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Who Really Did Buzz the NKX Tower in TOPGUN? ..... Watch --
- Thread starter Catmando
- Start date
If anybody ends up talking to 'Bozo', ask him about 'Mules', his RIO on that hop. I went to school with his son, who's a hornet driver now. Small community.
That's a cool video, thanks for the find!
Good stuff/fun stuff, CAT-man ... who's 'the guy' @ 6:30 w/ Cruise, if you know him (callsign or PM is O.K.) ... ???
I only ask as Cruise is @ 3" tall and Cruise is taller than the 'guy' ...
I only ask as Cruise is @ 3" tall and Cruise is taller than the 'guy' ...
While his face is familiar to me, I didn't really know him. And I don't remember him being that short, but he may have been. (Of course Cruise wore lifts, and they had a box for him to stand on in scenes with Kelly Mc.)
The movie credits list the below guys... in addtion to our "friend" Viper. And this link lists some other JOs who were in the film but not in the credits.
LCDR Lloyd "Bozo" Abel
LT Scott "D-Bear" Altman
LT Rick "Curley" Moe
LT Chuck "Silver" Lewis
LT Ben "Rabbi" Schneider
LT Tracey "Too Cool" Skeels
LT(jg) Kenneth "Squire" Smith
LT Dave "Bio" Baranek
LT Michael "Vida" Blue
LT Peter "Horse" Caulk
MAJ John "Player" Cushing
LT Ricky "Organ" Hammonds
CAPT Dennis "Sunshine" Dilucente
LT Michael "Flex" Galpin
LCDR Thomas "Sobs" Sobieck
LT William "Tex" Spence
CAPT Michael "Boa" Straight
LCDR Robert "Rat" Willard
LT James "Jaws" Winnefeld
LCDR C.J. "Heater" Heatley
Obviously, some of the above names are familiar to many here.
The guy walking in with Cruise near the end is Ken "Feebs" Deeble, one of our better pilots in the squadron at that time, he having been an Air Force F-15 driver in his immediate past life. I appear nowhere in the movie, but was the XO of the squadron (VF-51) at the time of filming. Yes..."Bozo" and the rest of the guys did all of us...the entire F-14 community...very proud. Just before history rolls over all of that...
You forgot "Secks," who was also listed in the credits, who was one of the "MiG" pilots......and also Webmaster and my XO at Florida. Great guy. It was fun to hear some of his Top Gun movie stories after you got a few beers into him, including how the whole movie idea started out at an airshow.
Sorry. My bad.
But after that "after-a-few-beers" tease, please tell us more! (but only if is for publication, of course.)
Like:
"In the beginning, on a bright and shiny day during an airshow long, long ago, the initial spark for the classic TOPGUN movie was born..." 
{edit} PS: Which "Webmaster?" Not ours. He would be too young, no?
Yes, "our" webmaster. He was a year behind me...we started out as Juniors together, but his degree kept him an extra year in school. Pretty convenient to be on active duty while at UF, don't you think?
There were a couple of stories I got out of him, one included the sex scene and how it was originally written.
Apparently it all started during a Miramar airshow and some guy (presumably either Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr. or Ehud Yonay) came up and started asking all kinds of questions and said he was writing a script. It may have actually been the magazine article, but still, something was written and a few months later, the Navy came to Top Gun and asked some of the pilots (Secks said he was one of them) to review the script and make it recruiter friendly (hence the change in the sex scene). The rest is history.
He wasn't too complimentary of Tom Cruise (nothing new there) and said he got sick all the time. He said Cruise didn't hang out w/ the pilots but McGillis and Edwards would party with them all the time. Definitely sounded like an interesting time to live.
There were a couple of stories I got out of him, one included the sex scene and how it was originally written.
Apparently it all started during a Miramar airshow and some guy (presumably either Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr. or Ehud Yonay) came up and started asking all kinds of questions and said he was writing a script. It may have actually been the magazine article, but still, something was written and a few months later, the Navy came to Top Gun and asked some of the pilots (Secks said he was one of them) to review the script and make it recruiter friendly (hence the change in the sex scene). The rest is history.
He wasn't too complimentary of Tom Cruise (nothing new there) and said he got sick all the time. He said Cruise didn't hang out w/ the pilots but McGillis and Edwards would party with them all the time. Definitely sounded like an interesting time to live.