Best Naval Aviation movies

[Alpha_Echo_606]

This is my first post and it's funny, Top Gun is on tv. I was reading the rules of the forum and saw this thread. When I went in the Navy in 86 my recruiter said the movie helped everyone meet their quota for years.

Well my son was just selected for SNA and leaves for OCS very soon. I've asked him so many questions I'm probably driving him crazy. My other son was enlisted like me so this is a new ball game for our family. We are all very proud but I know we will not see him for long stretches but to fly I would still do it! Lol.

I like Top Gun but Tom is way out there with his church, nuff said.

Many questions to follow I just need to find the right place. Do they have a "curious dad" forum.

Like you I was enlisted back in 86 (went in in 85), I didn't see Top Gun till at least 87 and we tore the movie apart. Good to have you here and the search function is your friend.

Hot Shots part 1 and 2 were both great, you definitely need to check them out!

 

[MIDNJAC]

Honestly I've never seen Hot Shots, I'll have to check red box. Top Gun was just on the tube while I was surfing this site, made me feel like breaking the ice. I'd like to see Howard Hughes Hells Angels. It might be on YouTube.

This I'm sure isn't the right thread but when do you get a "call sign" in the Navy? I searched and found plenty of guidance on what not to do but on a timeline I was curious when that happens. I can already hear it Flounder.....

Can't speak for all communities, but in VFA, you normally get a dumb callsign in the training command/FRS that quickly goes away, and the one that sticks and is you for life, is given around 6 months or so into your first operational/JO/sea tour. Mileage may vary, but that is the standard at least.

 

[Uncle Fester]

This I'm sure isn't the right thread but when do you get a "call sign" in the Navy? I searched and found plenty of guidance on what not to do but on a timeline I was curious when that happens. I can already hear it Flounder.....

Navy callsigns are usually a play on your name, a physical characteristic, or (best) a reference to something dumb/embarrassing you did. Hornet guys like acronym callsigns. Usually as soon as you check in to your Fleet squadron they start trying to come up with a callsign for you. Often you'll do something dumb to earn one in those first few months.

e.g., New Guy in the Tigertails on his very first flight with us off the Boat ran in the back of the plane and took an emergency dump in his helmet bag right before recovery. By the time he got from the plane to the Ready Room, the white board was covered with poop-related callsign suggestions.

It will never be a "cool" callsign. If you do meet someone with a cool callsign, either he gave it to himself and is hoping not to run into anyone from his old squadrons, or it has an embarrassing story behind it. Or it's an admiral...admirals like to re-callsign themselves, I guess so they don't have "VADM John 'Buttcheeks' Smith, USN" on their calling cards.

I've known a couple of Flounders. Animal House is a perpetual source of callsigns.

 

[xj220]

 

[SNA Dad &XNavy]

I love this. It really brings back my Navy life, you get thick skin if you did t have it already. I turned 18 in boot camp and married a few months into A school. We had our first child (girl) a little over a year later the. After each deoyment a boy. Lol.

I raised my boys pretty tough and they are really quick and sharp witted. I think dumbass would be a great cl sign, we watched that 70's show and all my sons friends thought I was Red. The boys played sports and we have a pool so it was always my place they went after football or wrestling.

I remember the movie we watched on the ship in a endless loop was Major League. Over and over.

Thanks for the info on the call sign can't wait to hear what it will be, I'm sure he will have plenty of screw ups to provide a variety of names.

 

[brownshoe]

Here's a good one! No shit, they actually showed this in the ready room at 44 as a training film for a few of us who were heading to the Lex for our first deck experience on a qual (I was a kid of 18). I searched Youtube and actually found the darned thing.

I think BzB, Cat and A4's are probably in there somewhere. (Skeeterman, you in this film?)

 

[SNA Dad &XNavy]

Here's a good one! No shit, they actually showed this in the ready room at 44 as a training film for a few of us who were heading to the Lex for our first deck experience on a qual (I was a kid of 18). I searched Youtube and actually found the darned thing.

I think BzB, Cat and A4's are probably in there somewhere. (Skeeterman, you in this film?)

Ok I saw Hot Shots for the first time the other night. I laughed pretty hard. It really poked fun at everything. Good stuff.

I was checking onboard the USS California CGN-36 and when I met the captain he asked me what other ships I'd been on. I kept saying "my first boat" and he asked me if I was on a submarine, lol. I kept slipping and saying it. He didn't think it was funny, but he was a Nuke Engineer and they don't have a sense of humor. Lol. So when I hear pilots talk I always hear them say boat. I should have been a pilot!

 

[nittany03]

I've known a couple of Flounders. Animal House is a perpetual source of callsigns.

It's a year group-related thing, too. Tons of people end up with pop culture-related ones from the 3 years or so they were in their nugget tour. Around the time of the Manti Te'o fiasco, one of our (married and straight, mind you) JOs had been bouncing from test callsign to test callsign. Nothing worked. Nothing stuck. JOPA was getting frustrated. Then, at the start of deployment, he no-kidding got anonymously propositioned via email by some random dude on the boat. And thus was born "Catfish."

 

[jmcquate]

What did everyone think of "Speed and Angels"?

 

[East]

Was really impressed by unbroken.

 

[Austin-Powers]

Thoroughly enjoyed this movie, especially seeing North Island and San Diego

 

[Redux]

How about Iron Eagle 2 or 3?

Is this why he was banned? Should have been castrated first.

 

[Redux]

Why were no ribbons worn in Final Countdown? Was it common in that era or did the Navy not want to put them on actors?

In addition to whats been said.......... it wasn't until maybe the last 15 or so years they didn't award geedunks for being to work on time. They were once earned and not just given in grab bags.

Natl Defense exempted.

 

[Redux]

Can we at least dispense with the fiction that the Tuskegee Airmen "never lost a bomber?" The fact that they weren't supermen does not detract from their honorable service.

True, something of note that I know to be fact and not taking anything away from them. Someone near and dear to me (upper RH corner of my avatar) assigned to the 455th BG Cerignola Italy had never heard of the "Redtails" and he did his 35 missions. I found that rather amazing, I figured they were common knowledge ..... apparently not.

 

[Randy Daytona]

So what are your choices for best naval aviation movie or just naval movie?

Now that my officer interview for NROTC is done and gone, I can admit it! My favorite naval aviation movie has the initials of "T" and "G". :icon_lol: And the naval aviation (well sorta!) movie which always makes me cry is Officer and a Gentleman. :captain_1 (Although Officer and a Gentleman is so ancient that the colors in the movie seem all yellowed and dull :mummy_125)

To go back to post #1, it does say "just naval movie". Seems to be missing quite a few.

Navy: Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen in the "The Sand Pebbles"

Navy: Cliff Robertson in "PT-109"

Navy: Sir Alec Guiness and William Holden in "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (remember the theme song)

Marines: Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner in "55 Days at Peking"

Marines: Sean Connery and Candice Bergen in "The Wind and the Lion"