Warbird Information Exchange

Rick, I remember the idea didn't pan out for cost and maybe other reasons for the 2011 Centennial, but if someone is willing to pay for the paint and repaint and maybe another donation to Collings, I would think the repainting of the F-4D to a 1960's F-4B would not be rejected completely out of hand. Add in some of the existing flying A-4's, a few more CGI F-4B's, F-8's, etc. and we have a movie.

As one who got my commission and went to flight school in the wake of Top Gun, I can say first hand that it spawned an entire generation of disillusioned SNA's. Not only can you not drive your crotch-rocket motorcycle along the inside perimeter fence at sundown during flight ops at Miramar, but NOBODY goes to the O-Club dressed in their whites--Summer or Dress--to pick up chicks, none of the instructors ANYWHERE in the pipeline looked like Kelly McGillis's worst day on their best day, and that is NOT what beach volleyball looks like amongst Navy flight crews. Those dreams were crushed by reality. But it was too late to get my money back from the theaters.

And as for the suggestion to paint up the Collings Foundation jets and fill in the rest with CGI...you chumps are barking up the wrong tree. To do it RIGHT, Top Gun II would need to be made up of random 'file footage' from the Vietnam war, a'la "Midway", with no continuity or accuracy.

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

When I joined the RNZAF in 1989, the question was asked by an instructor around every member of my Flight at General Service Training School as to what had prompted them to join the RNZAF. Around 3/4 of them said Top Gun, and it turned out they'd all tried to get in as knuck pilots and not passed the entry, so joined as groundcrew trades like me. I was not one of them who said Top Gun, I joined because I genuinely had loved aeroplanes all my life.

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Amen. Top Gun and Pearl Harbor are tied for worst aviation movies ever made. Both are horrible.

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"Welcome back Mr. Lasky."

I don't think it would be too hard to find worse aviation movies when you look at everything that came out from the 30's through today, but I would at least give a little credit to Top Gun for some nice aerial photography of watching F-14's, A-4's, etc. in action. Storyline - not too much you can say about that.

It was a movie made for entertaining the average public, not a documentary for educating fighter pilots.

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

What? You mean we didn't have angled-deck carriers in 1942? Let's not forget the land based Marine P-40s.

I always like to go through and pick out the scenes that were borrowed from "Tora Tora Tora". The worst is when the Japanese are bombing Midway and you can clearly see the mainmast of a U.S. Battleship.

The first time I saw the movie as a kid, it was on NBC and shown over two nights with additional footage of Coral Sea added in. I drove my father nuts by pointing out all the inaccuracies in the live action and the random "file footage". These days, I probably would have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome if I tried that.

are you sure?

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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."

LOL....yup. Still sure!

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

+1. I hope I'm never as grumpy and cynical as some of you guys are. Sheesh.

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Matt

Two whole pages and not one mention of a more recent El Stinkeroo- Memphis Belle.
I always wondered how 'Mav' could ride his bike on base without a helmet--------

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

I never understood Top Gun haters. I loved the movie when it came out. You check your brain at the door and enjoy that awesome air-to-air filming that nobody has been able to re-create (and forget about improving on it), 25 years later!
But service pride isn't. Anyone who's ever served will tell you that there's no way the USAF would allow one of their aircraft to be painted as a USN one without one heck of a fight. That kind of demand would have to come from on high by the prince of darkness himself before any blue suiter would let that happen.
No, you'd still need one (or least most of the front end of one) real F-4 for people to climb onto showing them getting in. Even Red Tails had more than one real Mustang on the set.

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

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I say screw'em ! First, it aint their aircraft, and Second; we can paint it any color we want !

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

I wasn't aware educating fighter pilots was possible.

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com