Watching the Movie "Top Gun"

I was watching the movie "Top Gun" the other night.The opening scenes with the carrier deck crews working and the big jets firing up their afterburners brought back a lot of memories of my days on carrier flight decks. The catapult operators with hands up in the air waiting for the catapult officer to signal them to fire the cats always struck me as odd, but the reason was to keep them from firing before the planes were ready to launch. I recognized the NH on the tails of the jets as Carrier Air Group 11. That was the group I was in for two cruises on the Kitty Hawk. The carrier scenes were filmed on CVA 65, the USS Enterprise which was the carrier I spent my last cruise aboard. The movie had scenes of NAS Miramar in San Diego, where our fighters were stationed back in the day. Other scenes were filmed along the foot of San Diego's Broadway Pier, where I used to cross the bay to go to work each morning. The background of those scenes showed the old San Diego tuna boat fleet. Other scenes had the old San Diego airport which I frequented many times. The only thing I did not remember was seeing Kelly McGillis sashaying about the area.