It is the highest grossing of the post-pandemic movies and has gathered almost universal acclaim as a remarkable motion picture for all audiences. Top Gun: Maverick is not your father’s Top Gun. But it could be your mother’s or your daughter’s.
The familiar music and iconic opening words say it all . . . and then some:
On March 3, 1969, the United States Navy established an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the lost art of aerial combat and to ensure that the handful of men and women who graduated were the best fighter pilots in the world.
“And women.” A change from the first film, a hallmark of the second.
In the film’s first act, after Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell learns his career is all but over, Lieutenant Natasha Trace, a recalled TOPGUN graduate, strides confidently into a San Diego beachside bar, figuratively and literally leading a group of khaki-clad naval aviators past the brooding Maverick, who will soon lead them on an impossible mission.
“Everyone here is the best there is, who the hell are they gonna get to teach us?” asks Trace, call sign “Phoenix,” played by actress Monica Barbaro.
We do know who taught Barbaro.
Dragon and Bacon
Back in 2019, two women wearing identical red and black “Phoenix” flight helmets rotated off the Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon runway, afterburners kicking their F/A-18 Super Hornet into the Nevada sky. Then–Lieutenant Commander Kristen “Dragon” Hansen, U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2003, soared upward to begin a maneuver she says is physically challenging even for an experienced fighter pilot. This would happen several times a day for the next week as Hansen and Barbaro dove for the deck time and again after twisting through mountain canyons and attempting the film’s “Miracle #1”: a gut-punching body-crushing 7.5 G dive and recovery from a mountaintop to a precise ground target.
As with Tom Cruise, filming Barbaro in the backseat weapon systems officer (WSO or “Whizzo”) position gave the illusion she was flying the plane. For the Nevada filming, a shot of Hansen from behind as “Training Phoenix” came complete with a sewn-on bun to resemble Barbaro.
Now a commander, Hansen is commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 25 (VFA-25), the Lemoore, California–based “Fist of the Fleet.” The TOPGUN graduate found one Hollywood convention an especially new experience: “It’s the first time in my career that I reported for a ‘Hair and Make-up’ call before going to the flightline!”
Lieutenant Commander Amy “Bacon!” Heflin, Naval Academy Class of 2011, required some of that Hollywood magic to become “Combat Phoenix” for the final scenes, when Phoenix and Maverick lead their strike force into snowcapped mountains laced with danger. “I’m blonde haired and light skinned, obviously,” notes Heflin, who wore a dark wig and got a spray tan on her neck, arms, and hands to match Barbaro’s Mediterranean complexion.
If the makeup was superficial, the flying was anything but. Hansen and Heflin used their considerable warfighter skills to the fullest, as both coproducer Cruise and the Navy wanted absolute realism to be the standard.
“We did it all in small chunks, and movie magic made it look so well put together,” explains Heflin. “The director and producers knew what they wanted and did an amazing job telling us the details but also going with the flow of what shots we were able to get.”
Hansen has experienced combat flying firsthand in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. “I’ve obviously never been in air-to-air combat, just close air support situations. While supporting ground troops, you are constantly worried about ensuring everyone is talking about the correct target and the weapons go where they are supposed to,” she notes. “You essentially hold your breath until you hear ‘good hits.’”
Split-second decisions have lifelong consequences, says Hansen. “If you get it wrong, you could be hurting civilians or friendlies, so you can’t afford to get it wrong. That is why we train so much . . . you want to create habit patterns you can fall back on when things get stressful.”
“Wiggling your toes helps, too!” That Hansen trick might go back to her days as soccer goalie for Navy.
Another character in the movie is a veteran still on the job: Maverick’s own F/A-18 Super Hornet. The jet featured in three years of trailers with its black and blue livery on a haze gray fuselage can be found on the line at NAS Fallon in its own open hangar and very much at the ready. It is used by the greatest fliers in the world: the instructors of TOPGUN, the Navy Fighter Weapons School.
Tonsil and Big Raj
In a year that has seen the first female commanding officer of an aircraft carrier and the first female Blue Angel, there are two Fallon aviators who also are firsts.
Lieutenant Briana “Tonsil” Plohocky is the first female instructor pilot at TOPGUN. She started flying at the age of eight with her father, began her journey toward naval aviation by joining the U.S. Naval Sea Cadets, then graduated in 2013 from the University of Minnesota and the Naval ROTC program.
“I would say Sea Cadets had a big impact on who I am today,” observes Plohocky. “It created many opportunities for me at such a young age that by the time I got to NROTC and commissioning, I had already experienced a lot of what I was going through compared to my peers. When I joined at age 11, I didn’t expect I would be where I am today, but I think Sea Cadets most definitely played a huge role in it.”
Marquette University Class of 2013 Naval ROTC graduate Lieutenant Nikki “Big Raj” Rajkovacz is the first female WSO TOPGUN instructor.
“We’ve flown in it together,” says Plohocky of F/A-18 Number 00 with CAPT PETE “MAVERICK” MITCHELL painted beneath the cockpit and three enemy plane kill silhouettes on its side. It is known among instructors as merely “the Top Gun plane.”
Plohocky and Rajkovacz, both veterans of Middle East deployments, are examples of true “best of the best” aviators. Instructors at the top of their craft are chosen by the best of their peers and past instructors to carry on strike fighting excellence and superiority in the skies and on the ground.
As for being a woman in what traditionally was a man’s world, Plohocky says, “I felt like all I had to do was be myself and it would be fine. I feel like once you try to focus on the differences, it can become harder. But as long as you are a good person and work hard, I don’t think it matters what your gender is.”
Being a TOPGUN student is a grueling three months of instruction, six and sometimes seven days a week. Being an instructor is all that and more. The schedule can include 14 or more hours of flying for up to seven days in a row. And the instructors must themselves be constantly assimilating new information and are always on call for sharing their knowledge with the fleet over their three-year assignments.
“I think one of the harder parts of being an instructor is recognizing that not every student will learn the same way, and what worked for one student might not work for another. Finding another avenue to teaching continues to challenge me,” says Rajkovacz.
“In our rapidly changing environment, we need to continue to ensure that TOPGUN stays relevant against our adversaries. It’s crucial that we teach our students to think critically, not only in the jet, but also in our debriefs,” Rajkovacz notes. “As TOPGUN instructors, our job is to create warfighters, and ensure our graduates are prepared to fight and win against any adversary, at any time.”
Top Gun: Maverick
It is a testament to the quality of the film that the ultimate insiders are deeply moved by it; that these always-precise warriors were able to suspend belief.
“I definitely cried at the end! And there was some laughing,” says Plohocky.
“I’m a weeper!” adds Hansen. “It got to me.” The reason?
“I absolutely have a different perspective watching this movie now than I did watching the first movie as a young kid wanting to fly,” she explains. “At this point, I’ve seen the ups and downs that come with this career choice, so I can relate to the tough times as well
as the camaraderie that is depicted in the movie.”
Top Gun: Maverick goes beyond the original’s emphasis on competition and boyish pursuits. It shows Maverick coming to grips with his age, his faults, his fears, and an uncertain future. Nothing is guaranteed, but, ultimately, family—a core of military service—brings closure and hope, as he finds a teenage girl needing a father and love with her mother, which was always within his grasp.
Like Captain Mitchell, Commander Hansen knows that the days of flying ahead are now shorter than the days behind and that family bonds endure. She is engaged to be married, and her Navy future appears limitless. “At some point in all our careers, you no longer have the opportunity to fly,” says Hansen. “After doing this for almost 20 years, it has definitely become a part of who I am, so it will be an adjustment when I no longer can get back into the jet. However, when the time comes, there will hopefully be new and fun opportunities waiting for me.”
Lieutenant Commander Heflin left the service in June, a year after she and her husband welcomed their first child. “Being a pilot in the Navy is really all I’ve ever known, and I was very comfortable with that life,” she notes. “But with a new baby, it was time to focus on my family. Thankfully, I still work with the fleet and around the F/A-18 in my civilian life, and that has made the transition a little easier.”
“I’m learning that there is life after flying, and it’s going to be such an adventure in itself,” Heflin adds.
We don’t know what happens to Lieutenant Natasha “Phoenix” Trace after Top Gun: Maverick, but a fan wrote of her impact in a YouTube post of a Paramount Pictures “Meet Phoenix” special feature:
One thing that I love about Phoenix is that she’s not set up as a love interest, or a damsel, or a femme fatale, or any traditionally feminine role that would cause her character to entirely revolve around a male one. There’s nothing inherently wrong with those roles, but it’s refreshing to see a character like Phoenix who’s portrayed as (and viewed as, in-story) an equal part of the group, without any qualifiers.
Plohocky feels strongly about that viewpoint: “I 100 percent agree with that quote. That was my favorite part about the movie, that they just made her one of the guys. She was just like everyone else, and her gender or love interests didn’t overshadow her accomplishments.”
Hansen concurs. “In my experience, the community is gender blind . . . very performance based. I never felt any extra pressure. We’ve spent a lot of time working toward equality, and although nothing is perfect, I believe we’ve achieved equality in the fighter community,” she says with conviction. “I’m actually a little sad that we are still talking about equality 20 years after I got commissioned and hope it becomes less and less of a topic since we are a mainstay.”
Monica Barbaro was deeply moved by meeting these women, who are the present and future of naval aviation, giving a special shoutout to her desert and winter mountain doubles Dragon and Bacon!: “I was amazed by their professionalism, strength, courage, sacrifice, and it was a personal honor to represent them in this film.”
And so the beautiful bird of mythology, the Phoenix, continues to rise on the wings of Dragon and Bacon! and Tonsil and Big Raj . . . rising ever upward and onward.