Top Gun 2... features F-35

[flight17]

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2012/03/top-gun-2-will-rock-the-f-35-t.html

Maverick is becoming an F-35 test pilot.

It's true.

Tom Burbage, the Lockheed Martin F-35 programme manager, showed up at a National Aeronautics Association luncheon today and dropped a bombshell of a Hollywood scoop. Sure, there was talk about schedules and budgets, partners and politics, software blocks and carrier hooks. But we'll get to that later.

The big news from Burbage's speech involves Top Gun 2, the long-not-quite-awaited-but-certainly-delayed sequel of the 1986 fighter jock classic.

Tom Cruise, of course, confirmed back in December that the sequel is coming, but nobody -- not even IMDB (we checked) -- knows the full story. 

But Burbage does. Lockheed's Fort Worth, Texas, factory and flight test center will host production crew in the "next month or so" to start filming, Burbage told the NAA luncheon crowd.

Burbage also confirmed that Cruise will not just make a cameo; he will be the star, and he is playing the role of a Lockheed F-35 test pilot!

Potential plot twists fill our heads.

There will be no need to resurrect Goose, as the F-35 is a single-seater. With the Libyan air force in smouldering ruins, there will also be no need to stage another improbable yet inspiring combat scenario. Indeed, as a test pilot, it's not clear how the movie's writers can weave Maverick into a combat situation.

Maybe we've been covering the industry too long, but our perfect plot for Top Gun 2 has no combat sequences at all. Instead, it goes like this:

Maverick is a test pilot struggling to keep the flight test programme on schedule, even though his better judgment is sometimes compromised by a lifelong, paralyzing fear of vertical landings. Maverick almost throws in the towel after his favourite knee board/test card holder is destroyed in an unfortunate lift fan malfunction. Meanwhile, the programme's enemies, led by the snearing Bill "Iceman" Sweetman and Karlo "Slider" Kopp, take advantage of Maverick's absence to nearly bury the programme in a wave of seemingly overwhelming blog attacks. That's when Maverick's love interest -- a Texas congresswoman strategically placed on the AirLand subcommittee --  intervenes. She gives Maverick her father's last knee board (er, her father was also a test pilot ... just go with it) and literally pushes him back into the cockpit. Maverick straps on the knee board, takes the Block 3 software build out for a spin, hits every test point and -- for the finale -- lands vertically right on top of Aviation Week's building in downtown Washington DC. And that's when Kenny Loggins starts singing.

I especially like the above storyline lol

[Wiley]

I see no mention of oil drenched shirtless beach volleyball.  (Google a recent picture of Val Kilmer with that thought in your head.  Enjoy your nightmares)  This movie will be a failure.

Wiley.

[tmetal]

Of course this movie is going to suck. They show no sign of bringing back the star and best actor of the first movie; the F-14.

[GNucks]

Hornets are so much cooler than Baby Raptors. I want to see Hornets.

[Slash27]

Lybian air force? Did the moron that wrote that even see Top Gun?

[M0nkey_Man]

Hornets are so much cooler than Baby Raptors. I want to see Hornets.

(Image removed from quote.)

+1

[xNOVAx]

I see no mention of oil drenched shirtless beach volleyball.  (Google a recent picture of Val Kilmer with that thought in your head.  Enjoy your nightmares)

How is a recent picture any different than 1985?

Just sayin.. 

[SoonerMP]

I see no mention of oil drenched shirtless beach volleyball.  (Google a recent picture of Val Kilmer with that thought in your head.  Enjoy your nightmares)  This movie will be a failure.

Wiley.

 

[Wiley]

How is a recent picture any different than 1985?

Just sayin.. 

Moobs and the fact that the oil today would be fried chicken grease...

Wiley.

[Babalonian]

Hornets are so much cooler than Baby Raptors. I want to see Hornets.

(Image removed from quote.)

+2 (we has GOOSE!!!!)

[GNucks]

Hornets are so much cooler than Baby Raptors. I want to see Hornets.

(Image removed from quote.)

It is also absolutely critical that said movie feature the black and gold F-18's of the VFA-103 "Jolly Rogers." The movie will most assuredly flop otherwise.

[cactuskooler]

Maybe he'll be up against some Iranian F-14s this time.

[eagl]

Hornets are so much cooler than Baby Raptors. I want to see Hornets.

QFT

F-35 based plotline goes like this:

Launch the alert 5!

Maverick:  I'm supersonic, will be at the tanker in 10.  Ok I'm off the tanker, where's the fight?  Oh it's over already?  Ok I'll go home.

*turns around and gets shot in the butt by the one surviving bandit because the F-35 has the radar cross section of a massive jet engine from the rear aspect*


Hanging below a streamer malfuction chute on the way to his death because Martin Baker in the UK packed the chutes upside down (no kidding true story), Maverick:  (vader voice) "Goose!!!! Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Fin

[Delirium]

It makes perfect sense to use the F35... the F14 garnered a huge following after 'Top Gun' was released and Lockheed Martin is hoping for the same publicity. I'm sure Lockheed Martin/USAF will cooperate as much as they can with the movie makers.

The military is looking down the barrel of a lot of budget cuts in the near future. If Lockheed Martin/USAF can get public support behind the F35, it will be far less likely to suffer cuts.

[SWkiljoy]

It makes perfect sense to use the F35... the F14 garnered a huge following after 'Top Gun' was released and Lockheed Martin is hoping for the same publicity. I'm sure Lockheed Martin/USAF will cooperate as much as they can with the movie makers.

The military is looking down the barrel of a lot of budget cuts in the near future. If Lockheed Martin/USAF can get public support behind the F35, it will be far less likely to suffer cuts.

Well said Del, +1