Fighter Pilot Breaks Down Every Fighter Jet From Top Gun: Maverick
Navy fighter pilot Matthew "Whiz" Buckley breaks down the fighter jets featured in Top Gun: Maverick. Whiz, in incredible detail, explains everything you need to know about the iconic F-14A Tomcat, F/A-18 Hornet, P-51 Mustang, SU-57 and more. He also takes a critical look at the film itself. Just how realistic is Top Gun: Maverick? Director: Maya Dangerfield Director of Photography: Kevin Layne Editor: Louis Lalire Talent: Matthew “Whiz” Buckley Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi Associate Producer: Samantha Vélez Production Manager: Eric Martinez Production Coordinator: Fernando Davila On-Site Producer: Carolina Sauer Gaffer: Anthony Duckett Audio: Justin Hall Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen Assistant Editor: Ben Harowitz
Video Transcript
- 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.
