I was interested to note that the carrier used was the Yorktown, you can just about make out the slightly angled flight deck in the film, but I do find this a wonderful scene, taking off into the sunrise as well, does anyone know where the carrier was when it was filmed, presumably the a/c landed back on dry land.

Pete,

The Yorktown scenes were shot I believe off the coast of San Diego
in Dec. 1968 – all pilots were carrier qualified. The Top Gun carrier
scenes were shot in the same general location in 1985.
My favourite shot is the Kate with the blue flame on the exhaust on her
take-off run, even better on the Dolby Surround!

Simon

Tora plane destruction

Pete,

Heres a list of what I know was done as far
as a/c destruction is concerned:

4 Catalina hulks from Orange County were
destroyed for the film. They were wired by
Steward-Davis Inc. who did the Val conversions.

1 B-25J (N9754Z) found at Honolulu airport
was blown up in the hangar scene.

1 of the B-17’s was damaged in a wheels up
landing but it was later repaired. Scene was
actually used in the film.

The P-40 take-off was filmed next-door to Wheeler
airfield and is not the actaul airfield used by
Talyor / Welch on the day which was miles
away at Haliewa.

The hangar was a real one but not sure where
it was – will write more later if you are interested,
I don’t have my notes in front of me right now.

The Japanese carrier take-off (highlight for many)
was done off the USS Yorktown in Dec. 1968 with
almost all 30 Harvard conversions. The Yorktown
was then used to carry all aircraft to Hawaii for
filming.

The only mystery is the ID of the Stearman bi-plane
with an N34307 rego.???? no-one no where knows
anything about this a/c…….

Hope this helps you out.
Simon Beck
http://www.uswarplanes.net

Question – are any of the aircraft named in Ballard’s book?

And if you want to try and track it to the end, see if you can track down the Art Dept. Good luck…

I read Ballard’s book a long time ago but I don’t think
he ever named them.
Since DIGBY was there he would be correct, no dealt
about it – did he work on the film?

Several Journalists around my office looked at the above
photo and thought it was a “J” like I did. In researching movie
avaition I find you go 10 steps back for every step forward.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Beck
I was of the opinion Jugboat is a reference
to “a jug of beer”???
I cannot imagine why anyone would name
the coolest WW2 fighter a “Tugboat”?

Coolest? It’s an enclosed cockpit with a bubble canopy that only turned up after the hard yards were over!

I still say its the coolest fighter of WW2 regardless of
stature, everyones got their right to an opinion correct.

Sorry, forgot to note:

Ray Hanna flew G-PSID “599” in the waving flyby.

The B-29 and various other flying shots
were done with scaled RC models.

I have a picture too of the “Zero” fighter
Christian Bale played in early on in the film
at an airport somewhere in England, Bovington
I think?

Simon Beck
http://www.uswarplanes.net