Page 50 - Combat Aircraft (January 2020)

TOPGUN

THE REAL STORY

The long-awaited sequel to the movie Top Gun is released in June
2020, but it will be a Hollywood depiction of what happens at the US

Navy Fighter Weapons School. Combat Aircraft tells the story of the
real TOPGUN — a school of combat excellence in the high desert.

REPORT AND PHOTOS Jamie Hunter and Richard Collens

ENTION THE TERM
TOPGUN and many will
immediately recount a
line or refer to a scene
from the 1986 Hollywood
Mblockbuster starring Tom
Cruise. Some 34 years later, the eagerly
awaited sequel is placing the spotlight
rmly back on the US Navy Fighter
Weapons School (NFWS), the formal Fallon in northern Nevada, TOPGUN has
name for this surprisingly publicity-shy retained its identity through numerous
organization. With its 50th anniversary in trials and tribulations over its half-century
2019, the real TOPGUN is focused on the of existence.
mission at hand — creating the world’s Unlike the movie, there is no
greatest ghter pilots. Yet from both sides competition for the students arriving
of the silver screen, this famous school is at TOPGUN. Myers explains, ‘It’s not
once again locking an exemplary public competitive in the sense of trying to beat
image of US naval aviation into the minds someone. You are literally trying to live
of millions. up to them. We are all on the same side of
‘TOPGUN is special because everyone this team, all pulling in the same direction
around you is just so talented — so driven — it’s still an extremely competitive
and dedicated to the mission — that you environment, but not from a
don’t want to let them down,’ says CDR head-to-head standpoint. This
Timothy ‘Ain’t’ Myers, the current ‘skipper’ is more collaborative.
of TOPGUN. Now o cially a department Every one of these
within the Naval Aviation War ghting students
Development Center (NAWDC) at NAS wants to

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