One of them is a woman. At 3 A.M., ten U.S. F-117 Nighthawk stealth bombers, under the protection of a three-ship formation of EF-111s, bombed Baghdad, the capital. This movie just accelerates thatexpands the scope by which the public sees the work we do. The next coalition targets were command and communication facilities.

At last their story is being told its a miracle! Seven years later, the original Top Gun (1986) helped boost Navy recruitment by around 8% (not quite the 500% statistic thats been floating around social media). In the original screenplay, the bar was named The Captains Mast. <>>> Paramount wanted the F-35s to conduct the strike mission at low altitude and that is 100% not what the jet is designed to do.

Thats exactly what the two-seat super hornets would be doing. [14] In particular, RAF and U.S. Navy aircraft which flew at low altitudes to avoid radar were particularly vulnerable, though this changed when the aircrews were ordered to fly above the AAA.[15]. You have to make a war movie. To be fair, its unclear what scenario the jets were playing out: whether, for instance, the F-22 started out slower and lower in order to let the Rafale gain the advantage for training purposes. Elements of Stroke 3, such as the intensity and chaos, are in the final scene after the Daggers come off target and are getting pummeled with SAMs. I was a Freshman at Bates College, a small school in Maine, looking at my optionsI didnt want a boring office life in a cubicle, I wanted to do something dangerous, rewarding, and fun. This movie shows a team of aviators flying at some of the greatest training ranges in the world. You can hear the fear in his voice. Now they can go out into society and share their experience. % During the initial 24 hours 2,775 sorties were flown, including seven B-52s which flew a 34-hour nonstop 14,000-mile round-trip from Barksdale Air Force Base and launched 13 AGM-86 CALCM cruise missiles against Iraqi targets.[12][13]. [30] During the invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, the Kuwaiti Air Force lost 12 fixed-wing aircraft, which were destroyed on the ground, and 8 helicopters, 6 of which were shot down and 2 of which were destroyed while on the ground.[27]. But in a slower, close tangle what pilots call a merge the heavier F-22 is at a disadvantage. Iraq lost a total of 259 aircraft in the war, 122 of which were lost in combat.

It was a very interactive experience. There was a movie a few years ago called Flight of the Intruder, based upon a book by Stephen Coontz, but that was really terrible. The U.S. bombed highways and bridges linking Jordan and Iraq, crippling infrastructure on both sides. The final number of Iraqi civilians killed was 2,278, while 5,965 were reported wounded. Five other simulated battles ended in draws, the Americans said. They were. The initial strikes were composed of Tomahawk cruise missiles[5] launched from warships situated in the Persian Gulf, F-117A Nighthawk stealth bombers[5] with an armament of laser-guided smart bombs,[5] and F-4G Wild Weasel aircraft armed with HARM anti-radar missiles. Cluster munitions and BLU-82 "Daisy Cutters" were also used. Fantastic movie about leadership, and the book is phenomenal. Two Mirage F1 fighters laden with incendiary bombs and two MiG-23s (along as fighter cover) took off from bases in Iraq. Iraq may also have scored an air-air victory as well: Pilot Zuhair Dawood flying a MIG-25, appears likely to have shot down Scott Speicher, flying a F-18, with an R-40RD. The British air commanders were Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Wilson (to 17 November) and Air Vice-Marshal Bill Wratten (from 17 November). Plus, the French still have a totally undeserved reputation in non-French military circles for battlefield incompetence one based mostly on a bad reading of World War II history. When the Saudis appeared the Iraqi MiGs turned tail, but the Mirages pressed on. Armed with a Gatling gun and heat-seeking or optically guided Maverick missiles, A-10 Thunderbolts bombed and destroyed Iraqi armored forces,[5] supporting the advance of US ground troops. Theres no 9-month deployment away from friends and family [laughs], missing births of children, anniversaries, water heaters blowing upall things my family has experienced while I was away. By the way, in a real-world strike like the one in the movie, the two-seat Fs would do just what you saw in the movie "buddy lazing" for the laser-guided bombs dropped from another aircraft.

Then factoring in the air-to-ground aspect. endobj Did you interact with anyone else on the film crew? } Gh{8AA3hvdP% But you can only get access to ten of them, and not only can you not sit in the F-35, but you also cant bring a camera within 10 feet of it.

Other claims include an RAF Tornado GR.1A piloted by Gary Lennox and Adrian Weeks.,[29] however the Tornado in question crashed to the ground due to pilot error on a different date than the supposed air-to-air kill is claimed to have taken place. All rights reserved. No matter how magical the F-22, any pilot can make a mistake, admitted Lt. Col. Dirk Smith, a Raptor squadron commander. And they will do that professionally and safelyon behalf of our nation and our way of life. We thought Eric and Joe needed to meet a bunch of naval aviators, observe an air wing going through training, hit the NAS Fallon Officers Clubwhich is legendary by the wayand meet the TOPGUN staff in their building. At 2:43 A.M. two EF-111 Ravens with terrain following radar led 22 F-15E Strike Eagles against assaults on airfields in Western Iraq. I vividly remember Eric sharing with a dozen salty F-18 pilots his idea for the final scene. Absolutely. Past evidence seems to confirm that a French fighter pilot once killed an American F-22 Raptor stealth fighter in mock combat. The AH-64 Apache and AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, fired laser guided Hellfire missiles and TOW missiles which were guided to tanks by ground observers or scout helicopters. Neither does the 30-year-old American F-16, a Navy jamming plane or the 1990s-vintage Rafale flown by a Frenchman! Copyright 2022 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved. Q 37 The F-16s never made it to their target because they were lit up by several surface-to-air missiles (SAM). Its not an Aviation movie, but its a great movie about the Navy and leadership. The coalition eventually established a virtual "wall" of F-15 Eagle, F-14 Tomcat fighters and F-16 Fighting Falcons on the Iraq-Iran border (called MIGCAP), thereby stopping the exodus of fleeing Iraqi fighters. For example, when Maverick gets grounded and goes to the bar and Penny goes, So what are you going to do now? My friend yells, Go join Fedex! That got a good laugh out of everyone. 2022 Cond Nast. That's our bread and butterair to ground. It began on 17 January 1991, at 2:10 am, Baghdad time, when Task Force Normandy (eight U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters led by two MH-53 Pave Low helicopters) of the U.S. Army destroyed Iraqi radar sites near the Iraqi-Saudi Arabian border which could have warned Iraq of an upcoming attack. CDR Tim Sparky Charlebois came on board right after the carrier visit, and we both decided a trip to Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon, Nevada which is where TOPGUN [The real-life United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program] is located, would be valuable. No other movies stick out for naval aviation.

Gruene said the Raptor excels at fighting from beyond visual range with its high speed and altitude, high-tech radar and long-range missiles.

But, if they used Super Hornets, theyd have access to 600 of them. In 1995, I checked into the VF-24 Fighting Renegades. %PDF-1.1 Its pretty cool to see a movie and confirm, Yep, thats what I wanna do, and then go do it. Theres also some live footage and actual shots on the USS Nimitz. Back in the old days, people really pushed military lifepushed people to join the military. Joe and Eric were basically sponges, listening to the way we talked to each other, getting the feel of what the life is like, and taking it all in. Nevertheless, the video shows that the Rafale, a decade older and less sophisticated compared to the F-22, can be roughly comparable to the Raptor when maneuvering at low speed during close combat. Coalition bombing raids destroyed Iraqi civilian infrastructure. Although not unprecedented, the simulated shoot-down is still a big deal for a couple reasons. Five hours after the first attacks, Iraq's state radio broadcast a voice identified as Saddam Hussein declaring that "The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun. Cummings hopes Top Gun: Maverick does for the current generation what the original did for hispush civilians to enlist. In the Gulf war, every last nail was accounted for, but the Iraqi dead went untallied. The Pentagon is counting on a tiny number of the pricey Raptors slightly more than 180 to ward off potentially much larger numbers ofenemy planesfor the foreseeable future. The Caine Mutiny (1954) is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning book. I was a little nervous in the back row because if they didnt like the movie, I was going to hear about it. The rest of the Coalition losses came from anti-aircraft fire. Then they leave the Navy, be it after four or in my case thirty-one years, and go back to society as better people. And the 2009 war game would not be the last to result in dead Raptors. Military Wiki is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. He talked to GQ about his time advising Singer and Kosinski on what to add, change, and remove from their depiction of the Navy and elaborate showcase of US military superiority. What was your reaction to the first Top Gun? (Iran never returned the jets. This first appeared several years ago and is reprinted due to reader interest. List of currently active United States military land vehicles, Some of Iraq's air force squadrons escape, Articles with dead external links from November 2014, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia, E-3A Airborne Warning and Control Systems, Organization of United States Air Force Units in the Gulf War, United Nations Security Council Resolution 678. In an effort to demonstrate their own air offensive capability, on 24 January the Iraqis attempted to mount a strike against the major Saudi oil refinery in Abqaiq. It was not credited to the crew but an F-15C that was also involved in the maneuvering.[8]. During the Raptors first-ever major air exercise in 2006, an Air Force F-16 most likely dating from the 1980s managed to kill an F-22. It's behind the scenes. The key, Gruene said, was to get as close as possible to the powerful F-22 and stay there. Early on they wanted all F-35s, the brand-new fighter for the US Naval Airforce. #aW@9 x">")D@BSv#BAAn2ip0@ $0&@ tA- at,Bh} &uV2!$PAq UVAVGcl #mAd @vaT|2Tma@"Lm 0 iH^B um"A{DaGmnPH!`= !9C*jG0I4#"l&/M0GHIaa+H #9 E0 I ad00ZI0*0l6`Th0g=1I8l00`rB!0atB6l3m)AAb{>GTE50g'I680g7!L&0F CAfpD0`L{z*2_#MaQA&,EF4G%C;64,~X~(D"438Tnz=5`L0v>G. fml28l0m0q d0d~P #h4Av(gXX >GI\r C'd3&;C!r8vGdq Dy #A?I!91AG m3G85`v*d!0QDY$9DDBL0meE!m0A nzI2\0kTFk0M~1&}7$X?KITF{{HA The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins.". <> Entire Iraqi divisions were dug in the open while facing U.S. forces. If you get too many characters things get muddy. 5 0 obj [22], On 13 February 1991, two laser-guided smart bombs destroyed the Amiriyah blockhouse, which was a civilian air-raid shelter, killing hundreds of civilians. )[9], The first priority for Coalition forces was the destruction of Iraqi command and control bunkers, Scud missile launch pads and storage areas, telecommunications and radio facilities, and airfields. By the way, I went through the Top Gun course back in 2000 with a Tomcat. As you can imagine, the movie doesnt accurately depict Navy life. As a purpose of the war was to weaken Iraq militarily, the coalition had placed aircraft over western Iraq to try to stop any retreat into Jordan. It is a low radar observable jet designed to attack air-to-air and air-to-ground targets undetected at high altitude. The other 33 were lost to accidents. The first week of the air war saw a few Iraqi sorties, but these did little damage, and 38 Iraqi MiGs were shot down by Coalition planes. Russian sources claim also numerous other hits on coalition aircraft, however only a clumsy effort appears to have been made to match the supposed events to actual coalition aircraft being damaged or lost - often these claims are on wrong date compared to the actual aircraft damage or loss time and place, and in each case, except Speicher's Hornet, the cause of damage is known to not have been an Iraqi MiG. I enlisted in 1986 when Top Gun 1 came out, and Im retiring the year Top Gun Maverick came out. I said, OK, cool. U.S. officials claimed that the blockhouse was also a military communications centre. This meant they were unable to react before most of the Iraqi aircraft had made it "safely" to Iranian airbases. [28] One coalition fighter may have been lost in air-air combat, a U.S. Navy F/A-18 piloted by Scott Speicher. Soon after, the Iraqi Air Force began fleeing to Iran, with 115 to 140 aircraft flown there. [11] EA-6Bs, EF-111 radar jammers, and F-117A stealth planes were heavily used in this phase to elude Iraq's extensive SAM systems and anti-aircraft weapons. Right now, there are people underway and about to make a night landing on an aircraft carrier somewhere around the world in bad weather and rough seas. GQ: Ive read about how you worked with the director Joseph Kosinski overnight at the USS Theodore Roosevelt air carrier, but what did the rest of your time on Top Gun: Maverick look like? He walked to the embassy courtyard, opened the briefcase, took one GPS reading, and put the machine back in the case. The sorties were launched mostly from Saudi Arabia and the six Coalition aircraft carrier battle groups (CVBG) in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. The U.S. pilots copped to just one loss in the war game an F-22 defeated by a Mirage 2000 flown by an Emirati aviator. This position served as the origin for a coordinate system used to designate targets in Baghdad.[21]. The coalition flew over 100,000 sorties, dropping 88,500 tons of bombs,[2] and widely destroying military and civilian infrastructure. First of all, the surviving Super Hornets are traveling at 9 miles a minute away from Mav and Rooster and theyre low on gas [laughs]. The third and largest phase of the air campaign ostensibly targeted military targets throughout Iraq and Kuwait: Scud missile launchers, weapons research facilities, and naval forces. We were evenly matched, German Maj. Marc Gruene toldCombat Aircraft. Bombs destroyed the utility of all major dams, most major pumping stations, and many sewage treatment plants, Telecommunications equipment, port facilities, oil refineries and distribution, railroads and bridges were also destroyed. If you want F-35s in this movie its going to be all CGI and like Iron Eagle 7 or something because you cant put anyone in it. [26] 3 helicopters and 2 fighters were shot down during the invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, thenView saved stories.

The night before we went to the ship, I showed Joe [Kosinski] a bunch of motivational flying videos that were exclusively Tomcat footage. They were fun discussions where they would occasionally ask me, What do you think? It is excellent! It is a really entertaining movie with great biplane fighter flying scenes! Im doing that! I knew that was the path I wanted to go down. The Pentagon had some input into Mavericks script, too. Sparky was still onboard, and he was a tremendous help. Iraqi antiaircraft defenses, including shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles, were surprisingly ineffective against coalition aircraft and the coalition suffered only 75 aircraft losses in over 100,000 sorties, though only 42 of these were the result of Iraqi action. When you see the movie, see if you can figure out which quotes are yours. It was the bag of ass comment and I dont sail boats, Penny. The ready room in Top Gun 1 was the actual ready room from my very first F-14 Squadron. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. They didnt expect us to turn so aggressively.. Sure did. No one wants to go to Captains Mast because that is where you go to get punished. Thank god theyre out there doing that on behalf of our nation and way of life.. Eric Singer, who wrote American Hustle, was the writer but could not make the trip out to the ship. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/52589/page/, http://www.indepthinfo.com/iraq/airwar.shtml, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/desert_strike.htm, http://web.archive.org/web/20080317110507/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/cron/, "Iraqi Air Force Equipment Introduction", http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/air-force-equipment-intro.htm, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972677,00.html, IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN: DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN, John Sweeney Responds on Mass Death in Iraq, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0425158365, The Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm Timeline - Defenselink.mil, "Iraqi air-air victories during the Gulf War 1991", http://aces.safarikovi.org/victories/victories-iraq-gulf.war.pdf, Fixed-wing combat attrition in Desert Storm, http://books.google.com/books?id=d3lQPgAACAAJ, Bibliography of the Desert Shield and Desert Storm, United States Army Center of Military History, Numerous aircraft and air defence systems. They wanted Mav and Rooster to survive the ejection, sneak onto the enemy air base, jump in a Tomcat and then catch up to Phoenix/Bob and Payback/Fanboy so they could save Mav/Rooster in a dogfight. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories. I will say its pretty fun to go to a movie like that with a bunch of wiseass fighter pilots because they were shouting out great one-liners throughout the movie. <>/Rect[ 0 0 612 792]/P 4 0 R>> That would never happen. endobj Just around the time I was thinking about my future, I went to see Top Gun and said, Yeah! Then he returned to the U.S., gave the GPS receiver to the appropriate intelligence agency in Langley, Virginia, where the exact coordinates of the U.S. Baghdad embassy were officially determined. One was the final scene. Good call. But I told them two-seat Super Hornets are a major part of the fleet, and if you dont show them thats not going to be pleasing to the Navy, because its all about the teamso I requested that be a part of the plot and they added it. From June 2017 to February 2018, I was in close contact with Eric, sometimes daily, and spent many days going line by line through the screenplay with him. After initial clearances, Captain JJ Yank Cummings and Commander Tim Sparky Charlebois worked with the films screenwriter Eric Singer and director Joseph Kosinski for several months to ensure the film depicted the Navy accurately, positively, and professionally.. This is where the scene was filmed where Maverick throws the NATOPS manual into the trash. I also asked them not to have romantic relationships between the aviators or what is called fraternization in the Navywhich is an inappropriate relationship between a senior and a junior officer.

Coalition planners hoped that Iraqi resistance would quickly collapse if deprived of command and control. Did the evolution of military aircraft technology over the years make the story or style of flying in Top Gun: Maverick any different from the original? We cannot make this the most accurate, yet boring fighter pilot movie in the history of film, we need drama. My friends from school still cant believe I pulled it off. In Alissa Wilkinsons Vox Article, The long, long twisty affair between the US Military and Hollywood, film historian Mark Harris says the dynamic changed after Vietnam from the military saying to Hollywood, We need you to help us, to the military saying to Hollywood, Well help you. A Navy Growler jet,designed to jam enemy radars,repeated the featin 2008 or early 2009. Putting a civilian in that aircraft would not happen because it is highly classified. The Iraqi targets were located by aerial photography and were referenced to the GPS coordinates of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which were determined by a USAF senior officer in August 1990: he arrived at the airport carrying a briefcase with a GPS receiver in it, then an embassy car took him to the embassy. [16] This mass exodus of Iraqi aircraft took coalition forces by surprise as the Coalition had been expecting them to flee to Jordan, a nation friendly to Iraq, rather than Iran, a long-time enemy. We had someI guess you could call themnegotiations. I think Humphrey Bogart won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Captain Queeg in it. Can we try this instead?. Bowen was given access to the site and did not find evidence of military use. [4] The air campaign largely finished by 23 February 1991 when the allied invasion of Kuwait took place. Iraq responded by launching eight Iraqi modified Scud missiles into Israel the next day. [24] When friends and relatives rush to the scene to assist the injured, British warplanes returned to bomb them, as well.[25]. Eric and Joe eventually pulled me aside and said, Look. This group also introduced Joe and Eric to Stroke 3. This is now an unclassified and famous video taken from the cockpit of an F-16 during a day bombing mission into Iraq on January 17, 1991. Concurrently, U.S. Navy BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles struck targets in Baghdad, and other coalition aircraft struck targets throughout Iraq. Ad Choices, How the US Military Gave Notes on Top Gun: Maverick, A US navy captain walks GQ through his collaboration with, Jordan Peele and Keke Palmer Look to the Sky. But the American pilots insisted their planes had gone undefeated against the French during the November exercise that, in fact, the F-22s had shot down Rafales in six one-on-one engagements. In this movie, you see the Super Hornet strike fighters perform both the fighter and attack roles by doing air-to-air missions as well as dropping air-to-ground ordinance. I walked into the ready room and said, This feels familiar. It turned out that it was the debriefing room in Top Gun, which looked the same as when they filmed it in 1986. About eight years later I had my first flight in an F-14, and to this day Im stunned that I pulled it off. It also prevented an effective Iraqi resupply of units engaged in combat, and prevented some 450,000 Iraqi troops from achieving a larger force concentration. George Peppard is a proletariat blue collar officer trying to earn the Blue Max by getting 20 air-to-air kills. We had a great working relationship and he regularly asked my opinion and bounced ideas off me. So I enlisted in the US Navy Reserves to increase my probability of getting selected, went to Bootcamp my sophomore year, and, after I graduated from Bates, went to Aviation Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida. [laughs] You dont fly air-to-air missions low to the ground, you fly very high. Iraqi forces also tried to reduce the length of their supply lines and the total area defended. Back in 86, F-14s were not air-to-ground aircraft, meaning they did not carry bombs or drop weapons, it was purely a fighter. We still dont know the precise number of people died because they are wandering around as zombies. These claims have not been confirmed. 1 0 obj During Desert Storm, 36 aircraft were shot down in aerial combat. The worrying implication, of course, is that Chinese, Russian and other rival planes also need not worry about Americas main jet fighter. I suggested that we find a new name because Captains Mast is what the Navy calls its judicial proceedings when Sailors violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and are held accountable. I went to see Top Gun: Maverick a few weeks ago in Virginia Beach with a theater full of old Tomcat and Super Hornet pilots. In general, I was pushing back pretty hard early on to keep the movie realistic, but to a fault. They were not dispersed, as with the Yugoslav forces in Kosovo. With the exception of a few minor plot line shifts, what we worked on is basically what made it to the big screen. One such instance had Iraq reporting that coalition forces attacked the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. The U.S. government claimed the Iraqi government fabricated numerous attacks on Iraqi holy sites in order to rally the Muslim community. But for aviation, theres a movie called The Blue Max filmed in 1966. What do you hope results from Top Gun: Mavericks massive success? Aviation popped up on my radar because I had a couple of uncles who flew for the Navy. In the end, we worked through it and it obviously worked out well. A day after the deadline set in United Nations Security Council Resolution 678, the coalition launched a massive air campaign, which began the general offensive codenamed Operation Desert Storm with more than 1,000 sorties launching per day.