Top Gun - Maverick post-viewing discussion (SPOILERS)

MiniDave said:

Level 5 fighters? Sounds like something from a video game or something?

I remember them talking about 5th-gen fighters which is as real term:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth-generation_fighter

Finally saw it. Man very late to the party!

Fun, my only gripe was they introduced all those classmates but basically did nothing really with them. I expected some story about them but even rooster was barely fleshed out as a human. Iceman, Goose, Maverick, Charlie, Carole and Viper all had some structure to them. I mean that Hondo guy seemed oddly useless as in his job was to just help Maverick? and ever present. 

It was very cool to see the practical flying effects on the actors' faces. And most of the landscape through the canopy was real footage as well. Nice. The mission was contrived but in world ok to enjoy the rest of the "reasons" why things happened. I loved the whole ,"oh my Maverick borrowed and f18 to show the mission could be done" sequence. The 5th Gen fighter battle was funny and good. I can't imagine how different air combat is now with those machines. I did like how the plot was plausible to get the ancient f14 into dogfight range with those 5th Gen fighters. 

Great that they gave Val Kilmer a good amount of acting time!

As far as in world wealth. Maybe Maverick's mom was a law firm partner and mega luxury auto dealership owner and as well as owning two Kawasaki dealerships.

Since this thread's been bumped, I ran across this video where someone tries the split throttle trick in a simulator. It works nicely, but heavily cutting one engine (which IIRC is what was shown in the movie) will put the plane straight into a flat spin. Just momentarily cutting from afterburner to non-AB full throttle on one engine is enough:

 

Tangentially related, Tom Cruise released a video for CinemaCon 2022 to hype up the next Mission: Impossible and it features him casually talking to the camera while riding atop a biplane. Tom Cruise is one of the baddest motherberkeleyers around.