But anyone with a fascination for military aviation might be interested in learning more about the flying elements of the new film, which The New Yorker concluded “far outflies its predecessor.” Popular Science caught up with Vincent Aiello, host of the Fighter Pilot Podcast, a former F/A-18 pilot, TOPGUN instructor, and current commercial airline pilot, to ask him about his thoughts on the new movie and how it stacks up against real Naval aviation.
Although Aiello describes it as “a good tribute to the hardworking men and women of the United States Navy,” he notes that also, “it’s a movie, not a documentary—so they take some liberties.” (Apparently the uniforms aren’t quite right.)
One of those liberties is a maneuver you can see in a trailer, when one F/A-18 flies up between two others. “You just wouldn’t do something like that,” he says. “History is full of examples of people that have tried silly maneuvers, and bump into each other, and it’s usually not good for the airplane, or your career—sometimes your life.”
Stunts like that are “needlessly risky,” he reflects. “Military aviators are very used to taking risks, but they are calculated risks—so, when we fly, when we land on aircraft carriers, or take off from aircraft carriers, that’s already very inherently risky.”
Flying on and off an aircraft carrier does indeed feature in the new film, of course, and you might also hear terms thrown around like “Gs” or “fifth-generation fighter.” Here are some phrases and concepts that come up in the movie in different ways—don’t worry, there won’t be any pushups if you forget.
From ‘barricade’ to ‘G-LOC’
Barricade: The typical way that a jet lands on an aircraft carrier is by catching one of the heavy, thick cables stretched across the deck with an arresting hook. But in a highly unusual event, an aircraft, its engines at idle, can also just smash into a raised barricade to stop. “It’s like a badminton net, where when you come down, you land in it, and it grabs you and pulls you to a stop,” Aiello says. “It’s very rare,” he adds, saying that one alternative to using a barricade is to have the pilot fly next to the ship and eject.
F/A-18: These fighter jets are the film’s shining metallic stars, and they have come in multiple variants over the years. F/A-18A, B, C, and D models are known as Hornets, and the F/A-18E and F models are the larger Super Hornets the Navy flies today. Those E models have just one seat, and the Fs have two. “The missions can be flown in either a single- or two-seat model,” Aiello says. More on what those back-seaters are called, below.
[Related: I saw ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and it’s way better than the original]
Fifth-generation fighter: If you think about jet fighter aircraft as falling into different generations over the decades, the most advanced ones of today are stealth machines like the F-35 or F-22, which are low-observable to radar. Those are fifth-generation aircraft, which Aiello summarizes as having “better sensors” and a “lower signature” as well as other attributes. Meanwhile, a fourth-generation fighter would be a craft like an F-16 or F-15. An example of a non-US fifth-generation fighter is Russia’s Su-57 Felon.
Gs: If you’re currently reading this while sitting motionless on Earth, you’re feeling one G—as in gravity—pulling you straight downwards. Now imagine that that force suddenly doubles, and boom, you’re feeling 2 Gs. In a fighter jet, aviators may pull as many as 9 or more Gs, but they don’t experience that during steady, normal flight, when they’d just feel 1 G pulling them down. The Gs come during maneuvers like a hard bank and turn in one direction or another, or a strong nose-up pull. (Pilots in training can practice for these by being spun in a centrifuge.) Here’s more on what it’s like to pull 6 Gs:
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