Jackets on Display

Aviation museums have become repositories for flight jackets, including one of the most storied, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. According to Alex Spencer, curator of European, British, and Commonwealth military aviation, military flight clothing, and memorabilia, the museum boasts 25 flight jackets in its collection, most from World War II and a few from later conflicts and wars.

Three of Spencer’s favorites are the A-2s worn by Claire Chennault, Thomas Weems, and Kenneth Williams. Chennault was a U.S. major general who commanded the U.S. Army Air Forces in China during World War II and created the American Volunteer Group (AVG), best known as the “Flying Tigers.” Weems served as a navigator aboard Martin B-26 Marauder Winsockie in the 69th Bombardment Squadron at the Battle of Midway in 1942. Winsockie was one of five B-26s sent to attack the Japanese carrier fleet. Only two of the aircraft returned. Williams was a member of the crew of the B-17 Murder Inc.

“The B-17 was named after a mafia group in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s,” says Spencer. “The guys on the airplane thought it was a good idea. When the airplane was shot down by the Germans, the propaganda arm took the name of the aircraft to show they had ‘absolute proof’ [that] the Americans were terror fliers out to murder civilians. It became an international incident and, when it got back to General Hap Arnold, he ordered a review of all airplane names. Anything to do with murder or killing or such were ordered to be erased and renamed.”

Williams was captured and sent to a POW camp.

“He scratched the name of the airplane off the jacket. After the war he had the jacket repainted,” says Spencer, adding that it is not uncommon for the families of the veterans to visit the museum to see a flight jacket that belonged to a relative.

The WASP Jacket

The latest jacket to be placed in the care of the Smithsonian Institute is an A-2 that belonged to Janice Christensen, a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) class of 43-W-5.

According to Dorothy Cochrane, curator for general aviation and aerial photography at the museum, Christensen flew many aircraft, including the B-24, until the WASP program was disbanded in December 1944. After her WASP service, Christensen worked at the U.S.

Airway Traffic Control Center in Chicago and at various weather stations in Ohio, then transitioned to a career in medicine. She continued to fly as a member of the Civil Air Patrol, and in 1949 she joined the Air Force Reserve with the rank of first lieutenant. She received an honorable discharge with the rank of captain on November 7, 1963.

Christensen died in 1965, so she did not live to see the WASP granted veteran status. Her jacket, donated to the museum by her sister, Dagmar Joyce Noll, is scheduled to undergo preservation and restoration before being displayed.

Museum of Flight Jackets

One of the challenges of exhibiting flight jackets is deciding how much history to share, says Matthew Burchette, senior curator at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The MOF has several jackets on display in the Personal Courage wing that include details of what company made the jacket.

“Not many people realize that there were several manufacturers of A-2s during World War II, ” Burchette says.

Burchette’s favorite jacket on display comes from Richard Jacobson, who was the copilot of the B-17 5 Grand.

“The aircraft was the 5,000th B-17 built since the attack on Pearl Harbor, and nearly every Boeing employee signed it as it rolled off the line,” Burchette says. “Covered in signatures, it flew 78 missions over Germany. I love how the Boeing workers took such great pride in their work that they were willing to sign an object that might not come home. 5 Grand did come home but was scrapped after the war.”

Burchette believes it is important that people realize flight jackets are more than just clothing or protective gear for pilots and crewmembers.

“They are an extension of the planes they flew and took pride in,” he says. “The flight jacket is an item of uniquely American clothing, and the artwork painted on many is even more so. Looking at the jackets on display, it is clear that the owner was proud to wear them. Some show signs of much wear after the war, while others are nearly pristine, showing they were treated with respect and reverence.”

Post-WWII Jacket

Leather flight jackets were still worn up through the Vietnam War. Many military pilots kept their jackets when they separated from the service. Rusty Sachs, a flight instructor for airplanes and rotorcraft, and executive director of the National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI) from 2004 to 2007, is one of those. Sachs still has the leather jacket issued to him when he was a cadet in the U.S. Marine Corps. He enlisted in 1964 and became a helicopter pilot. According to Sachs, the jacket was handed to him in Pensacola, Florida, in February 1965 upon completion of preflight training.

Sachs, who served in Vietnam, tells the story of an enemy attack that had the soldiers running for cover in the bunker. Sachs left his jacket in the tent. A few weeks after the attack, he noted his jacket “had a few small holes in it made by shrapnel.” He had the jacket relined in 1969 when he entered the Marine Reserve, making the holes more difficult to find. After Sachs separated from the Marines in 1970, the jacket went into the closet but was recently sent out for restoration.

Family Heirlooms, Legacy

John Niehaus, a 5,500-hour airline transport pilot and the director of development for NAFI, wears a jacket that belonged to a Marine helicopter pilot in Vietnam who was a good friend of his uncle.

Niehaus decided on a career in aviation while in high school and received the jacket as a graduation gift.

“The note inside read, ‘I know I haven’t been the uncle you always wanted or needed, but this jacket was earned by my best friend who was a pilot in the military. It served him well, and he left it to me after he passed away. He would have wanted me to pass it on to you. I hope it serves you just as well. Good luck living your dream.’”

Unfortunately, the uncle died before he had the opportunity to share more about his friend. The name “Barthel” is stenciled inside the jacket.

Niehaus says he is very careful about where and how he wears the jacket because he doesn’t want people to assume he served in the military. “I never wanted to misrepresent myself to be something that I am not,” says Niehaus. “When I wear it, people ask questions to which I reply that it is continuing a family legacy of honoring a family friend. The person was special to my uncle as a friend, and…knowing that my uncle parted with something of such high sentimental value as a show of support to me was so incredibly special.”

Someday, the jacket will likely be handed down to Niehaus’ son, who, at age 4, already loves aviation and wears a jacket that looks very much like his father’s.

Receive and Bestow

I have been on both sides of the heirloom equation. In my collection, I have jackets given to me by gentlemen who will never be a size 40 again but who want theirs to be appreciated and occasionally worn on “military days of remembrance and obligation.” A recent acquisition is a pre-WWII A-2 that belonged to Captain Jack L. Martin, U.S. Army Air Forces pilot and father-in-law of Anne Palmer Martin, a college friend and my chosen family. Captain Martin went West in 1970 decades before his son Robert married Anne Palmer.

We’re still trying to determine what Captain Martin did in the war. We’ve been able to figure out that the patch on the jacket is the early version of the 760th Bombardment Squadron, but we don’t know if Martin went overseas. We do know after the war he flew for Flying Tiger airlines.

Recently, I gifted my first flight jacket, a 1980s era distressed leather A-2, to my niece Sophie Keene. My aviation and journalism careers began concurrently. My first “big paycheck” was used for flying lessons and the purchase of the jacket from the Smithsonian catalog. Top Gun had been released, and leather jackets were in style, worn by reporters in the Persian Gulf War. I was known in that small market as “the reporter who flies.” A few years later when I decided to make aviation a career, I upgraded to a new A-2, putting the distressed one into the closet. The day Sophie was born, I packed away the jacket for safekeeping. The jacket was gifted to her for her 18th birthday.

Since we are an aviation family, Sophie grew up hearing stories about my flying adventures and about grandma Kay (my Mom), who took flying lessons during WWII and loved the P-38 Lighting. I am hopeful Sophie values the jacket as more than a fashion statement.

Tribute Jackets

Most vintage jackets are too valuable and fragile to wear every day, but if you are set on sporting a piece of history, consider a replica often known as a “tribute jacket.” Kevin Wisniewski, a skilled artist from Milwaukee has been painting these jackets since 1987. According to Wisniewski, tribute jackets are often designs commissioned by someone to honor a person or commemorate an event.

For replica jackets, he often works off photographs because the original jacket has long since disappeared. Pinup girls are popular.

“They painted these on their jackets and aircraft as good luck, reminding them of what they were fighting for back home,” says Wisniewski. “We have to remember these were young boys in their late teens and early 20s who, if not for the war, would be courting these women and planning futures. Other paintings of aircraft or cartoon characters depicting giving the enemy what they had coming were also a morale booster.”

He has two favorite reproduced jackets.

“One…I painted a while back with the likeness of my wife, Beth, in a classic period ‘nose art’ pose as was on an original aircraft, Bottom’s Up! The other is a jacket that was given to me by a fellow reenactor and friend, George Bruckert’s estate. He had painted it himself quite well and very authentically. He passed from cancer way too young, and I think of him when I see it.”

Wisniewski uses only hand brushes and brush-texture techniques.

“This is how they were done during the war,” he says. “Airbrushing is a bad word in my dictionary. One modern improvement is that I use acrylic leather dyes that, unlike original acrylics, won’t crack over time or chip off.”

Another Kind of Tribute

The A-2 that I wear today falls under the heading of a “tribute jacket,” but instead of paint, it has patches to honor a person and commemorate an event. The first patch was Fifinella, the mascot of the WASPs, and a gift from Florence Shutsy Reynolds, WASP class of 44-W-5. The next patch is from the “Lost Squadron” P-38 Glacier Girl, gracing the jacket to honor Mom and cover a hole I acquired when I rescued a kitten from a tree. There also are multiple patches for my mentors. For Dean Boyd, the man who made an instructor out of me, I display the 8th Air Force. Boyd enlisted at the age of 17 and made a career of it.

There is also the Tico Tiger from the USS Ticonderoga in honor of aviation journalist and retired naval aviator Captain Thomas F. Norton, who flew off the carrier during Vietnam and taught nuggets to fly. There are patches from Lockheed to honor Dad, as well as ones for every B-17 I have been aboard: Memphis Belle, Texas Raiders, Yankee Lady, and Nine-O-Nine. And there are patches for Red Tails and Hemlock Films, which continues to share the stories of vintage aviation.

Aviation education is marked with a patch from the Society of Aviation Flight Educators, as I am a founding member of the group, and it was from it that I earned the master CFI designation several times over. On one pocket there is a vintage Moffett Field (KNUQ) patch to commemorate attending Zeppelin NT school in California in 2009. We are also an airship family, and putting that patch on was a must. I have found the jacket to be an excellent conversation starter. It encourages people to share their aviation stories with me. And I gladly listen.

Protecting Your Jacket

No matter how old the jacket is, if it means something to you, it’s valuable.

Protect it by nourishing it with professional leather care products. You can get these from shoe repair stores. If it is an heirloom, consider storing the jacket flat in a box or footlocker. It will last you a lifetime or more.

If you intend to sell it, have the jacket appraised by a reputable dealer. Authentic World War II jackets in good condition can fetch $1,500 or more.

If you want to buy one, modern flight jackets are not cheap. Expect to pay close to $300 or more for a basic A-2 and as high as $2,000 for an RAF bomber jacket. Beware of scammers who claim to have new authentic A-2 and shearling-lined RAF jackets for ridiculously low prices (less than $200). They may have the design of the jacket, but the materials are subpar. Instead of leather with a sheepskin lining, it looks more like someone tore up a faux leather couch and skinned a muppet.

Save your money and go for the real deal.

Where to find vintage? Prowl swap meets and even garage and estate sales near military bases.

This feature first appeared in the November 2023/Issue 943 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post All Flight Jackets Tell a Story appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

For the unfamiliar, Top Gun: Maverick is set 30 years after the original film. Maverick is still a naval aviator, highly decorated, but with an uncanny ability to get into just enough trouble to keep from getting promoted out of the cockpit. He is the test pilot for the hypersonic Darkstar scramjet. We’re never told explicitly what Darkstar’s mission is, but it is noted that the government wants to pull the funding for the project in part because it hasn’t yet reached the contract spec of Mach 10 (7672.691 mph).

Maverick suits up for a test flight. He is cautioned to obey the parameters of it and not to exceed Mach 9 (6,905.42 mph). But this is Maverick we’re talking about. He pushes the aircraft to Mach 10, destroying it in the process. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, Maverick’s contemporary who has advanced in rank, saves his friend’s career by sending him to the Top Gun school at NAS North Island, where he is charged with training the next generation of naval fighter pilots while battling his inner demons—one of the nuggets is the son of his backseater, Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, who was killed in the first movie.

There is a lot of fancy flying in the movie, and it has generated hours of debate in FBOs and online from pilots and aviation enthusiasts who wonder if Darkstar is real and not the Queen Mother of a scale model movie prop.

(Reality check: The closest a piloted aircraft has come to Mach 10 is the SR-71 Blackbird designed by Lockheed’s Kelly Johnson during the Cold War that reached Mach 3.3 or 2,531.988 mph.)

According to Fred Bell, vice chairman of the Palm Spring Air Museum, Darkstar represents the sixth generation of aviation stealth technology. The conceptual design for it—not to be confused with a drone project of the same name—was created by Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Programs.

• READ MORE: Taking a Transcontinental Flight in the Hypersonic Darkstar, Virtually

Lockheed Martin Meets Hollywood

In 2017 Hollywood producers who wanted a hypersonic design for the movie approached Lockheed Martin asking for a conceptual design—could anything go that fast? They knew aviators and other “rivet counters” (the polite term for the people who pick apart aviation movies as though their parentage has been insulted) would be unmerciful in their criticism unless some effort was made to at least embrace the laws of physics and reality.

The Lockheed Martin designers came up with an aircraft that looks very much like a cross between two other of its models: the SR-71 Blackbird—SR stands for Strategic Reconnaissance—the now retired, super-fast design; and the Lockheed Martin F-35, also known as “the world’s most advanced fighter jet.”

In the movie, Darkstar has some dramatic and moving scenes. For example, on the morning of the test flight the camera pans the aircraft in sort of a walk-around and shows a skunk image on the tail. The skunk is a trademarked by Lockheed Martin ADP, which is also known as Skunk Works, because in the 1930s the company was located in Southern California next to a plastics plant that gave off a horrible stench. Super-secret aircraft were developed there, and the term “skunk works” remains synonymous with a place where such technology is developed.

Secrecy is still a big deal, even with movie airplanes. The Darkstar designers are identified only by their first names: Jim, Jason, Lucio, and Becky. According to information provided by Lockheed Martin, when the movie premiered, Jim is credited with the conceptual design. Jason and Lucio handled the task of turning the conceptual designs into a realistic aircraft model with a working cockpit. Becky, a mechanical engineer, worked with the movie team to build the Darkstar vehicle, including the functional cockpit, and kept the model structurally sound during the filming process.

This is no scale model, noted Bell.

“It measures 40-feet wide by 70-feet long,” Bell said. “It is a dagger shaped aircraft with a tremendous amount of detail. On the landing gear the serial number of the tires are stamped on the wheels. The cockpit has an articulating canopy that opens and inside you will see a Lockheed Martin Skunk Works control stick.”

The aircraft even has panel covers that read, “REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT,” and on the tail there is the famous skunk standing confidently on its hind legs with his front paws folded on its chest. 

Darkstar belongs to Lockheed Martin. According to Bell, the company arranged to have the aircraft trucked to the museum and then its technicians and those of the museum reassembled it. When the aircraft was fully together, it was celebrated with a dual water cannon salute. It will be on display near other Lockheed Martin aircraft.

According to a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin, there are no plans to take Darkstar on the road for a tour as the size and complexity of moving it makes that untenable. If you want to see the aircraft up close, make the trip to Palm Springs to see the Darkstar Rising Experience. This includes a comprehensive design-to-cockpit tour, and talks from guest speakers as the museum explores the developments in stealth technology.

“We will have people talking about how the aircraft was created and how it was used in the movie, and will talk about stealth technology in general—where it came from and where it is going,” Bell said. “It’s no longer enough to be fast.”

Details, including ticket prices, can be found here.

The schedule is as follows:

February 24: The making of Darkstar

March 1: Behind the scenes: Darkstar comes to life, making movie magic

March 20: The next generation of stealth

March 27: The next generation of hypersonic aircraft

All viewings will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. PST.

The post Movie Star Airplane Appears in Palm Springs Aviation Museum appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

It’s fun, and it’s dangerous. In fact, it’s fun because it’s dangerous. 

And that’s why three ex-Air Force pilots set off on a December morning in three Van’s Aircraft taildraggers to practice flying through a canyon in southern Colorado.

The flight leader, 70, who had been a captain with United Airlines after leaving the military, had 20,000 hours. He was flying a tandem two-seat RV-4. The two other airplanes were an RV-8, which is a slightly enlarged redesign of the RV-4, and a single-seat RV-3. As they neared the canyon, the flight leader descended and called for a change from echelon to trail formation. The airplanes moved into single file, several hundred feet apart.

The RV-3 was in the last position and remained above the canyon rim. From that vantage point, the pilot could observe the No. 2 airplane ahead of and slightly below him, and the leader’s RV-4 descending northeastward into the canyon. After a few seconds, they encountered one of the challenges that make canyon flying exciting: an S-turn requiring a 120-degree heading change to the right immediately followed by a 180-degree turn to the left, both within a space about 1,300 feet wide.

The leader’s RV-4 was completing the second turn in a steep bank at high speed when its left wingtip snagged the scree below the canyon’s eastern wall. The airplane cartwheeled and disintegrated—the pilot must have died instantly.

If this accident had involved a 100-hour pilot in a Piper Cherokee 140, we could write it off to ignorance and rashness. But the pilot was of the highest caliber and qualifications and most likely had flown this canyon or ones like it before, and so it is worth pondering why this outing ended the way it did. 

(For readers who use Google Earth and wish to better understand what happened, a view of the canyon is helpful. The wreckage came to rest at latitude 37.792822,longitude -104.57616; the first impact occurred a few hundred feet south of that point. And “left wing tip” is not a misprint. Although the crash occurred on the right side of the canyon, it was the steeply-banked airplane left wing that first struck the ground.)

In the portion of the S-turn leading up to the accident site, the rims of the canyon are about 500 feet apart and the canyon bottom is 200 feet below the surrounding plain. The second turn, the 180-degree one, must be completed with a radius of about 400 feet. The radius of the first turn is a little smaller—about 350 feet—but it’s not a full 180 degrees.

Turn radius in still air is a function solely of true airspeed and bank angle. This is true for every airplane, Piper J-3 through SR-71. Bank angle is limited by the G tolerance of the airplane and the pilot. The RV-4 is a 6-G airplane, corresponding to an 80-degree bank angle, but the greatest G loading an airplane can maintain continuously—without losing altitude—depends on the power available. In the case of a 200 hp RV-4 at, say, 1,300 pounds, it would be around 3.5 G or 73 degrees of bank. The required turn radius of 400 feet could be achieved at 120 knots. But, of course, the speed can change during the turn. You could enter at 160 knots with a 6-G, 80-degree bank, and, if you haven’t grayed out, gradually reduce the bank angle.

The skilled pilot, like an outfielder judging where the pop fly will fall, uses the instinctive calculus that millions of years have bred into us to solve this problem in many variables. The slower you go, the easier it is, but the fun is in going as fast as possible. At high speed, however, small errors in timing, bank angle, and path selection nibble away at the slender margins of safety that are the spice of the exercise.

There is one additional element that is invisible and defies intuitive calculation: the wind.

Traveling at 120 knots, the RV-4 makes a 180-degree, 3.5-G turn in about seven seconds. During those seven seconds, a 20-knot wind blowing across its track carries it 210 feet downwind; 30 knots, 315 feet. So much for the calculated turning radius.

The RV-3 pilot and the leader had discussed the wind before taking off. Strong winds and a possibility of moderate to severe turbulence were forecast for the area. The leader was not concerned. Nearing the canyon, the RV-3 pilot’s EFIS reported a 30-knot, south-southwest wind 2,000 feet above the surface; its direction was such that an airplane emerging from the S-turn would have been pushed toward the right canyon wall. But there was no way to know how the wind would behave down inside the canyon. The canyon itself might provide some shelter. On the other hand, it added the risk of up- and downdrafts, and its meandering topography could produce unexpected changes of wind direction and velocity.

Something in the situation must have made the second and third pilots reluctant to descend below the canyon rim, despite the cultural tendency to stay with the flight lead. Perhaps they had not flown this canyon before and intended to watch the leader fly it before doing so themselves. The statements they provided to accident investigators did not touch on their own motivations, beyond the RV-3 pilot stating that he remained above the rim “to assess potential turbulence.” The leader alone went deep into the canyon. It was the RV-8 pilot,following him through the turns in second position, who reported that the lead aircraft was flying at “high speed” when he clipped the talus slope.

The most likely explanation for the accident is that the southwest wind poured into the portion of the canyon aligned with it and carried the RV-4 toward the eastern rim. The fact that the airplane was steeply banked at a point where it should have been rolling out of the turn, and when most of the energy available from excess speed would have been used up, suggests a desperate attempt to remedy a miscalculation. It almost succeeded.

Because many people perceive it as dangerous, aviation is obsessed with safety. It is practically obligatory, after an accident like this, to deplore the pilot’s decision-making. The NTSB does. But aviation can also be an extreme sport. The pilot knew what he was doing, and how to do it. He made a mistake, and paid the highest price. Let’s leave it at that.

This article is based on the National Transportation Safety Board’s report of the accident and is intended to bring the issues raised to our readers’ attention. It is not intended to judge or to reach any definitive conclusions about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead, or any aircraft or accessory.

This article was originally published in the December 2022/January 2023 Issue 933 of FLYING.

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With the opening this week of Devotion, a movie about the relationship between Jesse Brown, the U.S. Navy’s first black fighter pilot, and Thomas Hudner, his wingman, 2022 becomes a landmark year for airplane fans. The long-awaited release of Top Gun: Maverick last spring is still generating buzz among pilots. And the new film—based on a true story and set during the Korean War—promises to keep the conversation going.

• READ MORE: Pilots Will Love Top Gun: Maverick—It’s a Lot More Real

We have yet to see Devotion, but we do know a few things about the production. The following is a short list of things to look for and themes to be aware of while watching.

Something seems familiar: If you enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick, you might find similar appeal in Devotion because the two productions share some of the same personnel. You might know that Glen Powell, the actor who plays Hudner in the new film, also portrayed fighter pilot Hangman in Maverick. But behind the scenes was Kevin LaRosa, the Hollywood aerial coordinator and vice president of aerial film production for Helinet Aviation Services. He helped make Maverick’s flight sequences so compelling and did similar work on Devotion. See if you can spot a signature style in which the flight scenes are put together.

When in doubt, ask Dad: The life of a Navy pilot is stressful. It gets worse when a deployment means you will not see your family for months. Devotion director J.D. Dillard wanted to convey the depth of emotional difficulty Brown was experiencing while fighting far away from his wife and young daughter. He turned to a reliable resource: his father, who was a naval flight officer beginning in the 1980s—30 years after Brown’s story takes place. As an African American, he, too, had to deal with prejudice and what Dillard called the “isolation” of being in a high-stress environment and not seeing anyone else who looks like you. “I saw so much overlap with my dad’s experience in the Navy,” Dillard said in a recent interview with National Public Radio. He said he spoke at length with his father while working on Devotion. “The fruits of those conversations were ultimately way more important for what the film ended up being.”

Jet Age on the rise: By the beginning of the Korean war, the world’s air forces were transitioning to jet-powered aircraft and fighters like the Vought F4U Corsairs that Brown and Hudner flew, which had been among the best just a few years earlier during World War II, were suddenly speeding toward obsolescence. A trailer for the film shows a Russian-designed MiG-15 jet chasing a pair of Corsairs, its cannons blazing. One can imagine the shock pilots must have felt when facing an enemy with such advanced machinery.

The Corsair was a bear: Brown and Hudner’s squadron, VF-32, operated from the aircraft carrier Leyte, and while it was an outstanding fighter aircraft, the Corsair had a bad reputation on carriers because it was difficult to land. Earlier models had a violent stalling tendency that tended to catch inexperienced pilots off-guard and send them crashing into the deck or overboard. Even after aerodynamic modifications alleviated that problem, the airplane’s long nose blocked the pilot’s forward visibility during landings. Carrier squadrons using the Corsair during World War II often switched to the Grumman F6F Hellcat which, while not as fast, was easier to land and more forgiving of green pilots. Keep an eye on deck operations during the film.

The post Fighter Pilot Film <i>Devotion</i> Opens This Week: 4 Things To Know appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Cruise, one of Hollywood’s most famous pilots—on screen and off—could possibly be on his way to becoming the first civilian to conduct a space walk on the International Space Station, if executives at Universal Pictures have their way.

“I think Tom Cruise is taking us to space. He’s taking the world to space,” Universal Filmed Entertainment Group Chairman Donna Langley told BBC in a recent interview. “That’s the plan. We have a great project in development with Tom that does contemplate him doing just that, taking a rocket up to the space station and shooting, and hopefully being the first civilian to do a space walk outside of the space station.”

Cruise proposed the idea to the studio during the pandemic, Langley said.

“The majority of the story actually takes place on Earth, and then the character needs to go up to space to save the day,” she said.

• READ MORE: Actor Tom Cruise Headed for Outer Space

Rumblings of the actor blasting off into space aren’t exactly new. In the spring of  2020, Deadline reported that the Top Gun: Maverick actor was collaborating with NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX to film an action-adventure movie.

It’s a collaboration that NASA officials support, according to then-NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

“We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make NASA’s ambitious plans a reality. NASA is excited to work with Tom Cruise on a film aboard the Space Station.” Bridentine said, according to the Deadline report, “There has never been a leading man… who puts himself at risk as often as does Cruise, in the name of the most realistic action sequences possible. If he is successful shooting a project in Musk’s space ship, he will be alone in the Hollywood record books.”

The ISS, which is about the length of an American football field, orbits 227 nm above Earth, according to Kennedy Space Center.

Last year, the actor interviewed NASA astronaut Victor Glover about his ISS mission.

• READ MORE: Pilots Will Love Top Gun: Maverick—It’s a Lot More Real

Cruise, who has been a pilot since 1994, flew in many of the scenes in the Top Gun: Maverick. 

“The Navy wouldn’t let him fly an F-18,” the film’s producer, Jerry Bruckheimer said, according to USA Today. “But he flies a P-51 in the movie and he flies helicopters.”

• READ MORE: Tom Cruise Takes James Corden on ‘Top Gun’ Flight

The post Tom Cruise On Course For First Civilian ISS Space Walk appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

This line is uttered in Top Gun Maverick when Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell achieves Mach 10 in the Darkstar—a  reusable hypersonic, piloted aircraft that is ostensibly a creation of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works—note the Lockheed Martin logo of the Skunk on the tail of the aircraft in the movie.  

I felt a surge of pride when I saw the familiar logo—my father worked at Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Projects—known as Skunk Works—for more than 30 years. Dad never told us what he did. He couldn’t. He would go on work trips to “someplace in the desert.” Us kids were taught to say, “Daddy builds rockets,” when someone asked what our father did for work. 

Skunk Works Goes Hollywood

Skunk Works—which got its name because the plant produced a strong unpleasant odor, especially on warm days—by definition is a place of secrecy. 

The skunk is the mascot of “Skunk Works,” a term for Lockheed Martin Advanced Development that goes back to 1943, when engineer Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson led a team in Southern California tasked with designing a jet for the military. Because manufacturing space was impossible to find because of the war, the team worked out of a rented circus tent set up next to a plastics manufacturing plant.

• READ MORE: Pilots Will Love Top Gun: Maverick—It’s a Lot More Real

According to a spokesperson from Lockheed Martin,  Paramount Pictures approached the aerospace company in 2017 with a request for technical expertise in the production of Top Gun: Maverick.  

“Lockheed Martin Skunk Works designed and produced a conceptual reusable, piloted hypersonic aircraft, referred to as Darkstar in the film.” she said. 

The fictional Darkstar’s lines evoke two other Lockheed Martin aircraft: the SR-71 Blackbird—SR stands for Strategic Reconnaissance—the now retired, super fast design; and the Lockheed Martin F-35, also known as “the world’s most advanced fighter jet.” 

• LISTEN: FLYING’s Top Gun: Maverick Music Playlist

FLYING was told not to confuse Darkstar with the SR-72, a concept referred to as the “Son of Blackbird,”which is a construct ostensibly suggested by the media in 2013, but never confirmed as a concept by Skunk Works.  

Darkstar is movie fiction, the spokesperson explained, saying, “Darkstar is a hyper-realistic aircraft concept designed specifically for Top Gun: Maverick. Hypersonic technology is progressing and the work being done across Lockheed Martin today is laying the foundation for a Reusable Hypersonic Vehicle, such as Darkstar, to one day be possible.”

• REVIEW: How Does Top Gun: Maverick Stack Up?

The fictional aircraft was five years in the making. The development team took it seriously, keeping in mind “the shaping, materials, and components that must withstand heat and environmental stressors caused by high-speed flight.” 

In addition, Lockheed Martin “helped design realistic flight gear, shared artifacts for the set, and arranged site tours and demonstrations to support the effort. The team provided insights to drive realism into the storyline, serving as consultants throughout filming,” the company’s spokesperson said.

Proud of Their Part in the Movie

Lockheed Martin has a webpage dedicated to information about Top Gun Maverick. There you will find more information about the project and a few of the Lockheed Martin designers who worked on it, identified only by their first names: Jim, Jason, Lucio, and Becky.

Jim is credited with the conceptual design. Jason and Lucio handled the task of turning the conceptual designs into a realistic aircraft model with a working cockpit. Becky, a mechanical engineer, worked with the movie team to build the Darkstar vehicle, including the functional cockpit. Throughout the filming process, her job was to keep the model structurally sound.

Jeremy Hindle, the movie’s production designer from Paramount, described Darkstar’s design as “angry, mean, and insanely fast.” 

In the movie, the Darkstar mission is never openly discussed. However, we are told that the government wants to pull the funding on the project because it hasn’t yet reached Mach 10. It is intimated that the test flight protocols—which set specific targets to reach and to go no farther than Mach 10—are short of Mach 9.

Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell bends the rules a bit to get “one last test flight.” Test flights involve a protocol where a target is set and achieved, but do not involve pushing the envelope. Maverick is cautioned not to make the flight—Mach 9 is 6,905.42 mph.

The closest a piloted aircraft has come to that speed in reality is the SR-71 Blackbird, which reached Mach 3.3 or 2,193 mph.

There is a dramatic sequence as Maverick dons his high-altitude flight suit and helmet as he prepares for the before-sunrise launch. The tension mounts as the aircraft climbs into the dawn sky, and the cockpit’s Mach number readout heads toward the targeted value. 

Is it possible to fly an aircraft as fast as Mach 9?

“Operating in the hypersonic flight realm is difficult,” the Lockheed Martin spokesperson said. “The film depicts both a notional aircraft and a notional flight test scenario. The pathfinding work being done today is vitally important. The notional scenario in the film does not represent today’s work.”

• READ MORE: U.S. Navy, Air Force Banking On Top Gun: Maverick Recruitment Boost

This wasn’t the first time Locheed Martin created a Darkstar. In the 1990s Lockheed Martin created the RQ-3 Darkstar, a high altitude, unmanned aerial vehicle designed for endurance, not for speed. The UAV did its first flight in March 1996. The project was terminated in 1999 because the aircraft did not meet expectations. 

Three remaining Darkstar UAVs are in museums—one is at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, one is at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and the third is at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

Perhaps…someday. Just as the flying scenes in the original Top Gun inspired generations to become military aviators, this movie will also inspire future generations of engineers.

The post That Darkstar in <i>Top Gun: Maverick</i>—Was it Real? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

On Monday, I took my family to see Maverick because I figured they would enjoy it and I wanted to hear their impressions of the film and their opinions on whether the decades-spanning story holds together. I also simply wanted to see it again.

Our outing plus my repeat views contributed to the movie’s reported box office tally of $156 million, a record for a Memorial Day weekend release.

It is no surprise that the film is popular. It has the elements of success: love, loss, regret, reflection, conflict, denouement. Add airplanes, aileron rolls, and afterburners to the mix, with a lot of exhaust nozzles flaring and tensing, and you have a good case for the perfect cinematic product. Indeed, both my flight instructor and my favorite middle-school English teacher should love this film.

• READ MORE: U.S. Navy, Air Force Banking On Top Gun: Maverick Recruitment Boost

Circumstances also helped propel Maverick. Pent-up, pandemic-era demand for big-screen entertainment in general, and the public’s enthusiasm sometimes bordering on obsession over Top Gun in particular promised a big audience. The film was supposed to debut in 2020 but COVID-19 thwarted that plan. It was a temporary obstacle, though, and after more than 30 years of waiting, another two seemed only to enhance the excitement. Let’s just say it was easily worth the wait.

• ICYMI: Tom Cruise Takes James Corden on ‘Top Gun’ Flight

This is especially so for pilots, who have been among Top Gun’s biggest fans and harshest critics. Anyone who knows anything about modern air combat will tell you that for decades fighter weapons technology has allowed aircraft to engage enemies from ever-greater ranges, often beyond the horizon. So why, back in 1986, were F-14s mixing it up with “bogeys” at distances less than a city block? Was this a World War I dawn patrol?

• READ MORE: Pilots Will Love Top Gun: Maverick—It’s a Lot More Real

Realistically, we have to admit that downing enemies more than 100 miles away with Phoenix missiles would make for one seriously boring movie. I recall listening to an interview with retired Rear Admiral Pete Pettigrew, a well-known adviser on the original film, who talked about how combat aircraft actually fight versus the way they battled on screen. Eventually, he came to terms with the directorial license needed to make the flight sequences appeal to a general audience. Airplane movies cry out for close-ups.

Pettigrew also joked that he felt the film would be fine as long as it didn’t somehow morph into a musical. I suspect the admiral knows that Top Gun arguably is a bit of a musical. Its aerial combat scenes always made me think of the Sharks and Jets of West Side Story dancing with switchblades, perfectly choreographed. Realistic? Not exactly, but exceedingly entertaining.

• Listen: FLYING’s Top Gun: Maverick Music Playlist

While Maverick excels as a sequel, gracefully bringing the story, characters, situations, and dialog out of the 1980s and into the modern age while adding realism to flight sequences and personal interactions, it is still enough of a music video, dance show, and tearjerker to appeal to an audience well beyond aviation enthusiasts.

The post Review: How Does <i>Top Gun: Maverick</i> Stack Up? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Naturally, our FLYING Top Gun playlist includes music from the original Top Gun movie soundtrack as well as songs from the new film. For fun, we’ve also added music that references actors, characters, aircraft, and situations from the franchise. 

• READ MORE: Pilots Will Love Top Gun: Maverick—It’s a Lot More Real

While the 1986 soundtrack featured Berlin and Kenny Loggins, the sequel updates the tone with 21st century superstars.

“This album continues the musical legacy that the original Top Gun ignited back in 1986,” producer Jerry Bruckheimer said in a news release. “We are so thrilled to have Lady Gaga and OneRepublic lend their artistry towards putting a modern spin on the already iconic and beloved soundtrack.”

In the new film, Tom Cruise reprises his original role as U.S. Navy fighter pilot Pete Mitchell—call sign Maverick. Decades after he attended the Navy’s elite fighter jet training school nicknamed “TOPGUN,” Maverick finds himself training a detachment of “TOPGUN” graduates for a specialized mission. 

• ICYMI: Tom Cruise Takes James Corden on ‘Top Gun’ Flight

Maverick also encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (call sign Rooster), played by Miles Teller. Rooster is the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka Goose. 

• READ MORE: U.S. Navy, Air Force Banking On Top Gun: Maverick Recruitment Boost

Just like the original, which featured characters with call signs like Iceman, Jester, Viper, and Hollywood, the new film includes characters nicknamed Phoenix, Cyclone, Warlock, Payback, Fanboy, and Coyote. Our playlist reflects some of these characters—and yes, there actually is a song titled Kelly McGillis.

Enjoy!

The post <i>FLYING’s Top Gun: Maverick</i> Music Playlist appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Cruise’s latest blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick, opens nationwide Friday, May 27. For pilots, the scenes promise to be epic, thanks to a purpose-built L-39 Cinejet outfitted for filming the adrenaline-inducing sequences.

• READ MORE: Pilots Will Love Top Gun: Maverick—It’s a Lot More Real

Standing under a light in the predawn hours alongside the darkened runway at Bob Hope Hollywood-Burbank Airport (KBUR), the British comedian summed up what was to come next: “I’m here because Tom Cruise has asked me to meet him here at 5 a.m. When Tom Cruise calls, you sort of have to say yes.”

The pair boarded a Honda HA-420 business jet, which Cruise flew to a remote desert landing strip to rendezvous with his own vintage warbird, a P-51 Mustang. Up in the air in the World War II-era fighter, Cruise showed off his aviator chops by performing a series of maneuvers that included threading a gap in a ridgeline.

• READ MORE: Before Top Gun, Other Aviation Movies Inspired Us

“Tom, you’re a madman. You’re insane,” Corden said, coming up for air.

But there would be more. Flying an Aero L-39 Albatros fighter jet trainer, Cruise demonstrated tactical maneuvers, including loops and inverted flight.

Cruise, who has been a pilot since 1994, flew in many of the scenes in the Top Gun: Maverick. 

“The Navy wouldn’t let him fly an F-18,” the film’s producer, Jerry Bruckheimer said, according to USA Today. “But he flies a P-51 in the movie and he flies helicopters. He can do just about anything in an airplane.”

It wasn’t Corden’s first aviation rodeo with Cruise. In 2018, and while promoting Mission Impossible: Fallout, Cruise talked Corden into going skydiving.

• READ MORE: U.S. Navy, Air Force Banking On Top Gun: Maverick Recruitment Boost

The post ICYMI: Tom Cruise Takes James Corden on ‘Top Gun’ Flight appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

But this aviation-fueled audience has waited since 1986—and there’s good reason for that. FLYING learned the secrets during an interview with top Hollywood aerial coordinator Kevin “K2” LaRosa II. He’s vice president of aerial film production for Helinet Aviation Services, and he produced the dynamic and compelling aerial ballet that comprises the heart and soul of Top Gun: Maverick.

The Backstory

LaRosa learned the art of aerial movie coordination and the professional craft of being a stunt pilot from watching and working with his father, Kevin LaRosa, Sr. K2’s a third-generation pilot, in fact. “My grandfather flew in the New Jersey National Guard,” he said. “He flew C-97s, he flew P-51 Mustangs, among other aircraft—and that is what sparked my dad’s interest in flying.”

Kevin LaRosa, Sr., ended up becoming a highly successful motion picture and television stunt pilot and aerial coordinator, and he worked on hundreds of motion pictures and TV shows. “One thing about my father that I truly love and idolize is that he flies multiple platforms, P-51 Mustangs, T-28s, T-6s, into jets and helicopters. He just was this very well-rounded aviator. I feel fortunate that I was able to be exposed to so many things at a young age.”

“I knew from when I was a little boy exactly what I wanted to do.”

But LaRosa, Sr., didn’t give his son an immediate leg up into the industry. 

“You can’t just become an aerial coordinator by being somebody’s son,” said K2. “Nobody will ever trust you. When I was a young teenager, I was already working in the film business with my dad, not in a pilot capacity, but in a supporting role.” And his father delivered some rock solid advice: “I needed to leave the industry that I truly loved, and go become my own aviator. Go become my own pilot and my own person.” It was also the hardest advice he ever had to receive.

K2’s had other aviation heroes, including Chuck Yeager and Bob Hoover, “mainly because of their true airmanship, and because of being just aviators to the core, and I always loved and was interested in how many different platforms they could fly…get out of one aircraft and hop in a jet, or get out of a jet and hop in this airplane. And that aircraft was literally an extension of their body.”

One pilot in particular served as a mentor to K2, and that’s Thomas C. McMurtry, who passed away January 2015. “That gentleman is an American hero,” said LaRosa. “ He was a mechanical engineer, he was a naval aviator, he was a test pilot for NASA’s flight research center, and he was a consultant for Lockheed Corporation.

“When I first started flying camera jets at the young age of 21, Tom took me under his wing flying a Lear 25 camera jet, which was from a company called Wolf Air Aviation, and taught me everything about military-style flying. So, as a civilian I ended up with this background and knowledge base about the military, how to fly with the military, how to brief with the military, formation techniques, dogfighting techniques—every kind of formation you could think of, with dissimilar platforms. Night formation, IMC formation—stuff that civilians typically are not introduced to.” 

That skill set that McMurtry gave to K2 is irreplaceable for the professionals who fly photo missions—particularly the flying of dissimilar aircraft in photo work, which is arguably the most objectively hazardous thing civilian pilots will do. Add in the high speed of dissimilar jets, and the hazard factor multiplies.

To do this well, a pilot must be an aviator, according to LaRosa. An aviator doesn’t just have natural talent, or is someone who knows every rivet by the book—but someone who feels the aircraft, who straps it on. “I was taught from a young age to listen to the aircraft,” he said. “It talks to you, and you can feel things that it likes and doesn’t like. And that goes from a C-130 to a Cessna 150.”

The Secret? The L-39 Cinejet

The filming for the sequel to Top Gun had to represent the height of the craft. The Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatros formed an excellent airframe to build upon in order for LaRosa to create the Cinejet—an optimized aerial camera platform with a camera mounted on its nose. But this is no GoPro Hero hanging out in the breeze. “We spent a great deal of time and energy developing the jet…making it what it needed to be for Top Gun: Maverick.” 

• READ MORE: U.S. Navy, Air Force Banking On Top Gun: Maverick Recruitment Boost

“Early in 2016, I knew we needed a jet-based platform to fly the newest technology to meet the demands of helping to tell this great story. At that time, the technology did not exist, or had not been applied, so I designed and helped develop the L-39 Cinejet.” LaRosa partnered with the Patriot Jet Aerobatic Team as well as Helinet Aviation and Shotover to create the Cinejet. 

The Cinejet gives the team the ability to maneuver the camera in ways they had never done before. “The older technology, including the technology used on the original 1986 film required the camera pilots to essentially fly very smoothly, because those systems were only partially stabilized.”

“When we watch footage from past movies that showed aerials, we would typically see some instability come through. Furthermore, we would see lack of clarity or sort of a diminished image. What we needed for Top Gun: Maverick was the clearest, sharpest, best technology and best camera payload possible.” 

So What’s on Board? 

The Cinejet carries a Shotover F1 Rush, which is a six-axis stabilized mounting system, and for Top Gun: Maverick it housed a Sony Venice camera with Fujinon lenses. “It allowed me to maneuver that aircraft through canyons at high rates of speed pulling up to 3Gs, without making our image shaky or unstable,” said LaRosa.

“In the back of the L-39 [in an ejection seat] is an aerial director of photography, we had two of them on the movie, David Nowell and Michael FitzMaurice. These gentlemen are in charge of framing and composing the shots that we see.”

All of the helicopter and jet aerials were shot by Nowell and FitzMaurice, flown in the Cinejet, an Embraer Phenom 300 camera jet, or an Airbus AStar/H125 helicopter. “It’s my job to put the camera in the right spot, and it’s their job to compose the shot,” said LaRosa. 

“The L-39 allowed us that flexibility, agility, and maneuverability to really get into the fight and give the audience a bit of a thrill ride. That wasn’t possible before this time.”

The L-39’s long nose and strong airframe allowed LaRosa to mount the camera a great distance forward of the wings. “This gives the L-39 a really good field of view. We can look beneath our jet, behind, above our wing, and behind us, before we see our own aircraft in the shot. This is something different and new that wasn’t possible before.” The team also cleaned up the airframe even further, moving comm and GPS antennas, wiring, and other elements.

• READ MORE: Before Top Gun, Other Aviation Movies Inspired Us

A new piece of technology entered service in the midst of filming for Top Gun: Maverick: the Phenom 300 camera jet. It can carry two F1 Rushes, one mounted on the nose and the other on the tail. “This aircraft was used in the movie whenever I wanted to go long distance out over the water,” said K2. “It gave us two-engine reliability and safety. And it also gave us longer sortie times. The Phenom carried more fuel and was able to stay on station longer. The back of the aircraft was configured with two operating stations, at which both [Michael and David] operated from.” Each camera was fitted with a different lens, one wide angle and one very long lens.

It was not the platform for dog-fighting or canyon sequences, however. That other platform? The Airbus H125 AStar (formerly Eurocopter AS 350), which carries a Airfilm AF200 bracket holding a Shotover K1 camera gimbal capable of holding a larger camera body or a long lens. It conveys a sense of speed and agility, showing jets ripping past the lens.

A Special Moment On Set

It turns out that K2 isn’t the only one who knows the Cinejet made the high degree of realism possible in Top Gun: Maverick—actor Tom Cruise made this known from the beginning.

“When we started filming Top Gun: Maverick, there was a meeting that took place, in which Tom Cruise did an exceptional job setting the scene and helping the crew understand the monumental task ahead of us,” LaRosa remembered. 

“What he told us was, we’re almost at a disadvantage. We’re making a sequel to a very iconic movie. And we needed to wait this long so there was a story worth being told. And we needed to wait this long so there was technology available to help us tell the story. And he knew, and inspired everybody who was going to work on this movie that the movie needed to obtain a level of perfection that had not been seen.

“What [Cruise] did for me on that day was truly inspire me to set the bar higher than it had ever been set in regards to aerial cinematography.”

One of the most special days on set for LaRosa was a normal day, on a Navy base: “Briefing’s complete, and we’re standing on the ramp next to an F-18 and here comes Tom out of the PR shop, which is the room where they get outfitted with their helmets and their parachutes. And as he’s walking past me and out to this F-18, he’s in his full wardrobe and naval aviator get-up, and I thought, ‘That’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, literally walking by me.’ That’s where it became very real…an instant goosebump moment.”

What Does It Take?

Getting to those moments takes a lot of effort, skill, and dedication to achieve, as LaRosa knows well.

“I put a big emphasis on training,” he said. “I personally try to fly every aircraft that I fly at least every 12 months. That goes for the large jets, and the small airplanes, and the helicopters. When I’m hired by the studios as an aerial coordinator, my job is not necessarily to always be the pilot on camera. My job is to put the best person, most experienced person, and the safest person in the right seat.”

He went on to emphasize the point. “My job is first and foremost to ensure that everyone is safe. Second, I want the aircraft to return to service, and third is that we make incredible, dynamic, amazing pictures that meet or exceed the requests of our customers.”

The job responsibilities of an aerial coordinator run the full gamut, and include: 

• Scripting
• Set construction and breakdown
• Budgets
• Preplanning with ATC and FAA
• Briefing
• Actual flight sorties
• Debriefing
• Finalizing the mission

“My true passion is being behind the controls and flying,” said LaRosa, “but sometimes I am best served sitting next to the director and holding an air-to-ground radio and helping him to direct the aerial sequences and watching the shot.”

“You’re 50 percent pilot and 50 percent filmmaker.” A person needs a good understanding of lighting, composition, plus cameras, lenses, and their movement, and the tools of the cinematographer’s trade—along with a deep skill set as a pilot on a variety of aircraft.

K2 took on all kinds of aviation jobs to build his resume, from Cessna 172s flying traffic to flying as a corporate pilot and flying helicopters—and that’s what he recommends to those who would want to pursue this career. “You need to have a very strong background in aviation to do this job.” While you’re moving in that direction, study cinematography and how movies are made. That’s the 50/50 split that a person needs to master to join this rewarding and unique industry.

The post Pilots Will Love <i>Top Gun: Maverick</i>—It’s a Lot More Real appeared first on FLYING Magazine.