Recreating Top Gun: Was the Canopy to Canopy Photo Possible?

Charlie: Eh, lieutenant, what were you doing there?
Goose: Communicating.
Maverick: Communicating. Keeping up foreign relations. You know, giving him the bird!
Goose: [Charlie looks puzzled, so Goose clarifies] You know, the finger
Charlie: Yes, I know the finger, Goose.
Goose: I-I'm sorry, I hate it when it does that, I'm sorry. Excuse me.

I'm sure that if it was possible the Blue Angels would be doing it at air shows and selling the pictures.

Brings back memories when I was a teenager and had lunch with a former Navy Capt, forgot his name now but he was a technical advisor on Top Gun As I remember he got part of a confirmed kill in Vietnam in F4's. Mutual family friend set up the lunch for me. The 1st question I asked him was about the canopy to canopy scene in the movie. And i can remember him just looking at me with a of course not look on his face. He also had a bit part in the movie i think as Kelly M's boss.

Actually with Holywood redoing all of the classic's, I think they should do a new version of Top Gun with Goose's son being instructed by Maverick! I want credits for this one if they do. .
Boy comes out of Iraq all screwed up and Macerick puts him back together. Maybe even have Maverick go into a flat spin and hit the cockpit ejecting . Just saying!

Not feasible, at the distance depicted in the movie anyway. The Tomcat tail would have protruded downward into the bottom plane.

That's classified.

Negative, Ghost Rider

Plus, the "MiG" in the movie was actually an F-5, so the re-creation is lacking in lots of originality. No MiGs were used or harmed in the filming of the movie! :-)

I could not see the video due to crappy internet connectivity! But from the thumbnail it looks like there is no MIG and also no F14. The whole premise of the shot was (as far as I understood) that the F14 fuel was gravity feed so flying inverted would starve the engine of fuel and cause a flame out!!! Not the taking of the picture!!! Just a thought!!! I'm sure some one will correct me I'd I'm wrong on the fuel system issue!!

It doesn't look like they were pulling a 4g negative dive in this recreation though...

An interesting experiment, but look at the zoom lens on the camera. I'm sure "Tom Cruises" RO didn't have gear like that........

Maybe at a greater distance, but the turbulence between them would make a close inversion difficult.

Nice‼

not a recreation.
1) no Polaroid
2) no F-14
3) no "mig28" (although it was probably an F5E used to look like a "mig")
4) more than 1.5m separation.

Charlie, you want to ride my motorcycle? Again!

No

Gotta be one of my favorite movies except for the dogfights. They are hard to recreate. An F-14 doesn't go out of control when hit by jet blast or wake turbulence. That's Hollywood. About the canopy to canopy--again Hollywood. They are way too close. The Angels or Thunderbirds don't even do this and they practice everyday. What I liked most was the military life outside of flying. Cruise is really cool, arrogant, confident and cocky. I flew Air Force fighters and always wanted to buzz the tower and spill some coffee. Of course, I love the ending---"You can be my wingman anytime". Cruise and Kilmer were always friends but very competitive.

Yeah, nice shot for a Canon 1DX with a Sigma zoom lens on a hard mount, but I agree with James Irwin below, a modern cell phone would have a better chance of getting something recognizable than a Color Polaroid. Anyway the narrative included a "4G dive" with no clue whether that was Pos or Neg. So I still think it is very unlikely but a fun "story point".

https://www.facebook.com/47726872686/photos/a.433523902686.234103.47726872686/10150160268217687/?type=1&theater

When I worked at Northrop El Segundo I saw the RFQ for an inverted fuel pickup for Blue Angel early Hornet F/A-18's. This increased the inverted time to a couple of minutes only. Our engineers designed and Production Development built the pickup assy. The center/aft main fuselage is designed and built by Northrop-El Segundo.
I doubt that a production F-14 had much inverted fuel pickup time either.

Still the skill needed is what makes it

Ridiculous! Canopy to canopy w/4 neg G? No way in hell!

Lets just say that Hollywood takes a lot of cinematic license and leave it there.
And if you don't know the difference between an F-5 and a Russian Mig, oh well.
Good movie and fun to watch, OK?