Vic sent me a video of several aviaiton low fly by's.  I sent him a note back that you all might like to read., including the infamous Topgun movie fly by the tower by Goose and Maverick.

Craig Honour

I was an F-14 squadron commander during Topgun and my squadron, along with others were directed to support the movie. Two of my airplanes were painted and flown in the movie. The Topgun pass was performed at the Miramar Tower on a Saturday by Lcdr “Bozo” Llyod Abel, a pilot in my squadron using one of my airplanes.  During those times we had frequent noise complaints from the affluent homes to west near Torrey Pines. After the first pass the calls starting coming in and the duty officer at the base started calling me at home.  Bozo did several more passes and the movie guys would have him doing it all day except the calls became voluminous and angry so I had to direct our duty office to terminate the passes after about 6 passes.

If you recall in the movie scene the low flyby at the tower caused Maverick and Goose to get chewed out later standing at attention across a desk from the CO. That desk was my office desk and there is a portrait of me and my family on the desk.  The movie guys had borrowed it to make it look real.

From personal experience you start getting “rooster tails” where the water or dust kicks up at altitudes below about 5-15 feet. I used to fly in our carrier airshows and often did a low flyby then pulling 6 G’s to climb straight up to almost out of sight doing rolls all the way up. The first practice at ship I thought I did great but when I got back got chewed out because I flew too low and none of the spectators on the carrier deck could see me because I was too low and under the angle deck!

As CO of Seattle I arranged for a fly by with 2 F-14’s on a dependent’s day cruise out of Earl New Jersey.  They did great but we lost about 10 winch booth windows which were shattered and all three accordion hangar bay doors.  Looked like someone had thrown a huge ball at center of doors and knocked them off the tracks. Lots of food spilled, children crying but the highlight of everyone’s visit.  I did take considerable heat over the repair bill but had legitimately set up aa approved missle/gun tracking exercise required by regulations as cover!

Awesome!

Bravo Zulzu!