Topgun: An American Story

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Anfang der 90er sah ich Top Gun zum ersten Mal und wurde sofort großer Tom Cruise Fan. Als ich irgendwann dann mal das Buch zum Film im Laden sah, musste ich mir das natürlich sofort vom Taschengeld kaufen. Es ist ein typisches "Buch zum Film", das sehr nahe am Drehbuch bleibt. Die 4 Sterne insofern nicht für die schriftstellerische Leistung sondern eher, weil ich den Film eben damals so sehr mochte (und jetzt sicher seit vielleicht 15 Jahren nicht mehr gesehen habe). Do note that this isn’t a full history of Topgun. It is a memoir of a Navy pilot who was the officer tasked with starting a school to teach advanced dogfighting techniques. While interesting to follow the author through his Navy career, the Topgun portion is only the middle of the book. Pedersen begins with ripping former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara up one side and down the other for clueless micromanagement of the air war in Vietnam, and also for McNamara’s using his political and corporate connections to make choices of building contractors, rather than making decisions on the basis of what would be best for the people actually using the military equipment. Pedersen really slams the connections between military contractors, politicians and administration officials and top brass in the military who retire and take cushy jobs with the contractors. With this kind of setup, he argues, decisions about what to fund are corrupt and not in the best interests of the armed forces and US readiness. He gives a number of examples, but in particular he argues that stealth technology and too many electronic bells and whistles make the costs of today’s aircraft way too high and that not enough attention is paid to simply making fighter aircraft that pilots will be able to deploy effectively. What resulted was nothing short of a revolution -- one that took young American pilots from the crucible of combat training in the California desert to the blistering skies of Vietnam, in the process raising America's Navy combat kill ratio from two enemy planes downed for every American plane lost to more than 22 to 1. Topgun emerged not only as an icon of America's military dominance immortalized by Hollywood but as a vital institution that would shape the nation's military strategy for generations to come. When you’re writing a movie, the most important things to have is conflict,” Epps explains. “One of the challenges was that these guys all really got along well. It was all about cooperation. It was all about working out the plan. But where’s the conflict?”

Pedersen was the senior officer of seven founding members of the U.S. Navy’s Fighter Weapons School, “TOPGUN”, in March of 1969, and its first commanding officer. Topgun was founded in response to unacceptable losses in air-to-air combat over North Vietnam. Prior to the Vietnam conflict and Topgun’s beginning, U.S. aerial warfare doctrine had shifted to a dependence on long range, supersonic interceptors designed to engage enemy aircraft from “Beyond Visual Range” (BVR) using missiles. The problem with this doctrine was, the North Vietnamese did not adhere to it. U.S. fighter pilots over North Vietnam were hamstrung by complex rules of engagement that required them to make visual confirmation (not just radar) of enemy aircraft before firing. That meant getting close. Both the U.S. Navy and Air Force found themselves in close-range, tight-turning aerial combat that more closely resembled WWI than the hypothetical long-range, supersonic missile duels of the future that think-tank strategists had envisioned. U.S. losses in aerial combat were high. Topgun was formed by the U.S. Navy to change that. Cast: Jennifer Connelly, Tom Cruise, Ed Harris, Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis In the mid-1980s, one Tom Mapother Cruise had achieved a steady string of movie credits, among them the acclaimed Risky Business and the Ridley Scott fantasy epic, Legend. But these were mere appetisers for Cruise's star turn in Top Gun, which sent him into the A-list stratosphere.

Ap (1981-07-29). "SKIPPER IS ACCUSED IN SAILOR'S DEATH (Published 1981)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-12-31.

In January 1969, the Navy published the Ault Report, which concluded that U.S. aircraft losses over North Vietnam stemmed in part from inadequate air-crew training in air combat maneuvering (ACM). [4] The report recommended that an "Advanced Fighter Weapons School" be established at Naval Air Station Miramar under the control of VF-121 to revive and disseminate community fighter expertise throughout the fleet. [5] The report stated that the Advanced Fighter Weapons School was to have: one Officer-in-charge (F-4 or F-8 Crusader pilot), three F-4 pilot instructors, three F-4 Radar Intercept Officer instructors, three F-8 pilot instructors and an Aviation Ordnance Officer. The school would train 20 F-4 aircrews and 10 F-8 pilots per year. The aircrew syllabus would consist of 25 hours per pilot/aircrew in the F-8 or F-4, 75 hours of classes and a course duration of four weeks. [5] Pedersen was appointed as the first officer in charge of the school. [2] :102–3 An excellent dive into the messed up the execution of the Vietnam War is _Dereliction of Duty_ by H. R. McMaster) I will always love this book and decided as it was a short book, that I would spend a few days rereading it. The Fighter Weapons School was established on 3 March 1969. [6] [7] Following the implementation of the program, the Navy kill ratio in Vietnam went from 2.5:1 to 24:1. [8] [9] [10] [2] :173

In 1976, he was promoted to Captain and subsequently attended the Prospective Commanding Officers Course. From 28 March 1978 to 21 December 1979 he commanded the tanker USS Wichita. [2] :232–5 a story from one of Bros who co-founded the Topgun - "a revolution from nothing but pride and devotion" In February 1973 he joined VF-143 on the USS Enterprise and flew combat operations over Laos and Cambodia until the Enterprise returned to Pearl Harbor in June 1973. He was later appointed commander of VF-143 and the squadron embarked onboard USS America for a Mediterranean cruise from 3 January to 3 August 1974. [2] :182–193

Top Gun is filled with minor, technical inaccuracies and violation of protocol that weren't called out by other characters. Also, Top Gun's dogfights and flying sequences have been criticized for having the jets fly too close to each other, which wouldn't have happened. However, these scenes were shot this way for cinematic effect, which is likely the explanation for other inaccuracies.As a Top Gun fanboy, I enjoyed this book immensely. If you liked books like The Right Stuff or Sled Driver: Flying the World's Fastest Jet, there is a good chance that you too would enjoy it.

On March 3, 1969, the United States Navy established an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the lost art of aerial combat and to ensure that the handful of men who graduated were the best fighter pilots in the world. They succeeded. Today, the Navy calls it Fighter Weapons School. The flyers call it: TOP GUN." Top Gun: The New Book by Navy's Program Founder Is a Rare Aviation Literary Gem". The Aviationist. 2019-04-30 . Retrieved 2020-12-31.Officially, the programme he set up was called the US Navy Fighter Weapons School. To everyone else it was known simply as TOPGUN The founder of the "Topgun" Navy Fighter School shares the remarkable inside story of how he and eight other risk-takers revolutionized the art of aerial combat. It’s a brilliant autobiography of a varied Navy career, spanning combat missions in Vietnam, setting up Top Gun, and even commanding an aircraft carrier. The real highlights for me were when he described what it was like learning to fly fighter jets for the first time (which was very reminiscent of The Right Stuff to me), and critically, how he tried to set Top Gun up as a school that would build the best of the best. The teaching pedagogy of Top Gun is truly fascinating and is covered extensively in Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise - it focuses heavily on forcing pilots to confront mistakes made and enabling them to learn from them in a safe space (much like Viper says in the film, “a good pilot always evaluates what’s happened, so that he can apply what he’s learned.”). on need to test things before using them in the war/critical situation (high-tech weapon wizardry of the 1930s) A riveting seat-of-the-pants flight into the lethal world of the fighter pilot' Dan Hampton, author of Viper Pilot Read more Details