Military Laws Broken: Top Gun (with real JAG)

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[LegalEagle]

✈ What do you think of the new Top Gun?

[S_]

When I was on a Tiger cruise on the Nimitz one of the pilots call signs was “Wiki”. When I asked how he got that I was told, and I quote, “ he’s like the website, he knows everything but he isn’t always right”

[PuppyMonsters]

As a retired Sailor, the thing that bugged me about the celebration of the crew on the flight deck is, first, like you say, they have abandoned their posts and becoming FOD on the flight line, but second... the enlisted people up there in the colored jerseys would have ZERO clue what happened in the air.
Aircraft go up, aircraft come down, none of the information about what a squadron does gets back to the ship's crew.

[FornaxusCrucible]

Objection: Top Gun was released in 1986. The California law that prohibits riding a motorcycle without a helmet didn't come into effect until 1992.

[aaronspencer]

Objection: I am a current Navy JAG and the folks at TOPGUN are Navy pilots. There is no official Navy Regulation that forbids intimate relationships between two people at the same command, unless they are committing Fraternization (e.g. leader/subordinate, officer/enlisted, etc...). The only real problem in a relationship between Maverick and Iceman would have been that same sex relationships in the military were not allowed at the time.

[theoneandonlygrod]

Fun Fact:

In the end credits of the movie, the military pilot consultants for the film are listed by their names, ranks and callsigns.

It threw me off as a teenager, because the pilots in the movie all have cool callsigns like "Maverick" and "Iceman" and the real pilots are like, "Bozo" and "Dipshit."

[genuinesaucy]

Some of the best callsigns I've heard of:
"Blaze" – Caught on fire in the base kitchen
"Headless" – Pilot's last name was Horstman
"Hurricane" – Pilot's first name was Katrina
"Legend" – Failed an exam that no one had ever failed in history
"Vodka" – Pilot’s name was Smirnoff

[FokkerBoombass]

Seeing a suited up lawyer (deputy DA at that) (and a vet) say "This is cringe" really tickles my funny bone for some reason.

[Kalepsis]

My former CO's call sign was Nightmare (Harrier pilot).
Cool call sign? Sure. My confidence that the story behind it is actually horribly embarrassing to him on a very personal level? 100%.

[ColinFox]

Speaking of callsigns, Tom Cruise related a story where during the training for Top Gun, he went with a navy pilot who's CS was "Bozo". During the flight, with a series of hard turns, Tom was starting to feel sick. He leaned forward to reach down to get his barf bag, and at that moment Bozo pulled into a hard-g climb, pushing Tom's face almost to the floor of the plane. He kept trying to call out to the pilot to ease off, but couldn't get any air to speak. Once they DID level off, Tom snapped at him and asked why he did that.

"They don't call me Bozo for nothing" was all he said.

[unwashedotaku]

Clarification for Clearance: Just because you have TSSCI clearance, does NOT mean you get to hear everything that is TSSCI. You still need to have a "Need to know" to have that information. It needs to be absolutely vital for the person to know this information. So even if someone says " I have the clearance" your response should be "Why do you need to know?"

[dawnduckworth]

The amount of sarcasm demonstrated by this Marine is so perfect. Every other sentence, and said with the straightest face every time.

[urbypilot]

When I learned that military call signs were meant to be something related to a humiliating experience, I started to justify those call signs:
- Ice Man probably froze at some point in the past in a minor training exercise where he was supposed to lead the exercise
-Goose, certainly his long neck
-Maverick is meant to be a misnomer because he was too much of a loose cannon

[Mmjk_]

Here in the UK in 1968, a RAF Hunter pilot broke of from his flight and flew over london buzzing the houses of parliament 3 times and flying between tower bridge to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the RAF. He was kicked out of the RAF on medical grounds and held for two days but was sent a keg of beer and later exonerated.

[douglanglois]

A pilot friend (well, father of a friend) earned the callsign "bulldozer." It sounds pretty benign until you learn it was a constant reminder that he once left the taxiway and plowed a significant trench in the grass.

[glennwheeler]

Between the Two Top Gun movies, Maverick was actually charged, but thanks to a stellar defense from his JAG lawyer, Lt. Kaffee (of "A Few Good Men" fame), he was cleared of all charges.

[Kei-yeif]

There's something about a real DA organically using the word "cringe"

I can't properly put it into words, but there's something about it

[elvismansoncpa]

I was assigned to a ship in San Diego in 1986, the year Top Gun was made. On military bases it was illegal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. BUT offbase in plain old California, at the time you COULD ride without a helmet. It wasn't unusual for sailors and civilians who worked on base to wear a helmet on their way out the gate, then remove it as they sped away!

[MikeJones-qngz]

Fun thing about Military law, you’ll notice that whenever they point out an event and the charges in them you may notice that there are multiple. Most often when the military really wants to actually charge you, they will throw in atleast 3 and 1 will always be conduct unbecoming because it guarantees that this charge will likely stick. In short don’t commit any crimes in the military, you won’t win.

[MartinMCade]

I did my Navy flight school as an NFO in 1988-1989. Some of the instructors there had been advisors or had worked on the original Top Gun. Their consensus was that Maverick would have lost his wings after the first flyby through a full pattern and the movie would have ended right there.