I again find myself watching Top Gun on HBO. Not that it’s that great, but it seems like the best thing to go to sleep to right now. 🙂

Anyway, I think we all know about the fictitious “MiG 28” (really an F-5E). But I just caught that phantom narrator line from day one: “the planes you will be flying against are smaller, faster, and more maneuverable.” Well, the A-4 Skyhawk is certainly far smaller than the Tomcat. But they are subsonic, and at a thrust/weight ratio around .5, hardly as accelerative as the Tomcat. And, while certainly able to turn inside the Tomcat at low speeds, they max out at 6g; so at higher speeds, the Tomcat has the edge.

In any event, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Navy’s Top Gun aggressor squadron is now flying F-16s – IMHO, the best dogfighter this country has ever produced.

Oh, and this is another thing that’s always got me: Miramar is a good 30 miles or so from the ocean. And there’s another 50 miles or so of piney woods between it and the desert, where we see them doing their maneuvers (well below the supposed “hard deck”). But then, on day two, Maverick goes into a flat spin, and is “heading out to sea.” Further, in the next scene, we first see that the canopy (a single assembly on the Tomcat) clearly blows, allowing Maverick to eject, and then Goose ejects into it. Stupid Hollywood BS.

Anyway, goodnight.