Top Gun - 2 Inspired by Israel Bombings of Egypt, Iraq, Syria

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza, MPA

The Missus, my eldest son Jigger, and I watched recently the flick’s Top Gun: Maverick in Robinsons Place Pangasinan in Calasiao town.

 While the duo bought our packs of popcorns and cold soda nearby the movie house, I asked the woman who tended the ticket booth how their clients fare after the onslaught of the pandemic.

Compared to the pre-Corona Virus Disease -19 (Covid-19) in March 2020, she told me, more people in the province patronize their four theaters.

“We have only two now. But patrons start to comeback when we opened business early this year,” she spoke in the vernacular.

Let Me Opine

MANEUVER. One of the scenes in the flick's Top Gun- Maverick where United States Air Force and test pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Actor Tom Cruise) maneuveres his F/A-18E/F Super Hornet during a practice with his top gun's pilots in a mission to bomb the unsanctioned uranium enrichment plant of a rogue state's Iran.

Allow me to opine on this $548.6 million box office's movie as cited by the May 6 Fox News report:

  Although this Peter Craig and Justin Marks’ written and Joseph Kosinski’s directed $170 million budgeted 131 minutes’ fiction film shot in May 2018 to April 2019 (through an IMAX -certified 6K full-frame cameras), it was shelved for public consumption because of several complex action sequences, pandemic, and scheduling conflicts. The film smitten me because I was a combat aircraft buff (who attended the aircraft static display at Clark of the American, Australian, and Filipino troops and even interviewed Saab Gripen Vice President for Communication Robert Hewson during the three days 2018 Asian Defense & Security (ADAS) held in the World Trade Center), and avid fan of the history of wars –from Germany (they called it then as Prussia) prominent World War- 1 General Erich Ludendorff, U.S Five-Star General Douglas MacArthur genius in sandwiching 135,000 Commie North Korean soldiers who became Prisoners of War in the Battle of Inchon in early 1950s (where my still living 94 years old Father fought in another theater of that  Korean War), to my town mate Feliciano Luces alias Kumander Tootpick of M’lang, Cotabato bravados like eating the raw ears of Muslim rebels to enhance his anting-anting (amulet) during the Christian-Moro War of the 1970s.

Many of the concepts in the celluloid screen of Top Gun came how the French built single seat fighter’s Dassault Mirage III jets  evade the Soviet’s Surface - to-Air-Missiles (SAMs) in Egypt when the Israeli Air Force (IAF) blindsided the Egyptian when they flew low through the Mediterranean Sea and hit most of Egypt's 19 airbases, runways, and MIGs and other planes parking and refueling on the grounds in the Six Days War that started in June 5, 1967; Israel’s Operation Opera where in June 7, 1981 eight newly purchased F-16A Falcons from the United States were used after months of rigorous training in a covert airbase in the Sinai to drop four bombs that obliterated the French made $200 million nuclear power plant of Iraqi Despot Saddam Hussein near Baghdad; and Israeli airstrike’s Operation Orchard participated by eight combat jets’ F-15Is and F-16Is, and an electronic signals intelligence (ELINT) radar jamming aircraft, helicopter, and laser- wielding elite Israeli Shaldag special-forces’ commandos who direct the bombs of the jets on Al Kibar’s nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria. The surgical strike ensued after midnight of September 6, 2007 where 10 North Korean’s nuclear scientist allegedly died there.

Plot of the Movie

In this flick, the U.S discovered that the Iranians have constructed an unsanctioned uranium enrichment plant in the valley surrounded by snowy mountain ranges. The area – probably near the borders of either Turkmenistan or Afghanistan was guarded by countless SAM batteries sitting menacingly on the summits and a squadron of Russian made fifth-generation (stealth) multi-role Sukhoi Su-57 jets were parked in an airbase down there.

Author - a son of an Airforce man - poses with the posters of Top Gun

- Maverick after he and his family watch it at a movie house in Robinsons Place Pangasinan.

Since the mode of attack mapped by Vice Admiral Beau "Cyclone" Simpson was inferior to the concept of test pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Actor Tom Cruise) – who remains an Air Force Captain despite his backer and contemporary was already an Admiral of the Pacific Fleet -, Simpson grudgingly adapted his idea.

Maverick told the selected F/A -18 E/F Super Hornet jet top gun pilots of the USAF who were Lieutenants and Captains that the mission was risky because even the four F-18s could evade the radars in their entry (just like what the Israeli jet pilots done in the Six Days War and Operation Opera by flying 100 to 50 feet above the sea and ground) from their aircraft carrier somewhere in the Caspian Sea by negotiating high speed  cruise through a long zigzagging canyon, their “egress (the term they use there)” or exit would be dangerous if they could not complete it in less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

He told the young officers –graduate of U.S Naval Academy - that by ascending nose-up in the middle of those steep mountain through life threatening 10.5 Gravitation Force or G-Force ("Damn, it could prejudice the integrity of the air frames of the F-18," I quipped inside the theater. As what Lieutenant Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw said the F-18 could only fly with a maximum of 7.5 G-Force) and nose dive upon reaching the summit they avoid being detected by the SAMs .

But the SAMs’ radars still saw them that triggered their missiles to chase those jet planes.

While the four jets manufactured by Boeing (sold at U.S $67 million each) maneuvered and released their flares and chaffs so the heat –seeking missiles could not hit them, Maverick sacrificed his F-18 to shield the jet of Rooster (the son of Nick "Goose" Bradshaw his Naval Flight Officer (NFS) in the first Top Gun who died after they ejected from their burning F-14 Tomcat) to spare his life.

As the three jets were heading to the USS Abraham Lincoln, Rooster disobeyed order and returned back and saw the beleaguered Maverick hiding in some trees but ready to be mowed to death by the Yak-B four-barreled 12.7 mm flexibly mounted machine gun of a Russian made  gunship–that ugly looking attack lethal helicopter Mil Mi-24 (Hind) - as ugly as  Max Alvarado and the Philippines Turkey- made T129 ATAK choppers,  ha-ha-ha-ha!

The Hind gunship exploded before the eyes of Maverick and the spectators in Robinsons while Rooster ejected and parachuted to the snowy shrouded forest after a SAM’s missile hit his plane.

The duo later entered a hangar while escaping and saw an old F-14 Tomcat jet. This F-14 – that lacked many of its navigational and communication systems – was one of the 80 F-14A Grunman jets bought by Shah (King) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran from the U.S in the early 1970s but the Tehran government still use them especially in their war against Iraq.

They flew it going to the carrier. But two Sukhois  Su-57s saw them and a dog fight ensued where the protagonists used missiles and cannons. Through the deftness of Maverick, the F-14 destroyed them but another Sukhoi appeared somewhere and fired its air-to-air missile to them.  Luckily or thanks to the scriptwriter and the director's order, Captain Hangman and his F-18 demolished the multiple-role Sukhoi (the poor version of the U.S made stealth F-22 Raptor) through his AIM -120 air-to-air heat seeking rocket.

 Maverick and Rooster returned to the carriers. Since their front tire was ripped off when it hit a structure during its full blast short take - off in the Iranian runway, a net provided by the personnel of the carrier caught to safety the descending plane after it hit the deck.

Everybody cheered –including some of the movie goers – on that safe landing.

It’s a scintillating flick especially to a combat jet buff like me but at a cost of P300 (U. S$6) per head from my pocket. Oh, it’s P1,300 rather from my wallet for the three of us to include the packs of popcorn and sodas hahaha!

READ MY OTHER BLOG:

The Lethal, Costly Weapons of a Cobra

MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

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I am a twenty years seasoned Op-Ed Political Writer in various newspapers and Blogger exposing government corruptions, public officials's idiocy and hypocrisies, and analyzing local and international issues. I have a master’s degree in Public Administration and professional government eligibility. I taught for a decade Political Science and Economics in universities in Metro Manila and cities of Urdaneta, Pangasinan and Dagupan. Follow me on Twitter @totoMortz or email me at totomortz@yahoo.com.