Factual error: The TLAM cruise missiles launched at the runway are subsonic. They could not catch up with and pass the Super Hornets.
Suggested correction: It's not defined how fast the hornets are flying, and considering the mission I doubt that they would be running tanks in order to extend their range - so it could be possible that the hornets are flying slower than the max speed of the TLAM's.
With respect, the film does mention their speed: 660 knots, equal to 1,222 km/h, or Mach 0.99.
That's their speed once the actual attack run began in the canyon. Could have easily been going much slower while on approach over the water.
That's only during the run through the canyon after the missiles hit, and it would be known that something is coming. Until the missiles hit, there's no need to burn the fuel to get there as if they are spotted before missiles impact, the unknown enemy has time to scramble more aircraft than what's already airborne.
F-18 achieves maximum range (best fuel consumption) at 0.83 to 0.85 Mach, which is greater than TLAM's 0.7 Mach.
660 knots indicated, at high altitude, seems like it would be over the speed of sound.
Character mistake: The Admiral refers to Top Gun as Maverick's final post. As Maverick is a Naval aviator, it should be referred to as his final duty station. The army uses the term post.
Suggested correction: "Post", in the Navy, is also used in the same manner as "adjourned" or "dismissed". It could be argued that the Admiral was stating this is the last duty station from which he will "post".
Factual error: The pilots are not wearing actual Super Hornet, heads-up display helmets. And, they would not be using clear eye shields in the daytime. Of course, if they were using the sun-tinted shields, you wouldn't be able to see all the acting going on inside those oxygen masks.
Factual error: During real-world training exercises, aviators are told to keep a 500 to a 1000 ft safety bubble around them at all times. In multiple scenes you can see where they are almost flying in a wingtip formation.
Suggested correction: The tactical formation they are in is a welded wing formation, as mentioned earlier in the movie. It requires flying close together to deceive radar as to the size of the strike force.
Factual error: During the steep climb after the bombs are dropped, the max Gs would occur at the initial stages of the pull up. Once the aircraft is maintaining a steep nose high attitude, the Gs should no longer be that high, let alone increasing towards 9-10 G. If they kept pulling that many Gs, they would be flying a loop instead of climbing.
Suggested correction: To be fair in all instances of showing this climb they show the increase in Gs and them straining during the pull, not after they have levelled out already. The climb might be shown as taking longer for dramatic reasons.
Factual error: One of the major plot points is the second aircraft "buddy lasing" so that the bombs will hit the target. Since the target is a non-moving structure, the coordinates would have been programmed into the mission computer onboard the aircraft ahead of time so there would be no reason to have to manually find and aim the laser to guide the bombs.
Suggested correction: It was mentioned in the movie that the location was GPS jammed, so they cannot get the exact coordinates for the bunker beforehand, therefore it requires this mission to have the F-18/A pairs and buddy lase the bombs to the target.
That's another mistake. GPS jamming is a form of radio frequency jamming. There is no such jamming in place. The aircraft are in constant two-way contact with their carrier group.
GPS is only one part of the radio frequency spectrum. Radar is another, radio communications another (actually a number of different frequencies). A GPS jammer does not block radio communication - unless it's a broad spectrum jammer - which could then interfere with the radar they are flying low to avoid. In the first gulf war GPS jammers were sold to Iraq by Russia - and the US mentioned that several were destroyed with GPS guided devices.
And that's yet another mistake. Without a broad spectrum jammer in place, F-35 could deliver its payload using NAVCON guidance. Another issue is that the so-called GPS jamming was so clean it didn't even cause crackle on other radio frequencies.
Factual error: The flame coming out of the engine exhaust port on Darkstar when the scram jet is engaged is wrong. That speed at which the burnt gas is being ejected should show the classic supersonic shock diamonds.
Other mistake: In the Darkstar takeoff sequence, there is a cockpit shot where Maverick looks back after passing over the Admiral, then looks forward into the cockpit. You can see that the landing gear handle is still in the "down" position and the 3 "gear down and locked" lights are illuminated. At this point in the flight the gear has already been retracted (confirmed visually in the previous external shot).
Factual error: While flying out, Maverick strikes an object, tearing off his front landing gear. This would have led to a loss of hydraulic fluid, making it impossible to raise or lower his main mounts. It would probably lead to a complete loss of hydraulic fluid to all control surfaces, making it impossible to fly the plane.
Suggested correction: The F-14 has two separate hydraulic systems: the flight hydraulic system and the combined hydraulic system. Only the combined system is connected to the landing gear. Maverick would be unable to raise his main gear, but all control surfaces would remain operational. In addition to that, the landing gear can be isolated from the combined system, so it would be possible for both systems to remain operational.
Other mistake: The film's premise is attacking a target that GPS jamming protects. As the attack starts, it is becomes apparent that no such protection is in place. GPS jamming is a form of radio frequency jamming. It would severely affect all radio communications. But planes and their command carrier are in constant, undeterred radio contact. Moreover, the enemy uses radar-guided SA-3 Goa SAM units that would have been unable to operate properly in jamming conditions.
Suggested correction: GPS jamming is transmitting radio signals on GPS frequencies, not all radio frequencies. It might prevent GPS being used for navigation or weapon aiming, but it would have little or no effect on radios or radar which use different frequency bands. At the risk of oversimplifying, it's like you could shine a bright flashlight to blind people trying to see you, but it wouldn't stop them using infra red (or hearing or smell or whatever else).
This correction is a mistake in itself. Without wide-spectrum jamming, the U.S. Navy never needed to use NAVFLIR for payload guidance. The site would be open to attacks from other radio-guided weapons, such as NAVCON guidance, standoff missile, and operator-guided bombs, especially since they were hard-pressed to guide their payload through a small window and ensure the survivability of their pilots.
In the movie they say GPS jamming, not wide spectrum jamming. GPS could be affected, but radar etc would still work. Like you say, the site would still be open to other attacks, and be able to use various defences.
It doesn't really matter. Maverick was told that GPS is jammed, so he threw all kinds of attack plans based on radio guidance out of the window, behaving as if there was a full-spectrum jamming in place. And his commanding officers didn't mind. Either the film's mistake is in its depiction of U.S. Navy's understanding of aerial warfare or its depictions of aerial warfare itself. There is huge mistake in there, it is only a matter of where.
Continuity mistake: When testing the Darkstar, Rear Admiral Cain is talking to Hondo, first his hand is touching his face, then next shot down, then next shot back on his face.
Continuity mistake: In the first dogfight lessons, Maverick flies an F/A-18 with a characteristic black color scheme with light blue lines on the rudders and the plane's back. When Maverick is shown in the cockpit, you can see the rudders behind him are light grey.
Revealing mistake: Tom Cruise is placing his right hand on the cockpit canopy during an ACM training. The Rhino takes 2 hands to fly at all times unless you are in a straight and level flight. Since they were in ACM and his hands were on the canopy, this tells you that Tom Cruise was actually in the RIO position of the aircraft.
Suggested correction: It does not take two hands at all times. The throttle can be set for short periods, allowing the aircrew to brace themselves against the canopy to turn around and look behind them.
True IF you are in straight/level flight. They were in ACM at the time which would require both hands on stick and throttle.
There's a former Navy pilot on YT that confirms this.
Confirms that a pilot can or can't fly one handed like that scene?
Cannot. The channel is called Mover Ruins Movies.
Continuity mistake: When Maverick and the team are heading into enemy territory after leaving the carrier, they start dropping below enemy radar. Watch how close they are to the ocean. They've already reached lower altitude. In one shot, Maverick is higher above the ocean. In the next shot, he's lower again as before.
Deliberate mistake: When Maverick is in the bar texting Iceman, Iceman's sentence-long responses come almost immediately after Maverick sends his messages, without enough time having elapsed for Iceman to have typed them out. Compare this to the later scene at the selectively mute Iceman's house, where he types out various sentences for Maverick to read, and the amount of time it takes him to type them out is more of what one would expect.
Suggested correction: Typing on a PC keyboard isn't the same as typing on a smartphone. The former requires proper coordination of both hands. The latter may use AI-assisted predictive suggestions and auto-correct. Microsoft's discontinued SwiftKey could predict all of Iceman's responses.
Predictive text and autocorrect still wouldn't account for Iceman's responses appearing on Maverick's screen almost immediately after Maverick sends his texts to Iceman. It would still take at least a few seconds for that to happen. The reason this is a deliberate mistake because they didn't want to waste screen time showing Iceman's responses appearing in a more realistic time-frame.
Iceman's typing starts at 0:21:51 and ends at 0:21:58. That's more than long enough. Maverick is twice as fast and we see his typing on the screen. He can type a whole sentence between 0:21:58 to 0:22:01. And it seems natural to me.
Maverick texts "The kid's not ready for this mission." Iceman responds "No one is," and roughly 2 seconds later a separate text appears, in which he says "That's why you're here." No amount of predictive text or autocorrect can both type out that sentence that quickly as well as deliver it to the recipient's phone.
First, in the real world, Iceman would be typing even as he hits the Send message. Maverick's phone would stop displaying the "Iceman is typing..." message to do the unfurl animation, but Iceman is still typing. Second, yes, Microsoft's AI-assisted SwiftKey could. Iceman types "That's" and SwiftKey guesses the rest. This degree of intelligent predication is mundane! Microsoft's IntelliCode predicts the C# code you'd want to write.
Factual error: When Maverick is flying faster than Mach 10 near the start of the film, all the screens at the base short out as those on the aircraft also do. This wouldn't happen; at worst, the screens would go blank. Most likely, a "no signal" or "no input" message would display.
Continuity mistake: The second time Penny is riding on Maverick's motorcycle after the beach scene she is wearing the navy blue sweater that she wore during the first ride, but when she and Maverick get to her house she is wearing a green button down shirt.
Continuity mistake: Before the first training scene, in the ready room Hangman has a model of an F-18 Hornet in his hand, a few seconds later, he has an F-14 tomcat.
Factual error: "BOB" is wearing the patch for VFA-51, the "Screaming Eagles." This squadron was disestablished in 1995, roughly 24-25 years before the movie takes place. Also, it was disestablished as "VF-51", which flew Tomcats as a pure Fighter Squadron. Being a young LT, it's not likely he was ever assigned to this squadron, and in general Naval Aviators will wear their current squadron's patch on their flight suit.
Factual error: Fanboy's squadron patch is for VFA-143, the "World Famous Pukin' Dogs." However, this is an "Echo" squadron, flying the single seat F/A-18E model. Being a WSO, at his apparent age/rank, he is probably not pilot-rated and therefore could not have been assigned to that squadron. Unlike "Bob", he isn't wearing glasses, so he could not have been previously disqualified and even so, he would be wearing his current squadron's badge.
