Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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'03ag said:

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tk for tu juan said:

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In real life he has someone that maintains his P-51.

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I'm sure the vast majority is done by someone else.

I do think I heard recently that he has his mechanics certification. But that thing have a Merlin in it? That's kind of like having one of Jay Leno's ridiculous old cars. Probably only a handful of people that can work on that.

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Can't speak with certainty as to how Cruise's 'stand is outfitted, but in terms of WWII, the P-51 only became the superior Allied fighter in Europe after they replaced its original Allison engine with the British Merlin. AFAIK, the P-51D, which Cruise's appears to be (I say appears because it could actually be a P-51K or a later Korean War F-51), was the first Mustang variant to get the Merlin. /warbird nerd

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Quote:

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This Mustang has a serial number of 44-12840 and was built in 1946. It was donated to the Civil Air Patrol unit and eventually ended up in a museum in Illinois. It was later completely restored by 1997 by Art Teeters and four years later was bought by Tom Cruise in 2001.

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LMCane said:

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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'03ag said:

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tk for tu juan said:

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In real life he has someone that maintains his P-51.

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I'm sure the vast majority is done by someone else.

I do think I heard recently that he has his mechanics certification. But that thing have a Merlin in it? That's kind of like having one of Jay Leno's ridiculous old cars. Probably only a handful of people that can work on that.

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Can't speak with certainty as to how Cruise's 'stand is outfitted, but in terms of WWII, the P-51 only became the superior Allied fighter in Europe after they replaced its original Allison engine with the British Merlin. AFAIK, the P-51D, which Cruise's appears to be (I say appears because it could actually be a P-51K or a later Korean War F-51), was the first Mustang variant to get the Merlin. /warbird nerd

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the bigger question is:

why is there no nose art on Cruise's Mustang?!?

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TCTTS said:

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Ha, ok, but these are the only relatively innocuous ones I feel comfortable sharing…

- In the original Top Gun, the "love theme" came down to Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" and The Cars' "Drive." Berlin obviously went on to be the iconic choice, but the original plan in Maverick was to then use "Drive" for this movie. In fact, that's why Penny Benjamin drives that incredible Porsche, then of course there's Mav driving her home on his motorcycle twice ("Who's gonna drive you home, tonight…"), etc. There was even a cut of the movie that used "Drive" throughout, that apparently worked really well, but then Cruise and Gaga ultimately connected and "Hold My Hand" was

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Philip J Fry said:

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Real answer. Cruise wanted to actually fly an f35. Military said hell no.

I enjoyed it for the most part, but damn there were some plot holes.

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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aTmAg said:

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BTW, those saying a Navy captain couldn't afford a P-51... the internet tells me that they make $120K-$210K per year. And remember he has no wife or kids. Money goes a long way without that. Also he could be a partial owner. There are plenty of explainations for that.

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Found one on that same internet listed for USD $2,395,000.

Yes, you can say that a guy with no wife and kids could potentially make such a purchase. We don't actually see how he lives his daily life, but I'm reasonably certain he has some level of living expenses to account for. Too unlikely in the real world.

Now as a partial owner, which admittedly I didn't consider, that's not nearly as far-fetched.

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Ambres said:

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He was a test pilot O6 w/ no family and no kids. I am sure he had a friend of friend help him restore and rebuild over a number of years. It is not unrealistic, unlikely.. but possible.

My buddy (retired O5) w/ no family restore a P-47 (3.5 years) that he flies now for Air Shows and a Shelby F-150 as his toys.

The real question.. how the heck was Maverick not force retired. No way an O6 would still be in service. How does he bring his own personal mechanic to each assignment.

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aTmAg said:

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As a guy who was prepared to call BS on a lot of stuff, I was a big fan of the hyper sonic scenes early on. They must have had real engineers help on that mock up. Or their visual effects guys really did their homework on how to make it look real. Even down to the stickers and labels we put on stuff nowadays.

I wish when Tom Cruise walked into the diner and asked where he was, and the kid said "Earth", that Tom would have followed up with "what state?". Because the real SR-71 (which would have been ~3X times slower) would occasionally make late turns and miss entire west cost states.

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aTmAg said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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I feel like we all got the joke he was in another state.

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The joke was clearly the "Earth" part. I bet most people would assume he stayed in the same state the whole time. (Both California and Nevada are big).

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SoulSlaveAG2005 said:

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So I have 2 boys, 8 & 4. I honestly was very pleased with how appropriate the movie was in terms of not trying to be too edgy and risqu.

I got home and my wife asked if it was ok for the boys to go to, and honestly the only curse word I remember was the lone f bomb, so I am very thankful to be able to take my boys to a movie, allow them to enjoy it and not have to worry about providing life lessons afterwards.

Probably one of the things I like the most about the movie. There was nothing being pushed other than here's a bad ass movie, we hope you enjoy.

Please pass on the gratitude of a dad who gets to share this with his sons, just as I shared it with my father.

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