Factual error: Doug Masters and his friend Reggie would be grounded on the spot and have their pilot's licences suspended (and in all likelihood cancelled) after buzzing the motorcyclist. Their flying is grossly unsafe. They would be visible for miles flying well below a safe altitude, but even if they were not seen their radio traffic and radar tracking would tell the authorities everything they needed to know.
Continuity mistake: In all of the aircraft scenes, almost every time they showed his aircraft, he has different types of weapons on it.
Continuity mistake: After Doug drops the Hades Bomb, the next scene shows his F-16 landing to pick up his dad. Look closely at the belly of the plane and you can see that the Hades is still there.
Continuity mistake: When Doug Masters and all his friends are at the burger joint and Masters has just received a letter saying he has been denied enrolment into the US air force academy, his enemy Knotcher tries to humiliate him by announcing it over the loudspeaker. Masters then runs up to the window and threatens to assault him. Knotcher suggests that a race would be more appropriate to which they both agree. During this whole conversation, Knotcher's right arm is up, next shot it's down, then up, then down again.
Factual error: The enemy planes described as Mig-23, are really Israel's Air Force IAI Kfir fighters.
Plot hole: Doug begins to land on the air strip after his father has been moved. But note, the Hades bomb had not yet been dropped. If his dad had not been shot at that moment, one can assume that he would have finished his landing and been a complete sitting duck when he has to get out of the plane. What was he saving the Hades for at that point? It is only later when he actually drops the Hades that he barely has enough time to rescue his wounded dad.
Factual error: The training scene where Cappy and Doug are doing target practice is all wrong. First of all, an F-16 would never be able to launch missiles at a cloth target on the ground. Those targets are for gun practice. Secondly, the MK-82 is a BOMB, not a missile as the movie shows. Also in order to drop a bomb, the pilot must use a computerized inertial pipper which calculates the precise drop zone. There is no way the absence of Doug's music could "mess up his rhythm" on the practice drop.
Character mistake: When Doug Masters approaches his aircraft at the airfield before racing 'The Snake', Col Sinclair has a right hand access panel open on Doug's Cessna 150 upper engine cowling and is allegedly working on the fuel system saying "As lean as you were runnin', if it went into a stall, you woulda lost your engine, and would never been able to pull it out." The carburetor, gascolator, throttle linkage and carburetor control lines are on the bottom of the engine (Continental O-200). The panel he closes after sticking bubble gum on accesses the battery, the right hand magneto and the oil dipstick. Not only did Col Sinclair not do what he said he said he did without a sign-off in the aircraft's logbook, it would be totally unnecessary, as aviation updraft carburetors use a cockpit or engine controlled fuel mixture control that would have simply been left in 'full rich' position after engine start for the altitudes the aircraft would have been flying. And stalling is an aerodynamic condition of angle of attack being exceeded or insufficient airflow over flight surfaces, not fuel starvation, which is the condition being addressed. (00:11:30 - 00:12:30)
Revealing mistake: If you pay close attention to the close up shots of Doug's F-16 dropping bombs or launching mavericks, you will notice that the fighter is a poorly detailed scale model of the real thing. In the scene where Doug drops the Hades, you will notice that he is actually a barely painted figurine and that he suddenly has no headrest/ejection chair.
Continuity mistake: When Doug Masters is told that his father has been shot down, he is told (roughly) that "He waxed three of the bastards". He only shot down two enemy fighters.
Continuity mistake: When Doug comes in to drop the Hades bomb you can see that the landing gear is down as if the plane is coming into land, but when the bomb is shown being dropped the gears are up.
Factual error: No way that an F-16 can hold as much ordinance that is fired from Doug Masters' plane.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Doug first approaches Chappy on the tarmac about helping to get his dad back, Chappy says he doesn't know Doug's Dad, but he knows the type. Later, after Chappy has agreed to help Doug rescue his dad in the restaurant, he relates a story about meeting Doug's dad in the simulator room at the Air Force Base and how Doug's dad took up for him during a misunderstanding with 2 other pilots.
Factual error: None of the security police are wearing badges, which is part of the required uniform, also they were wearing dark blue shirts, these are only worn at SAC headquarters.
Plot hole: There is absolutely no way that Andy could have got that fighter jet in the sky illegally and got past several nations air space to rescue his father in a foreign country. He would have been immediately intercepted or blown out of the sky when detected.
