Cmdr. Christian Frasher. Frasher, a Lake Orion native, spent roughly six weeks back in 2019 filming for "Top Gun: Maverick," sharing his cockpit with the stars of the film like Miles Teller, Glen Powell and Tom Cruise.
Cmdr. Frank “Walleye” Weisser, USN (Ret), transformed himself from a teenage aspiring SEAL at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., into a world-class stunt pilot who flew Tom Cruise's fighter jet in the 2022 blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick.
Did Tom Cruise actually fly in a real fighter jet during the filming of the Top Gun? Yes, he apparently did fly a little. But most of the scenes are filmed with Cruise in the backseat of an F-18 while another pilot in the front seat is flying for the actual dramatic flight scenes.
Maverick flies the lead F/A-18E, accompanied by a buddy-lasing F/A-18F flown by Lieutenant Natasha "Phoenix" Trace and WSO Lieutenant Robert "Bob" Floyd.
The jet model seen in Top Gun: Maverick's ending is never explicitly named onscreen, although "Su-57" can be glimpsed on a whiteboard seen in the background of a briefing scene. The Sukhoi Su-57 is a real-life fifth-generation fighter jet developed by the Russian manufacturer, Sukhoi.
"What would likely happen is the pilot flying the 5th generation fighter would work in behind the F-14, leverage their stealth capabilities, and kill the Tomcat with a missile from far away. There is no cool dog fight or any sort of other engagement. Maverick dies. End of story."
Why did they not use 5th gen fighters in Top Gun: Maverick?
Summary. Top Gun: Maverick romanticized the Navy's technology, but the focus should remain on the pilots, not the planes. Giving Maverick a fifth-generation fighter would make him too powerful, ruining the tension and challenges in the plot.
There is also a shot of an F-14 Tomcat coming into the barricade when Maverick and Rooster are forced to land on the carrier without landing gear. Since the F-14 was decommissioned in 2006, the Tomcat sequences were done with an F-18 and digitally edited in post.
The Super Hornet jet does feature in the sequel, but Tom Cruise did not fly them in Top Gun: Maverick as those scenes were all completed with assistance from Navy pilots. According to producer Bruckheimer, Cruise does fly a P-51 propeller-driven fighter plane, as well as some helicopters.
Even though Tom Cruise flew real fighter jets in his upcoming sequel Top Gun: Maverick, there was one jet that the superstar actor couldn't pilot: an F-18.
Audiences coming out of “Top Gun: Maverick” this weekend want to know one thing, are the actors really flying those fighter jets? The answer in short is, yes.
The film producers wanted to proceed with a scene that showed Cruise flying an F18 jet. However, the film crew was denied permission by the US Navy in their bid to have the famous actor fly the fighter.
The film predominantly features F-18 Super Hornets over F-35s for a practical reason: the need for two-seater planes. The narrative required both the actors and the Navy pilots to be in the aircraft during filming, which is not possible with the single-seat F-35s.
Why in Top Gun Maverick did they use F/A-18s rather than F22s or F35s? The f-22 is only used by the usaf and Top Gun is about the Navy. While the F-35 is used by the Navy it is only a single seater and they can't shoot the in cockpit scenes to give the illusion that Tom Cruise is piloting the plane.
A 1989 USMC study found that single-seat fighters were well suited to air-to-air combat missions, while dual-seat fighters were favored for complex strike missions against heavy air and ground defenses in adverse weather—the question being not so much as to whether a second pair of eyes would be useful, but as to ...
Mach 10 is a feat that has been previously accomplished by a manless aircraft called X-43A, developed by NASA as an experimental aircraft to test hypersonic speeds. Mach 10 is approximately a speed of 3.43 kilometers per second or 12,348 kilometers per hour, which translates to 7,680 miles per hour.
What are the 5th gen fighters in Top Gun: Maverick?
Although the Rogue Nation's 5th gen fighter is never named, it is almost certainly based on the Russian Sukhoi Su-57 Felon. However, in the briefing scene, the name of the fighter, Su-57, is written on the screen. Therefore, some assume that Russia downgraded and renovated the Su-57 and exported it to Rogue Nation.
Lieutenant Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw is a naval aviator trained on the F/A-18E Super Hornet and a graduate of TOPGUN. He is the son of LTJG Nick "Goose" Bradshaw and Carole Bradshaw.
Rooster's parents are Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards) and Carole Bradshaw (Meg Ryan). In the first "Top Gun," Goose is a radar intercept officer in the US Navy who works alongside Maverick at the TOPGUN flight school.
It was completely fake news,” he said. “The reason Maverick Top Gun didn't use the F-35 was because it would have made the movie boring. They would have launched off the carrier, they would have picked their way through the threat, they would have put the bomb on the target and come back undetected.”
While the overall hype for many of the flying sequences was real, the character of Maverick isn't seen piloting the F-35 because the fighter jet is a single-seater. This presented a series of logistical concerns for the production, so other jet fighter planes were used in Maverick instead.
