- My name is Matthew Buckley.
My call sign is Whiz, and I'm a fighter pilot.
[upbeat music]
I'm going to explain
each and every fighter jet in "Top Gun: Maverick".
So I originally saw the first "Top Gun" in 1986.
It was one of the worst things that ever happened to me.
As a result of that movie,
everybody wanted to be a Navy fighter pilot,
so I had to study and try even harder.
Well, the first thing I think of
when I see the F-14 Tomcat is a target.
[upbeat music]
Big airplane, big radar in the front, and massive missiles.
A sidewinder, which is a heat-seeking missile,
the sparrow, the radar missile,
and the big stick called a phoenix
that could shoot probably a hundred plus miles down range.
In the mid '80s when the original "Top Gun" came out,
the F-14 Tomcat was the preeminent fighter.
It's mission objective was fleet air defense,
responsible for protecting the entire carrier battle group
from the Soviet hoard of bombers that would attack.
At its time, the F-14 Tomcat
was a pretty maneuverable aircraft
- An F-14?
We don't even know if that [bleep] can fly.
- I think Rooster nailed it
and I think he was being nice.
We also called it a bullet sponge.
So on a good day in the United States Navy
it would be a chore to get an F-14 Tomcat Airborne,
let alone in a foreign country that doesn't have
the same spare parts or the maintenance folks.
There's only one nation on the face of the planet
that still flies the Tomcat and it's Iran.
But to be that tactically proficient
after not flying that jet for a couple years,
just a little bit of a stretch, in my opinion.
Pure love, it's the most beautiful airplane
on the face of the planet.
[upbeat music]
The F/A-18 Hornet is the first multi role
fighter attack aircraft,
a single seat twin engine aircraft
and it can fly up to mach 1.7, mach 1.8,
but the F-18 can carry all sorts of weapons,
air to air, all the way up to GPS guided weapons.
And you can even throw gas tanks on the airplane
and it can also serve as a tanker aircraft as well.
[engines roaring]
The filmmakers in "Top Gun: Maverick"
just did an absolutely incredible job.
The aviation scenes had me moving in my seat
and squeezing my muscles together
as if I was actually in the aircraft.
When you're flying in an F-18 down at 25 feet
going that fast,
your senses are absolutely heightened.
You even sneeze and it's over with.
As the aircraft flies that low to the ground,
the air can't get out of the way of the jet fast enough
and actually kicks up all of that dirt.
The skill required to do that is pretty incredible.
A former blue angel actually flew that maneuver.
- Level out, Coyote.
- Coyote experiences what we call G-LOC,
G loss of consciousness.
When you start pulling multiple Gs,
for example, I'm 200 pounds,
at eight Gs, it's like a 1600 pound safe
is sitting on top of me.
The blood's leaving your head.
So you actually gotta squeeze your legs
and your abs to try and keep you from passing out.
And if you lose consciousness,
at least back in the day when I started flying fighters,
you die.
The Ground Collision Avoidance system
is a system that we have today.
The jet will give you a couple opportunities to pull up.
It'll start yelling at you and if you don't respond
'cause you're out, the jet will level
the wings automatically and climb you away from danger.
- Coyote! - Pull up!
- Coyote, Coyote! - Pull up!
- Spent nearly, almost 3000 hours in this airplane.
One of my first true loves, Susie, don't kill me,
and it just, it's a part of me.
It's a piece of who I am.
[upbeat music]
I just smile when I see this aircraft,
just the beautiful lines of this airplane,
the hum of the engine,
the Rolls Royce or the Merlin engine.
[upbeat music]
They can do about 400 to 450 miles an hour,
very maneuverable airplane for its generation.
The P-51 Mustang is a World War II fighter aircraft
that was used to escort bombers to strike on Germany
but could also be used in ground attack missions
to strafe enemy tanks.
[engine roaring]
Tom Cruise actually owns his own.
You can buy a P-51 Mustang,
unfortunately for a couple million bucks.
It is not a cheap aircraft to own or operate.
[upbeat music]
So the F-35, interesting looking aircraft,
not as sexy looking as the F-18 Hornet.
[upbeat music]
The F-35 Lightning can go about mach 1.6
about 1200 miles per hour.
If you actually look at the aircraft,
it's a lifting body, aerodynamic, so it can glide.
The single engine also rotates.
So the nozzle actually moves to make the aircraft
turn tighter in a turn circle
and also to fire off weapons.
[upbeat music]
So the first time we see the F-35 Lightning 2,
we see it on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln,
CVN-72,
which was the ship I did my first deployment on in 1995.
The F-35 is definitely a fifth generation aircraft.
Many fifth generation aircraft are their own
self-contained strike package, so to speak.
Back in the day when I flew we'd have F-14 Tomcats
doing air superiority, A-6s doing bombing,
and we'd also have jamming aircraft.
Many fifth generation aircraft
are all three of those in one.
They have electronic warfare capability
that can jam the enemy's radar and communications.
They have air to air and air to ground capability as well.
Plus the stealth features are just off the charts.
So fifth generation aircraft,
if you go up and touch them,
it'll actually feel a little spongy,
because they have radar absorbent material.
Aside from the exterior radar absorbent
coating of the aircraft,
they internalize the weapons.
If there's anything hanging off of a fighter jet,
that reflects radar energy.
So all the weapons are internalized
in a fifth generation aircraft.
So the SU-57 Felon,
very appropriately named because they stole this.
This is essentially the F-35 ski, so to speak.
[upbeat music]
So the SU-57 Felon is essentially the F-35 copy paste.
Similar weapon systems,
similar electronic warfare capabilities.
[engines roaring]
It's one of the only aircraft on the face of the planet
outside of helicopters that can actually tell
if it's being locked up by an infrared missile
and it can actually shoot at that warhead
and disintegrate it or disable it.
It's called DIRCM,
direct infrared countermeasures.
[upbeat music]
Today, dog fighting is extremely rare.
When our enemy pilot leaves his house
and gets to the air station,
we know that that's already happened.
If you're in a dog fight in today's day and age,
a lot of things have broken down.
Whenever you're doing a dog fight,
it's who can turn tighter.
It wasn't too realistic
because the SU-57 can carry
some pretty serious air to air missiles.
So if I were the SU-57 Felon driver,
I would've pitched out of the visual range of the dog fight,
went out a couple miles and turned around
and shot Maverick in the face with a radar missile.
But I wasn't the director.
[upbeat music]
The dark star as depicted in Top Gun Maverick,
although a fictional aircraft or maybe not.
[upbeat music]
- This is Dark Star, we are taxiing
with information alpha.
- So the Dark Star jet might actually be real,
developed in what we call the Skunk Works.
The Skunk Works is out in the middle of the Mojave Desert
where they develop all of our black box type of aircraft.
If you can think about it, it probably exists.
There's probably guys and gals in a windowless room
over air conditioned with Mountain Dew and pizzas
designing it and building it.
[intense music]
The Dark Star aircraft is kind of based
on the SR-71 Blackbird.
It was a very high altitude aircraft on the edge of space
that could do reconnaissance.
On demand recon, as we call it.
Kind of looks stealthy, very sleek, very fast.
And it also has hyper cruise engines.
So for example, an F-18 Hornet that I flew
to get supersonic full left hand forward,
full max afterburner
lot of dinosaurs being burned,
lot of fire out of the back.
As technology and engines improve,
lot less fire required,
lot less energy required to get to a certain point.
And based on how the airframe is designed,
it can actually super cruise,
so it can fly faster, longer,
and on less fuel required and less fire.
So Maverick more or less destroys the Dark Star aircraft,
not a career enhancing move.
I just happened to break a $65 million F-18 Hornet.
I went from the edge of space
to straight down at the Pacific
doing about mach 1.7 and I overstressed the aircraft.
That was not career enhancing either,
but I saved the aircraft.
I didn't eject like Maverick did.
So let's just say I got out as a lieutenant.
I don't know how he made it to captain
busting up airplanes like that,
but after destroying the Dark Star,
he certainly isn't gonna get selected for admiral.
[upbeat music]
It's not incredibly difficult to fly a fighter jet,
and I know that might sound a little crazy
based on how it looks,
but the training is so good.
I'm a poor kid from South Jersey, South Philadelphia,
and I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.
And if I can do it just about everybody can do it as well.