Nope...Top Gun ejection scene was fake only to people that knows how ejection sequence works.

First of all if you rewatch the movie. When they are flying around there is not a red flag with the safety pin at the top of the seat. That safety pin disarms the seat making it unable to fire. Also if I remember correctly there isn't a bronze star wheel looking thing on the left side of the seat. That bronze star wheel is a tool we use to lock and unlock the seat from the main catupult that guides the ejection seat out of the aircraft.

Second of all the seat he was in when ejecting, was not the seat of the F14 Tomcat.

Third flaw was the seat is not able to hit the canopy. The reason behind this is that the canopy has its own cad to fire it. When it does fire even when there is no wind, or there is wind going forward the canopy would eject backwards over the body of the aircraft. It does not eject up.

There is two ways to eject out of the F14. One is to manually blow the canopy off, then pull the primary hand of the ejection seat in front of the pilot or rios crotch area.

Or just pull the primary handle of the ejection seat. The canopy will blow off and there is a lanyard connected to aircraft and once that lanyard clears the aircraft then the seat can safely fire.

There are three types of F14--Alpha, Bravo and Deltas. The Delta is the only F14 ejection seat that can go through the canopy. It has horns (like :rick on top of the seat to puncture the canopy. Alpha and Bravo must have the canopy clear the aircraft in order for the seat to eject.

Lastly the RIO (radio intercept officer aka the guy in the rear) can eject leaving only the pilot. However if the pilot ejects then the rio must eject and the rio ejects first. There is also a timing mechanism so the two pilots don't collide in mid air.

If the plane is on the ground and they eject. The pilot would eject left and the rio would eject right.

Oh and Aux...the Navy paid me to sit in a class for 3 months to learn this.:fawk:

 

Then little Deek becomes a clitoris.:fawk:

 

Not to mention, there are quite a few factors that could cause the pilot to down a plane and it not be his fault, especially if he was on a carrier... not enough steam, not enough speed, etc...

 

i cant believe i just read all that....now i have an overdose of aircraft ejection information that i may never use h:

 

Mostly it isn't the steam of the catapults or enough head wind. But ejection mostly on deck is due to fire, which is rare cause safety is #1.

There is calculation on the weight of the plane, the amount of fuel currently on the F14, and the arament configuration most of the time its 60,000 lbs with a TCS camera and no bombs. They do a rough calculation before every plane is launched. If there isn't steam or enough head wind then the plane will not launch.

 

:chuckles: At least the next time you watch Top Gun you'll know what is not true cause you will know the details of what shouldn't be there and what actually happens.:thumbup:

 

My dad has a video tape of the USS Enterprise in 1986 when the "dropped" 3 A-6's in a row due to not enough headwind...

it was a pretty scary video, but not as scary as the video of the huge fire that extended their deployment for 3 more months of repairs...

 

Cool info. :thumbup:

 

ejection sequence in "Behind Enemy Lines" :rockon:

:thumbup:

 

TCS? traction control system? i think there's a TCS button on my mom's TL