lionhead

28th Nov 2022

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

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.

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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.

lionhead

Plot hole: Any strike on a military facility by incoming aircraft would first take out the SAM sites with missiles to clear the way for said aircraft to operate freely. After all, the Tomahawks fly right past the attacking planes and take out the runway with no issues at all - no reason they couldn't hit the high and exposed SAMs.

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Suggested correction: The idea was to use the tomahawks to take out the airfield and prevent enemy planes from taking off. The SAMs could be evaded by flying through the canyon so the airfield was considered a higher priority target.

lionhead

While that may be so, those planes exit would have a difficult time out running and avoiding that many SAMs. It's not like the ship wouldn't have enough tomahawks to take out the SAMs as well.

Taking out the airfield was deemed necessary to complete the mission, taking out SAMs beyond the canyon was not. The original plan didn't take into account the pilots surviving the mission in the first place, so the Navy didn't bother with extra strikes on SAM sites. Maverick had to struggle to get them to approve this plan in the first place too, so he wouldn't be able to convince them to put even more effort into it.

lionhead

They still have to avoid the SAMs on the way out, no canyon to protect them then.

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