Hollywood Has Been Rife with Top Gun Rumors. Here Are the Most Recent Ones.
Three actors have been tipped by Hollywood insiders as top choices to play the son of LTJG Nick “Goose” Bradshaw in the upcoming “Top Gun: Maverick” slated for release in July, 2019. Entertainment industry news outlet CinemaBlend.com writer Nick Evans, reported last night that, “The son of Goose is set to have a key role in the film and casting is underway for the part. The frontrunners are Nicholas Hoult, Glen Powell and Miles Teller.”
Actors Nicholas Hoult, Miles Teller and Glen Powell are tipped as favorites for the role of the son of “Goose” in Top Gun: Maverick”. (Photo:JohnShearer/Getty; Manny Crabel/WireImage; Santiago Felip/Getty)
As every Top Gun fan knows, “Goose” died in a tragic training accident in the original film when “Maverick” (Tom Cruise) flies his F-14 Tomcat through the wake vortex of “Iceman’s” Tomcat, flaming out both engines and being forced to eject. “Mav” gets out OK, but LTJG Nick “Goose” Bradshaw collides with the aircraft canopy as it is blown off the F-14 Tomcat during the ejection. Tragically, he does not survive.
Reporter Nick Evans went on to talk about the potential significance of the new character in “Top Gun: Maverick”:
“When we first heard about Goose’s son being in the sequel last year, it seemed that he might be named Wrigley and will immediately butt heads with his instructor Pete Mitchell at Top Gun class. This will potentially be an antagonistic relationship between teacher and student in the beginning, which makes sense considering Goose was killed while flying with Maverick.”
In other “Top Gun: Maverick” rumors flying fast and low around Hollywood and on the set at Naval Air Station North Island on Coronado Island, San Diego, entertainment reporter Ryan Scott of MovieWeb.com reported on June 6, 2018 that, “[Kenny] Loggins would return to help out with the movie’s soundtrack. It sounds like that’s going to happen, as he’s going to put a new twist on “Danger Zone” with a younger artist.”
Hollywood reports leak that Kenny Loggins may have a role in the new soundtrack for “Top Gun: Maverick” (Photo: via YouTube)
Musician Kenny Loggins told reporter Ryan Scott that, “I met Tom Cruise on Fallon and I asked him that question. He said ‘Of course we have to use Danger Zone.’ So, I’d probably do it maybe as a duet with a young act. I’d like to work with, well there’s young and then there’s young…we have some feelers out there. Some pretty cool rock acts. The rockers that I’m interested in are male.”
There have been no confirmations so far about the soundtrack from Paramount Pictures, the studio producing “Top Gun: Maverick”, or from Kenny Loggins’ agent, Michael Jensen of Jensen Communications.
As we reported previously on TheAviationist.com, the plot for “Top Gun: Maverick” will likely introduce dramatic conflict between the world of traditional manned-fighter aircraft like the F-14 Tomcats (made famous in the original film) and their more modern replacements and the emerging role of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) or “drones” like the U.S. Navy’s new X-47B experimental remotely piloted aircraft and the Navy’s giant MQ-4C Triton UAVs. Tin the real world, MQ-4C Tritons are to be deployed to Guam for surveillance missions in the region this summer, so the plot for “Top Gun: Maverick” has particular relevance. The first photos teased on social media from Tom Cruise show a Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, suggesting the Navy’s new F-35C Lightning II, the carrier-launched variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, may not have made it through auditions for the movie’s airplane cast.
Studio Leaks Say Kilmer Will Join Tom Cruise in Anticipated Sequel Titled “Top Gun: Maverick”
Every Hollywood entertainment news outlet lit up on Wednesday night with the news that actor Val Kilmer would return in the highly-anticipated sequel film “Top Gun: Maverick”. Kilmer played U.S. Navy Lt. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in the original 1986 “Top Gun” film and will return in the same role.
The return of Val Kilmer as Iceman in the new film follows a two-year battle with throat cancer for the actor. Kilmer is also known for his role as Simon Templar in the 1997 film “The Saint” and for his role as Chris Shiherlis in the cult classic 1995 bank robbery film “Heat”, directed by Michael Mann. Val Kilmer was also widely recognized for a standout performance as singer and front-man Jim Morrison in the 1991 film “The Doors”.
Kilmer leaked his presence in “Top Gun: Maverick” with a post on his FB page, that appeared shortly after Tom Cruise published the first image of the sequel on Twitter on May 30, 2018. But Kilmer’s post remained online for just a few hours before it was cancelled (for unknown reasons).
According to Hollywood insiders the new film may focus on the emergence of remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs) like the Navy’s X-47B and MQ-4C Triton and the end of the dogfighting era even though Tom Cruise responded “there gonna be jets” when asked about drones in a recent interview . And, as reported, the very first image about the new movie seems to suggest a major role for the USN F/A-18F Super Hornet.
Original “Top Gun” director Tony Scott told reporter Gregory Ellwood of HitFix in an October 2010 interview that, “This world fascinated me, because it’s so different from what it was originally. But I don’t want to do a remake. I don’t want to do a reinvention. I want to do a new movie.” Director Tony Scott committed suicide in August 2012. The new film will be directed by Joseph Kosinski. Kosinski is a relative newcomer as a director with three major films to his credit, “Tron: Legacy” from 2010, “Oblivion” from 2013 and “Only the Brave” from 2017.
In contrast to the late director Tony Scott’s 2010 remarks about the direction of any new sequel to the original film, lead actor Tom Cruise, Lt. (now Capt. based on the image published on Day 1 of production work) Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the movies, told Hollywood media that, “Aviators are back, the need for speed. We’re going to have big, fast machines. It’s going to be a competition film, like the first one…but a progression for Maverick.”
Lead actor Tom Cruise is a pilot himself, having earned a private pilot rating in 1994 and a commercial license in 1998 according to FAA records. He recently flew a helicopter (and performed a HALO jump from a UAE AF C-17) in the upcoming sequel film “Mission Impossible: Fallout” slated for U.S. release on July 27, 2018 in U.S. theatres. Cruise also clung to outside of an Airbus A400M Atlas in the 2015 film, “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation”. In the 2017 film “American Made” about real-life drug running CIA pilot Barry Seal, Tom Cruise actually was piloting an aircraft in all of the scenes that show him as pilot according to a 2017 article by Julia Bianco on looper.com. The film’s production was marred by a fatal crash during production that Cruise was not involved in.
The “Top Gun” sequel likely can’t come soon enough for U.S. military pilot recruiting. The frequently reported pilot shortage in all branches of the military continues to strain existing air crews. Author David Robb wrote in his 2004 book, Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies, that “After the film’s release, the US Navy stated that the number of young men who joined wanting to be Naval Aviators went up by 500 percent.”
Production for “Top Gun: Maverick” began on May 30, 2018 at NAS North Island near San Diego, California. The release date for the film, being distributed by Paramount Pictures, has been projected as July 19, 2019.
Top image: Actor Val Kilmer will return in “Top Gun: Maverick” along with Tom Cruise. (Photo: Paramount)
Looks like Top Gun sequel may feature the Super Hornet instead of the F-35.
Tom Cruise has just teased the long-awaited Top Gun movie sequel (expected in July 2019) with an interesting photo posted on Twitter with the text “Feel the need” and #Day1. The image, that marks the beginning of filming and production work, shows U.S. Navy pilot Capt. Pete Mitchell, wearing the flight suit with a TOPGUN patch on his shoulder and what appears to be an F/A-18F Super Hornet in the background. This seems to suggest “Maverick” retains a pilot role (and possibly he’s still assigned to the U.S. Navy Naval Fighter Weapons School even though the patch may only mean he graduated there) and that he flies the Super Hornet and not an F-35C, the U.S. Navy’s most modern aircraft, as most had predicted.
Since the first movie was released back in the 1980s, TOPGUN has moved from Miramar to NAS Fallon, Nevada even though, according to our friends at Combat Aircraft the trees in the shot suggest that the photo wasn’t taken at the base home of the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center, near Reno.
One thing worth noticing is the fact that “Mav” has his famous HGU-33 helmet in his hand even though that kind of old-fashioned helmet has long been replaced within the U.S. Navy and other air arms around the world by the more modern Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System or HGU-68/P helmets.
Fallon has been called by some (the late George Hall mainly, in its Superbase books series) the “supercarrier in the desert”, and with reason: it hosts in numbers all the aircraft types the Navy usually operates from its aircraft carriers. In fact, it is the center of excellence for naval aviation training and tactics development.
The mission of this airbase, located in western Nevada near Reno, is focused on advanced training and its main command Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center (NAWDC, pronounced NAW-DIK) is two-fold: host the carrier air wings (CVWs, also called CAGs – carrier air groups) during their work-ups before deployment, and teach advanced combat warfare to selected pilots. This last mission is the heritage of several well-known courses including “Topgun” and “Strike U”. Nowadays, these two courses are unified into a 13 weeks long Topgun course.
NAWDC hosts Topgun course and its instructors and kept the famous NFWS patch (Alll images: Author)
Topgun made example for other flying communities who too created graduate level schools : Top Dome for E-2 controllers, Seawolf for Seahawk helicopter pilots and HAVOC for EA-18G Growler EW crews.
A HAVOC Growler sits on the NAWDC ramp, waiting for its crew
An E-2C Hawkeye lands at the end of a TOPDOME training mission
SEAWOLF program SH-60 helicopters head out to the Fallon range
At Fallon, the tarmac is divided into two areas: the south ramp is dedicated to NAWDC aircraft as well as VFC-13 F-5Ns, and the north ramp hosts Carrier Air wings for their work ups, and aircraft from the fleet when their crews come here for Top Gun or HAVOC. NAWDC operates legacy F/A-18 Hornets (“charlie” models) as well as Super Hornets (“echoes” and “foxtrots”), EA-18G Growlers, E-2C hawkeyes and F-16A and Bs.
Dull grey and colorful birds share the south ramp allocated to NAWDC
A Topgun F-16A taxies under the coming overcast
During our visit, “CAG-5” should have been in the middle of a work-up before a cruise. But as it is a permanently deployed Carrier Air Wing in Japan, only two of its squadrons came to Fallon for the readiness program before the at-sea period : VFA-27 “Royal Maces” (NF-2xx) and VFA-102 “Diamondbacks” (NF-1xx). This program is called SFARP (for Strike Fighter Advanced Readiness Program) and is intended to maximize the tactical proficiency of strike fighter aircrews across the full spectrum of F/A-18 mission sets by using academic lectures, simulator events, and tactical training sorties. After a local training and initial syllabus at their homebase NAF Atsugi in Japan, given by Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor (Topgun graduates), the squadrons shifted to NAS Fallon, flying their aircraft across the Pacific to take advantage of the unique training opportunities offered by the Fallon Range Training Complex (FRTC).
When such squadrons or full airwings come to Fallon, they come en masse with their full complement of sailors for maintenance. This is also a way of training them for surge operations in a deployed configuration. On the opposite, NAWDC aircraft on the south ramp are all taken care of by a team of private contractors.
A VF-102 Diamondbacks F/A-18F takes-off, in full afterburner…
…while another comes back to the parking area
Both squadrons, VFA-27 and VFA-102, moved permanently from NAF Atsugi to MCAS Iwakuni a few days after our visit to Fallon.
A VFA-27 Royal Maces F/A-18E Super Hornet is departing for the training range.
Next to the CAG-5 birds, Fallon hosted an array of visitors from various squadrons of both Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Hornets and Super Hornets ware there for the Topgun course which lasts now 13 weeks, compared to 5 weeks in the 80’s, and 9 weeks in the 2000’s after it was mixed with “Strike U” at Fallon.
This course is made of several blocks, first “ground school”, then air-to-air, BFM and ACM, and air-to-ground, and in the end, advanced strike package tactics.
Topgun instructors are ready to give an airborne lesson to Navy regular squadrons crews.
Aircrews participating to Topgun course during our visit, and seen on the came from the following squadrons :
VFA-154 Black Knights CVW-11 USS Nimitz (NH-1xx )
VMFA-323 Death Rattlers CVW-11 Nimitz (WS-4xx or NH-4xx )
VFA-143 Pukin Dogs CVW-7 USS Lincoln (AG-1xx )
VFA-83 Rampagers CVW-7 USS Lincoln (AG-3xx )
VFA-25 Fist of the Fleet CVW-7 USS Lincoln (AG-4xx )
VFA-81 Sunliners CVW-17 USS Roosevelt (NA-2xx )
VFA-87 Golden Warriors CVW-8 USS Bush (AJ-3xx)
A VMFA-323 legacy Hornet comes back with new things learned
A VFA-154 Super Hornet deploys its speedbrakes after touchdown.
The adversary component was provided by the local VFC-13 Fighting Saints and their F-5N Tigers II (ex-Swiss Tigers), and by the dedicated reserve adversary squadron from NAS New Orleans, the VFA-204 River Rattlers, with their F/A-18Cs (modex AF-4xx).
The Saints fly colorful Tigers and their “Rotten Banana” and “Mig28” schemes are particularly attractive for the aviation photographer. When it comes to air-to-air combat, their pilots know how to take full advantage of their nimble and small metal bird; the Tiger is particularly difficult to see head-on and young fleet pilots learn this the hard way.
VFC-13 pilots take their Red adversary mission to heart with decorated flightgear.
The Rotten Banana scheme is not always efficient in the Nevada. But it always attracts big lenses.
Reminding the Top Gun movie, VFC-13 adopted the “Mig-28” black scheme which is now a myth.
A more classical adversary scheme is adorned on this F-5N under a VFC-13 shelter
A Tiger II is showing its feline heritage.
After an hour spent on the NAWDC ramp, we were able to get some time near the runway and the EOR (End of Runway) area. These moments were quite unique in the lifetime of a military jets enthusiast and aviation photographer as you cannot get closer from the action beside being in the cockpit. The author of this article can attest that earplugs were more than needed, as he forgot to put them on while 3 Super Hornets took off in sequence, rattling the air and every piece of the body, drilling the inside ear for a long 40 seconds. Never a louder noise has been heard.
Diamondbacks Super Hornets take off at closely spaced intervals…
…few seconds later, a brown Saints aircraft recovers on the parallel runway
Growlers are quite common now on the Fallon ramp and in the traffic pattern
Heatblur is ever-present with so many full afterburner take-offs
Brown 51 is airborne
For more than one hour, it was an uninterrupted ballet of take offs and landings on both parallel runways. The weather was deteriorating and a flight of 4 F/A-18Fs was forced to abort their mission at the EOR and taxi back to the ramp.
The weather conditions are not always CAVU (Ceiling and Visibilty Unlimited) in Nevada.
This visit was a great opportunity to witness the efforts the US Navy puts into training its aircrews and keeping them at their best level throughout their operational career.
TOPGUN F-16B on the ramp.
The author wishes to thank the Navy Public Affairs Office at NAS Fallon, and Mr Zip Upham in particular.
Almost every aviation geek has seen the famous film Top Gun. But few of them know that if Maverick and Goose flew an F-14B they would not have had to eject during the flat spin they experienced in the movie.
Developed in the late 1960s as a multi-mission fighter, the F-14’s missions were to protect U.S. Navy Carrier Battle Groups (CBG – now CSG where “S” stands for Strike) from potential raids conducted by the Soviet bombers armed with long-range cruise missiles and to provide fighter cover for Navy attack aircraft.
The Tomcat was fitted with the potent AWG-9 radar which, supporting six AIM-54 missiles, gave the F-14 unprecedented and unparalleled mission capabilities.
Still, even though it was one of the most capable fighters in the aviation history, one problem that plagued the F-14A was the reliability of its TF30 engine. In fact, the fan blades of the Pratt & Whitney engine could break free, causing aircraft stalls and spins as a result of airflow induced engine stalls.
These problems were solved when the F-14B (former F-14A Plus), powered by a new engine, the General Electric F110-GE-400, began to enter in service in 1987.
“The TF30 engine’s highest stall margin, which means the difference between its operating line and where the engine will stall, occurs when it is stabilized at military power. If you would like to go to idle power when you are maneuvering, you stand a very good chance of stalling the engine. The F110 has tremendous stall margin everywhere and, at idle power, it’s higher than anywhere else. When you are maneuvering with the F110 engines, you can do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it.”
Moreover, with the new engine, the afterburner thrust went from 20,000 pounds per side up to 28,000 pounds per side, while dry power increased from 11,000 pounds per side to 16,000 pounds per side.
Thanks to the improved performances, Schroeder told Drendel that Maverick and Goose would not have had to bail out from their jet if they had flown a F110-powered Tomcat.
Indeed, Grumman’s Chief Test Pilot explained that the flat spin shown in the movie was “a very concern early in the F-14 program. When the aircraft is in a fully-developed flat spin, it’s going at a very high yaw rate and it is spinning down in a very small radius. In the ejection sequence, the canopy leaves first, then the back seat, then the front seat. […] The concern in a spin is that the canopy will be ejected straight up, followed shortly by the seats and the possibility exists for a collision. We have had several ejections in spins and I believe there was one case where the RIO brushed the canopy. So the scene (of the movie) was entirely possible.”
Some concern existed about the possibility of generating a stall or a spin even with the 110 engine in case its greatly increased thrust was applied asymmetrically, but Schroeder affirmed that “We deal with that easily in 110 powered aircraft. If the aircraft departs for any reason, we just pull the throttles back to idle, which just takes all the thrust effects out of the equation and you recover the aircraft. Since the 110 loves to run at idle, there is no problem. Unfortunately the TF30 does not love to run at idle and you can’t apply this solution.”
Then, as the experienced F-14 driver said to Drendel, alongside with the new engine, the digital flight control system improved the handling qualities of the aircraft making of the Tomcat airframe the perfect platform for air to ground missions:
“The F-14 was designed to carry bombs. The Navy, however, chose not to develop that capability. There is now more and more emphasis on carrier deck loading and development of multi-mission aircraft, with the F/A-18 as the primary example of that. The F-14 is very capable of performing the air-to-ground mission, mainly because of our range and the fact that we carry the weapons conformally on the fuselage between the engine nacelles, which results in much less of a drag penalty than carrying bombs on the wings. The technology to enhance the radar for this mission has already been developed in the form of the F-15E.”
The F-14 was retired on Sep. 22, 2006, but the last years spent as U.S. Navy’s premiere fighter bomber confirmed Schroeder claims and were a proof of the reliability reached by the Tomcat thanks to the improvements it had received, the most important of which was the F110 engine.
