Warbird Information Exchange

I just found out some interesting stuff about the movie. Being that it is going to be presented at EAA theatre in the woods, I thought some of you might be interested in this.

Top Gun was to be originally named TOPGUNS, but the Navy wanted it changed to the same name as the school.

After it's release, it was number one for a few weeks, but stayed in theaters for more than a year.

The flat spin scene in the movie was inspired by a true to life event that took place on a training mission. Same with the Death of "Goose". According to an F-14 Top Gun instructor, in a flat spin the pilot is pinned in a position that he can not reach the ejection handle. The RIO is pinned to a spot where he can, and has to be the one to punch them out. Now if the aircraft is in a flat spin, and the canopy is blown, the canopy will come of differently from a normal ejection. The crew would have to wait until the canopy is gone before punching out. You are not going through the glass in an F-14.

Several different scenes where shot for endings, involving maverick landing his plane, none where used.

At one point the director was getting ready to film, and the Capt. of the carrier turned the carrier in a different direction, messing up the lighting for the movie crew. The Director talked to the Capt. about returning to the old heading. The Capt. said it would cost the navy $25,000 to do that. The director wrote him a check on the spot for $25,000. The carrier was turned back to the old heading.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

interesting movie trivia. i recently read an article where top gun is statitically rated as the #1 favorite of aviation movie buffs. this may be so, but while i liked it, it doesn't rate up their with me that high.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I don't remember the name of the pilot off-hand, but the flat scene shoot in the film resulted in the death of the pilot that was involved in the filming. If you watch the credits until the end, there is an "I memory of" parts for that pilot.

That was Art Scholl in his Pitts.

Steve G

I thought the depiction of the flat spin looked a bit unrealistic untill I saw video of an F-14 in one on "Discovery wings" It looked nasty!
I thought the dedication at the end of the film was for Art Scholl ( my spelling?) who was involved in directing the flying sceens and died during the making of the film in an un related accident?
Good flying sequences of a great aircraft. The story is utter drivel but that aint what I watch it for.

Rgds Cking

Edit: aint youtube great!!!!
search "F-14 flat spin" and it shows the bit of film I was talking about. Luckily the two jockeys got out

Correct. He was doing a inverted flat spin in the pitts, and did not recover. Very sad. I liked the movie for just what it is a movie. They weren't trying to depict an exact point in history, just amking a cool movie about fighter pilots. I loved it as I was only five when it came out, and did not see it until I was older, but I have to admitt that it is what first opened my eyes to flying.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Scholl was killed in an inverted flat spin in the Pitts camera plane used for Top Gun. Exact cause was never determined, but speculation was that the impact the camera rig to both CG and airflow prevented recovery from the spin.

The danger from hitting the canopy is real; the father of one of my college roommates was killed ejecting from an A-10 after he collided with the canopy on the way out.

No way. I knew Art as a kid in Louisiana-he let me play with his dog. He used to do flybys where he would lean out the window and scream, and loose his hat, and act drunk! He was a terrific guy, always nice to me and really funny. I never knew he died, and I've tried to hunt him down in the last year, just to thank him for all the memories. He was one of the good ones.

*EDIT* how could I have missed this? I never realized he was a legend and I never thought to google his name.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

I believe his Chipmunk is hanging in the EAA museum, and his dog is there as well.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

I remember seeing a "60 MINUTES" TV segment about "Top Gun" shortly after it was released. It was all about some sort of finacial "scandal" about the USN accepting bribes, pay offs, hush money, etc. Anyone else remember seeing this?? ... Digger

Digger your thinking of the final countdown.
Cdr Emory Brown CO of VF-84 was courtmartialed for
accept gifts of left behind by the production company ie VCRs ect to be used for the benefit of the whole sqd.
He was found guilty by a kangaroo court and left the Navy and went to law school. Brown was a real top gun. He won multiple DFCs in VN aflying F-4s nd was the first Navy pilot to fly the F-14. He commanded Vf-84 and did all the hot flying for the movie.

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Don't touch my junk!!

C'Mon, Jack...you know that people don't "win" DFCs...it's not a competition.

They're awarded.

Art once mentioned to me that the drunken farmer routine was the most demanding flying he did.

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One of his Chipmunks is at Udvar-Hazy also. He had east coast and west coast ships so he could save ferry time. I thought (may be wrong)
that he had a total of three. One of them still flies and is based in North Carolina.
I also think that the fatal spin sequence was an upright flat spin, not inverted. He had the camera mounted in the front cockpit.
He, in my opinion, is one of the top five airshow pilots ever. When I was a kid at Oshkosh, there was a low overcast during the afternoon airshow. Not many acts flew, but Scholl took off in the Pitts and climbed through the cloud layer. We heard him milling around up there. He cut the power momentarily, then brought it back up. Then there was this
WHUMP-WHUMP sound. He came through the overcast in a flat spin and recovered. Amazing.

Steve G

Cool stuff man. A lot of info here as always. Scholl was killed while performing an inverted flat spin, because he could not get the Pitts to spin upright. So they were going to film it that way, and then invert the film for the movie. He was filming just background fim to use in the flat spin scene.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director