Interesting debate

[PR3D4TOR]

That's part of him. The accident messed him up bad. We're not here to argue over why Iceman was better. Maverick might have been better if he didn't have to carry all the baggage with him like his father's history and Goose's death. Fate would have it otherwise. Iceman ended up the better of the two.

[Nefarious]

Grafton was a pilot.  Cole was a BN.

Yes, but due to the requirements of the aircraft it is necessary to include the entire crew.

So the argument should be who is the better Air crew. Maverick and Goose, Maverick and Merlin, Iceman and Slider or in my opinion Cool Hand and Tiger.

 

[MrRiplEy[H]]

The best pilot would obviously be the child of Iceman and Maverick.

Now the only question remains - which one would get pregnant.

[PR3D4TOR]

Obviously Maverick was the "catcher".

[Phoenix3107]

Meaning?

When the fight began, Iceman and Hollywood both flew together while Mav was on the carrier readying up for alert launch. Hollywood reports being shot down, thus giving Mav the go-ahead to launch and save Iceman. If all 6 MiG's were going after Iceman, don't you think they would've shot him down already BEFORE Maverick could even manage to enter the battle zone, even at supersonic speed?(That is, unless the fight was dangerously close to the ship where they launched off)

And how come the Tomcats weren't equipped with the long-range Phoenix missiles just in case the MiG's came within range of their radar coverage? I know it's supposed to relate to their training at Miramar, but even a set of those babies would send them scurrying back to land.

[PR3D4TOR]

That's why I say Iceman is the best pilot of the two. He managed to survive a 5 or 6 vs one long enough for Maverick to come over and cherry pick the furball.

[DaveBB]

As soon as Maverick flew through the jetwash of Iceman's F-14, one of his compressor stalls.  We immediately see him use SPOILERON to counter the roll.  The NAVY knew about this problem and the procedure to counter a flat spin was to use immediate opposite RUDDER (only about a 2 second window here in which to use rudder) and not to touch the spoileron.  So Maverick did three things wrong and got his RIO killed: First he flew into another aircraft's jetwash, second he did not follow procedure in preventing a flat-spin, and third he ordered Goose to eject instead of blowing the canopy.

But then again, even when Maverick begins having an anxiety attack in combat and disengages, he forces himself to return to combat.  He employs his training and destroys several enemy Migs.

Note: I read a book about the formation of Top Gun (the Navy fighter weapons school).  In real life, two F-4s were tangled up with a Mig-21.  The Mig-21 was actually getting the best of them and about to shoot them down.  Then one of the pilots had an epiphany, *use what I've learned in training*.  He immediately reverted back to using tactics he learned at Top Gun, gained the advantage on the Mig, and shot it down.  (Source: Scream of Eagles)

http://www.amazon.com/Scream-Eagles-Dramatic-Account-Fighter/dp/1476788413/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428875974&sr=1-1&keywords=Top+Gun

[Guppy35]

With the understanding it was a movie and the flying made little sense, it seems to me that Viper was best since he waxed em all in an A-4.

[-ammo-]

I was a much more instinctual pilot than one guy who couldn't air refuel at night early on in his fighter career.  I snagged his deployment sortie (2x 12 hr flights including a half dozen night refuellings across the atlantic) because he couldn't stay on the boom during his night AAR checkout.  I fell off the boom maybe twice in my entire career, once the first time I ever went to a tanker and once the first time I refueled with a full weapons loadout.  Later on during one of his flight lead upgrade sorties, I was his red air bandit and gunned his brains out and pretty much disrupted his entire gameplan on every engagement.  I went to fly trainers and will someday retire as a Major, he went on to become a fighter squadron commander.

I'd say with some confidence that at that time, I had better hands than he did.  But that's only one relatively small part of the business of being a good fighter pilot.  I could fly the plane just fine, possibly better than he could at the time when we were both in the same squadron, but without question he was better at the overall job than I was.

Are  you still AD?

[Zimme83]

When the fight began, Iceman and Hollywood both flew together while Mav was on the carrier readying up for alert launch. Hollywood reports being shot down, thus giving Mav the go-ahead to launch and save Iceman. If all 6 MiG's were going after Iceman, don't you think they would've shot him down already BEFORE Maverick could even manage to enter the battle zone, even at supersonic speed?(That is, unless the fight was dangerously close to the ship where they launched off)

And how come the Tomcats weren't equipped with the long-range Phoenix missiles just in case the MiG's came within range of their radar coverage? I know it's supposed to relate to their training at Miramar, but even a set of those babies would send them scurrying back to land.

If i remember it correctly they say the migs is 250 miles from the carrier, it means that Maveric will need just over 20 minutes to get there if he has an average speed of mach 1...

[Lab Rat 3947]

The best pilot would obviously be the child of Iceman and Maverick.

Now the only question remains - which one would get pregnant.

that's a no brainer . . . maverick, of course    

just my sense of humor 

[eagl]

Are  you still AD?

Yes.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

that's a no brainer . . . maverick, of course    

just my sense of humor 

Well he was a bit of a drama queen.

[TopGear]

Iceman is the better pilot. By the time Maverick got to the fight the enemy's were in cv puffy ack range and were all pilot wounded or engines were oiled. Maverick just got proxies.

[Swoop]

Someone tell me why, in most 'dogfight' movies, you always get a pilot trying to shake an enemy on his close 6 by doing 30 degree flat turns.