. Was it based on name recognition by people who only saw top gun 20 years ago? Don't get me wrong I like it, especially when I first saw it when I was 20, but parts of it where gay. You don't get gay stuff in a John Wayne move. Just saying it was kind of corny in spots. You can do macho with out oiled up volleyball scenes, really. :rolleyes:
 
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alternates

the plaque for the alternates is in the porta john.... :D
ohh,,,,, no, theres two O's in goose boys.
 
I was actually in Navy flight school when Top Gun opened ....as if we didn't have big enough egos!!

Then I went to the fleet and realized it was actually a comedy :rolleyes:
 
After a few beers

This would be kind of fun, when they play the movie at Air Venture next summer, everybody started singing "you?ve lost that loving feeling" during the bar scene :)
Robert Ruggles
Surprise AZ
 
tally ho! I'm in!

Sorry boys, I agree with EAA. In terms of pure flying scenes, it was a great movie. Of course I was about 19 when it came out, so that probably had something to do with it. My age, Meg Ryan and fast jets pretty much explain the appeal for me.

Fast forward through the sappy stuff and the dreadful volleyball scene and watch the flight scenes. They are pretty darn good even 20 years after the fact. F14s and A4s going head to head over the desert, F14s shooting touch and goes at dusk, the slow motion cat launches and traps at the beginning of the movie -- all good stuff. The F14 also made the movie. It wouldn't have been the same movie without that beast of a plane. Just look at Iron Eagle. What a joke that was.

There were a few good lines too:

"I feel the need, the need for speed!"

"The plaque for the alternates is in the ladies room."

"We'll teach you to fly the F14 to the edge of the envelope."

"Do you think your name is going to be on that plaque?
Yes sir.
That's pretty arrogant considering the company you're in. I like that in a fighter pilot."

"Negative ghost rider, the pattern is full."

"Somebody get me a beer for these flames."

Yup, I'm a Top Gun addict, and I am happy with the EAA's choice.
 
Air America the beautiful!

osxuser said:
Yeah, I liked Air America much better than Top Gun, and there are plenty of other good ones out there. Top Gun is just too cliche.
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I'm with the Mac dude on this one. That uphill landing in Air America just made the whole movie for me. Beautiful jungle flying scenes. But I'm a frustrated bush pilot so may be that's why I liked it. :)

Best line: "Don't worry. I crash better than anyone I know."
2nd best line: "Why don't you go back home; be the weirdest guy in the room again."

Great movie.
 
aparchment said:
Sorry boys, I agree with EAA. In terms of pure flying scenes, it was a great movie.
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I'm older. :D

IMO, Strategic Air Command with Jimmy Stewart had great flying scenes. Scenes such as the B-36 flight over the baseball field with those six 4360 engines , along with the B-36 takeoff sequence. Not to mention the inflight scenes. Just awesome!

L.Adamson
 
Top Gun is more widely known to most folks than any other aviation film, I guess. I really liked the launch sequence at the beginning and who cannot be riveted by the Tomcat sequences? As mentioned above, the film had a major impact on young folks entering aviation.

My choices might be too arcane and eclectic for most. How about Runway Zero Eight? Blaze of Noon? Strategic Air Command (with Jimmy Stewart)? (I even liked Airplane.)

I suppose I can understand the vote result, I might have voted much differently, however.
 
Great old thread

Remember that Vansairforce.net voted on best aviation movie:

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=6422&highlight=aviation+movies

Not going to repeat thread but there are a lot of great movies, but I guess Top Gun is iconic and a Box office / block buster commercial success. It had that groovy Kenny Loggins - "Danger Zone" song.

I like "Airplane", "Billy do you like gladiator movies...Surely you must be kidding: No I'm not kidding and don't call me Shirley....."
 
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Yeah it was corny, had a ridiculous plot and wasn't realistic. But the flying scenes of the F-14 were awesome -- who can forget the F-14 catting off the carrier and rolling with the carrier remaining centered in the background as he went around. Even the scenes of the flight deck operations with the deck handlers and catapult launchers were poetry in motion. The soundtrack was great; as good as a greatest hits album. I can remember coming out of the theatre after seeing it for the first time, exhilerated. Very few movies have ever done that for me. And if you liked planes, well ... Who's the best? (pun intended) I wouldn't have any problem with most of the others winning but Top Gun is certainly worthy.
 
Of course there is Kelly McGillis

Sigh. I was also confused by the supposed hard deck (no lower than?) altitude. Seems like it was 10,000' yet during the first set of fights they were in and out of the mountain tops. Seems like a hard deck would keep you well above terra firma.
 
ronlee said:
Sigh. I was also confused by the supposed hard deck (no lower than?) altitude. Seems like it was 10,000' yet during the first set of fights they were in and out of the mountain tops. Seems like a hard deck would keep you well above terra firma.
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Ah yes, another one of those "technical errors". Someone's complied a list, something over a hundred of them. Check out:

http://www.moviemistakes.com/film1312

Let's face it, we pilots have a hard time watching just about ANY aviation themed movie without raising the bu****** flag. Just one example; Remember Harrison Ford in Air Force One? Bad guy points a gun at someone and orders: "Either we get a tanker now, or he dies". Shortly thereafter, a KC-10 magically appears through the cockpit window, boom extended. Now, anyone who's been in the tanker business knows that just *finding* the tanker is the first challenge, followed by the join-up. And we're to believe that the KC-10 is somehow able to maneuver IN FRONT of a B-747, and into a tanking position. Then someone did, what looked to me, like selecting DIM on the wet compass internal lighting switch, and Air Force One is now taking on gas. It gets better. AF1 has been "shadowed" all day during the onboard hostage crisis by a flight of F-15s, afterburners glowing. Now, do you think THEY need (or got) any gas? Naaahhhh!!! :cool:
That one had me rolling in the theatre aisle.

Doug
Seattle area
-4, wings
 
That was not the only flub

ronlee said:
Sigh. I was also confused by the supposed hard deck (no lower than?) altitude. Seems like it was 10,000' yet during the first set of fights they were in and out of the mountain tops. Seems like a hard deck would keep you well above terra firma.
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Yea that was not the only thing. When "TOP GUN" was giving it more thrust/afterburner he pulled BACK on the thrust levers. :rolleyes:

Also, when the engine stalled and the F-14 went into a spin (the goose death scene), it spun the wrong way, into the good engine. :eek: Oh well.
 
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seward747 said:
And we're to believe that the KC-10 is somehow able to maneuver IN FRONT of a B-747, and into a tanking position.
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Not to burst your bubble, but that's precisely how it works in a Point Parallel Rendezvous - the tanker & receiver are on reciprocal headings with a few miles of lateral offset (depending on speed & gross wt.), then the tanker does a 180* turn, rolling out 1NM ahead of the receiver.

I've heard (from other booms) of tankers cheating, and rolling out of the turn almost directly into the precontact position, but that's pushing your luck with a heavy receiver.
 
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