What Is A Rio In Top Gun? - [Solution] 2023: Culture of the whole world

VFX – Through this same period, experience over Vietnam against the more agile MiG fighters demonstrated that the Phantom lacked the maneuverability needed to win in any engagement. This led to the VFAX program to study new fighter aircraft that would either replace or supplant the Phantom in the fighter and ground-attack roles while the TFX worked the long-range interception role.

Grumman continued work on its 303 design and offered it to the Navy in 1967, which led to fighter studies by the Navy. The company continued to refine the design into 1968. Around this time, Vice Admiral Thomas F. Connolly, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare, flew the developmental F-111A variant on a flight and discovered that it had difficulty going supersonic and had poor carrier landing characteristics.

He later testified before Congress about his concerns against the official Navy position and, in May 1968, Congress stopped funding for the F-111B, allowing the Navy to pursue an answer tailored to its requirements. Free to choose their own solution to the FAD requirement, VFAX ended in favor of a new design that would combine the two roles.

In July 1968, the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) issued a request for proposals (RFP) for the Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program. VFX called for a tandem two-seat, twin-engined air-to-air fighter with a maximum speed of Mach 2.2. It would also have a built-in 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannon and a secondary close air support role.

The VFX’s air-to-air missiles would be either six AIM-54 Phoenix or a combination of six AIM-7 Sparrow and four AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. Bids were received from General Dynamics, Grumman, Ling-Temco-Vought, McDonnell Douglas, and North American Rockwell ; four bids incorporated variable-geometry wings,

What does a Rio do in a fighter jet?

Note: These definitions refer to how the terms are used in a US Navy environment, in the 1980s and 1990s. They may differ from how they are used by other services or other countries. Some of these terms are slang or lingo, others are defined in doctrine.

Up front, the question: Is “Topgun” one word or two? The Navy generally used it as a single word when referring to the squadron, officially called the Navy Fighter Weapons School.
Some Navy people used two words, it was not a big deal in the 1980s but now has become more formalized as one word and usually all caps: TOPGUN.

Paramount Pictures decided to use it as two words when they titled their movie, “Top Gun.” This chart compares important specifications of the three main aircraft types in TOPGUN DAYS – A-4, F-5, and F-14 – showing top speed, fuel capacity, etc. Each type is further described in the glossary, in alphabetical order. A-4 Skyhawk – Developed in the mid-1950s, the A-4 provided the Navy and Marine Corps with a simple, versatile aircraft that could be operated from aircraft carriers. Built by Douglas Aircraft, which later became McDonnell-Douglas, it was used extensively in Vietnam and flown by a half-dozen foreign forces.

From 1974 through 1986, the Navy’s famous flight demonstration team the Blue Angels used A-4s. The TA-4 version included a second seat with complete flight controls, and hundreds were used to train student pilots and NFOs. Topgun flew single-seat A-4s with non-essential equipment removed to save weight, and the most powerful engines the Navy could fit into them.

Brazil operated 3 Skyhawks as of 2020 and private companies in the United States operate Skyhawks as contracted adversary trainers. ACM – Air combat maneuvering, a general term for training for close-in air-to-air combat with enemy fighters. Basically, dogfighting.

It could involve one friendly fighter against one enemy, known as a one-versus-one or 1v1, or multiple aircraft on each side, such as 2v3.
Friendly fighters are always listed before the “v.” Afterburner, or burner – Assembly that injects pure fuel into a metal tube that extends aft of the basic engine, and ignites it.

Most fighters have them. Increases thrust by fifty percent or more, but fuel consumption goes up ten times or more. The F-14’s afterburners had five stages or zones, so Zone 5 was max burner. Angels – Altitude in thousands of feet. “Angels two-five” means 25,000 feet.

Angle of attack – The angle at which an aircraft wings meet the air stream. Despite the word “attack,” it is not related to weapons, and applies to all aircraft. Bag – Aviator slang for the Nomex flight suit. Bandit – An enemy aircraft. This is a refinement of the general category of bogey. Bingo – A fuel state at which the aircraft should stop performing its mission, whether training or combat, and start returning to its base or heading for aerial refueling.

Bingo is established before takeoff and varies based on conditions such as weather. It can also be used as a verb, to describe when an aircraft has reached the fuel level and bingos to its base. Bogey – Technically, this is any radar contact. It was sometimes used imprecisely, as in my early years of flying, but later we were better about using bogey to indicate an unknown aircraft and bandit to indicate an enemy.

Break – A maximum-performance turn, usually in response to a threatening aircraft or missile. Due to aerodynamics (induced drag associated with lift), a break turn caused the aircraft to rapidly lose speed, so could be used to help tactical aircraft return to base faster. They would fly to the airfield at high speed and then perform a break turn overhead the runway, slowing quickly to landing speed.

Callsign – An aviator’s nom de guerre, Callsigns developed because aviators didn’t want to use real names on the radio, and there could be multiple people with the same name. Callsigns basically replaced given names in squadrons. CAP – Combat air patrol, a mission in which a fighter patrols assigned airspace using his radar and/or visual lookout, or other sensors.

When Navy carriers operate in the open ocean, fighters were frequently assigned the mission of CAP, even though there was no enemy and no combat.
These flights often became simple training flights with the fighter(s) on other CAP stations.
CO – Commanding officer.
The senior officer of a squadron, could be either a pilot or an NFO.

Had a callsign from his earlier days, but was always called CO or Skipper by those in the squadron. Deployment – Term for extended overseas operations by aircraft carriers, air wings, and other ships. We usually called them “cruise.” In the 1970s, US Navy deployments could last nine months.

During peacetime in the early 1980s they were seven and a half months.
I n the mid 1980s the Navy reduced the standard overseas deployment to six months, and personnel retention improved.
Division – Navy term for four aircraft operating together.
Also known as a four-ship.
Echo Range – The electronic warfare range near China Lake, California, officially known as restricted airspace R-2524.

Electronic warfare is abbreviated E.W., which in the phonetic alphabet is “echo whiskey.” the name of the range was shortened to Echo Range. F-5 Tiger II – Originally developed by Northrop in the 1960s, the F-5 was intended as a lightweight fighter for US allies.

The F-5E and F-5F (single-seat and two-seat versions, respectively) were developed in the 1970s and had significant improvements over earlier models.
Due to their similarity to the MiG-21, a common threat fighter, in size and many performance aspects, the F-5E and F were used as adversaries by several US Navy and Marine Corps squadrons, including Topgun.

The US Air Force used the F-5E. As of 2021, F-5s are still used as operational fighters by countries around the world, and as adversary aircraft operated by the US Navy, US Marine Corps, and private companies. F-14 Tomcat – A large, sophisticated, maneuverable fighter developed in the late 1960s that served in US Navy fighter squadrons from 1974 through 2006.

Manufactured by Grumman Aerospace, the F-14 incorporated many lessons from Vietnam War aerial combat, and had greater maneuverability and better cockpit visibility than its predecessors.
It also benefited from decades of radar and missile development, giving it one of the best long-range weapons systems ever deployed on a fighter.

As of 2021, F-14s are still in service with Iran, the only other country to operate them. FAST – Fleet Air Superiority Training, a one-week program formerly run by the Navy Fighter Weapons School to give fighter and E-2 Hawkeye aircrews specialized training in defending an aircraft carrier from a raid by bombers, cruise missiles, and jammers.

The concept was to apply Topgun-level training to this challenging problem.
FAST included lectures and complex scenarios in simulators.
Furball – Aviator slang for a dogfight, where friendly fighters are engaged with enemy aircraft (bandits).
ICS – Intercom system, which allowed the F-14 pilot and RIO to communicate via the microphones built in to their oxygen masks and headphone speakers in their helmets.

Virtually all multi-person aircraft have ICS. John Wayne – To do something the hard way or continue doing a task when an automatic system isn’t available. Knots – A measure of speed, nautical miles per hour. A nautical mile is 6,000′, which is about 1/6 longer than a statute mile, so knots is roughly 1 and 1/6 faster than the mph we’re used to.

300 knots = 345 mph 600 knots = 690 mph 1,000 knots = 1,150 mph

Merge – The small piece of sky where friendly fighters meet enemy fighters after an intercept. MiG – Acronym for Mikoyan-Gurevich, a leading builder of fighter aircraft in the Soviet Union and Russia, after the two founding designers. Military power – The highest power a fighter’s jet engine can produce without using afterburner.

NFO – Naval Flight Officer, a US Navy or Marine Corps aircrew member who is not a pilot.
NFOs were referred to by different terms for different aircraft, such as Bombardier/ Navigator (BN) in the A-6 Intruder medium bomber, and Tactical Coordinator (TACCO) in the P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft.
Most Navy aircraft do not have duplicate flight controls for NFOs.

NFOs wore gold wings on their uniform similar to pilot wings, except pilot wings had one anchor in the middle, and NFO wings had two crossed anchors. PC – Plane captain, usually an enlisted person who is responsible for an aircraft. In the US Navy, PCs are usually fairly new to a squadron, but they have broad responsibilities for routine inspection and servicing of aircraft, and preparing them for flight.

Phonetic alphabet – The use of a word to represent each letter to ensure clarity of communication over a radio.
The US military phonetic alphabet is: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu.

The pronunciation of numbers is also specified, but is similar to common pronunciation except for “Niner.” RAG – Slang term for squadrons that trained aviators in specific types of aircraft. It came from “replacement air group,” a term that had been officially replaced in 1963 by “fleet replacement squadron,” but RAG was easier to say than FRS and the nickname stuck.

The F-14 had two RAGs for awhile: VF-124 at NAS Miramar, and VF-101 at NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach. There are RAGs for the FA-18, E-2, EA-6B, and other types, at least one RAG for every major type of aircraft the Navy flies. RIO – Radar intercept officer, a category of Naval Flight Officer who was the second crewman in the F-14 Tomcat.

For crew coordination purposes, RIOs were primarily responsible for communication and navigation, as well as operating the F-14 radar. RIOs in the F-14 did not have flight controls (throttles, control stick, and rudder pedals), although Topgun F-5Fs had flight controls in the rear cockpit.

In most current fighters, the second crewman is called a weapon systems officer (WSO). SA – Situational awareness, a broad term referring to aircrew knowledge of many factors, from minimum essentials such as their own fuel state and weapons load, to more complex subjects such as the requirements of their mission and the number and location of threatening enemy aircraft.

SDO – Squadron duty officer, the junior officer responsible for making the squadron operate effectively and safely during his watch. In a Navy fighter squadron, the SDO was usually a lieutenant or lieutenant (junior grade) who was assigned for twenty four hours and sat behind the duty desk in the ready room while aircraft were flying.

Section – Navy term for two aircraft operating together.
Also known as a two-ship.
Suitcase – To have an accurate understanding of the situation; great SA.
TACTS Range – In Topgun Days, this was airspace over the desert east of Yuma, Arizona, used in conjunction with the Tactical Aircrew Combat Training System and officially known as restricted airspace R-2301 West.

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To communicate with the TACTS system aircraft carried a pod that was the size and shape of a Sidewinder missile. The TACTS system gathered and recorded a large amount of data from each aircraft and its weapons system. It could display multiple aircraft real-time and was useful for detailed debriefing.

There are TACTS Ranges around the world, and they are sometimes known by other names such as Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation (ACMI).
Tailhook – A strong hook at the end of a steel tube more than seven feet long on an F-14.
Most military aircraft have arresting hooks for emergency use, but those on Navy carrier-based aircraft were designed, like the airplanes themselves, for the stress of repeated arrested landings.

TID – Tactical information display, a round display screen, nine inches in diameter, in the F-14’s rear cockpit. Symbols showed radar targets and other situation information. XO – Executive officer. The second-ranking officer in a squadron, under the CO, could be either a pilot or an NFO.

Is Rooster a pilot or Rio?

Miles Teller plays Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, the son of Goose who was Maverick RIO in the original movie, and the relationship between Maverick and Rooster is the biggest driver in the film. – The photos in this post show the new Naval Aviators that Pete “Maverick” Mitchell will return to flight school to teach them a thing or two about speed ant the need thereof in Top Gun 2. Danny Ramirez as “Fanboy” As Joseph Kosinski, Top Gun: Maverick’s director said in his first interview about the sequel to the 1986 blockbuster released to Entertainment Weekly, unlike the young pilots in the original movie, the trainees in Top Gun: Maverick are all previous Topgun (a.k.a.

The United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program – SFTI) graduates.
Those pilots were entering the Top Gun school for the first time,” Kosinski says of the original film’s characters, which included Maverick, Val Kilmer‘s Tom “Iceman” Kazansky and Anthony Edwards’ Nick “Goose” Bradshaw.

“In our film, these are all Top Gun graduates who are coming back for a special training detachment — which is another aspect of Top Gun where they can go back for specialized training after they’ve already graduated. They’re at a different level of experience than in the first film.” Glen Powell as “Hangman” For the new characters, that meant eventually experiencing up to 1,600 pounds of force in F/A-18F Super Hornet strike fighters, which were specially outfitted with up to six IMAX-quality cameras to capture the actors as they pretended to pilot the planes (which were actually operated by a Navy pilot in the front seat).

The experience is thrilling but very physically grueling,” Kosinski says. “The maneuvers that we were putting them through to tell this story were not something that you can just jump in and do. They all had to go through months of aerial training. We put them through a training course that Tom actually designed himself.

He’s a licensed aerobatic pilot, and he was thrown into deep end when he did the first Top Gun without any training. So he knew that they would need to kind of work up to that level. So they started in Cessnas and then worked their way up aerobatic airplanes then into small single-engine jets before they were in the Super Hornet. Jay Ellis as “Payback” “There’s no crew up there,” he adds. “I’m not up there with him, there’s no cinematographer, no hair and makeup. They are responsible for every aspect of the filmmaking process when they’re up in those airplanes.” The most extreme sequence was glimpsed in the teaser trailer, where Maverick is flying across the desert at a rather insanely low altitude. Monica Barbaro “Phoenix” “For the sequence where Tom got to do some extreme low-altitude flying in this film, we had to get special permission from the Navy to do it,” he says. “It was one of the most extreme aerial sequences that we could come up with. Lewis Pullman as “BOB.” The actor holds a flightbag featuring a fake squadron insignia which is possibly a tribute to original VF-51 Screaming Eagles F-14 Tomcats used in Top Gun. “The rivalry and relationship between Iceman and Maverick is one of those things that makes that first film so iconic,” he says. This print is available in multiple sizes from AircraftProfilePrints.com – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS. F/A-18F Super Hornet VFA-103 Jolly Rogers, AG200 / 166620 / 2007 The two-minute trailer boasts blockbuster scenes with Maverick taking to the skies in F/A-18 Super Hornet, F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft and an ‘Area 51′ -type jet. This model is available from AirModels – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS Photo credit: Paramount via Entertainment Weekly

Is a Rio also a pilot?

No. RIO stands for radar intercept officer. They are not pilots and have no flight controls in the rear cockpit.

What does Rio mean in Maverick?

“Talk to Me, Goose” – Image via Paramount Pictures Goose, played by Anthony Edwards, was Maverick’s best friend and Radar Intercept Officer (RIO), meaning that he flew with him in the same plane every time. When a failed ejection gets Goose killed, guilt and trauma haunt Pete.

Do F 18s have a Rio?

The F/A-18s of today do not have a RIO, but some of them do have a backseat.

Can the F-14 be flown without a Rio?

Although only the F-14 pilot has flight controls in the front seat, there are a lot of things that are only in the Tomcat radar intercept officer (RIO) back seat. – The F-14 Tomcat was conceived as both an air superiority fighter and a long-range naval interceptor, which enabled it to both serve as escort attack aircraft when armed with Sparrow missiles and fleet air defense loitering interceptor role when armed with Phoenix missiles,

The F-14 was designed with a two-seat cockpit with a bubble canopy which affords all-around visibility aiding aircrew in air-to-air combat. The canopy is spacious, and fitted with four mirrors to effectively provide all-round visibility. Although only the pilot has flight controls in the front seat, there are a lot of things that are only in the radar intercept officer (RIO) back seat.

Given these premises, one may ask if the Tomcat was capable of flying with a civilian passenger in the RIO back seat, just like how two-seater F-15s and F-16s can in their WSO cockpit, This print is available in multiple sizes from AircraftProfilePrints.com – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS. F-14A Tomcat VF-1 Wolfpack, NE103 / 162603 / Operation Desert Storm, 1991 ‘The back seat is not just another ejection seat, the person back there actually must do certain things for the aircraft to fly,’ Chuck Hunter, former F-14 Pilot, says on Quora,

Before we get to that everybody that flies in an ejection seat aircraft must have training on the ejection seat, the oxygen system, and other gear that they might be wearing. In most cases it is reality simple and a lot of “DON’T TOUCH THIS”. This goes for F-15s, F-16s, and F-14s. ‘There are no flight controls in the back seat of an F-14, but there are split duties.

Before flying the RIO or the guest must run the OBC (On Board Check) which does a lot of things to prep the aircraft for flight and can only be run from the back seat. The back seat also has to turn on the IMU and eventually the inertial system and then the weapons system (though you can go without much of the weapons system).

There is also a circuit break that needs to be pushed in running the Outboard Spoiler System.
You cannot run it long on deck without it over heating, so it is done prior to launch.
If it is just a ride you can get airborne after that, though there are many other things the back seat needs to do to allow the pilot to fight the aircraft.

‘I took many non-RIOs in the back seat from the CO of the aircraft carrier to the flight surgeon and all had to learn at least that much, though we showed them more. I still remember trying to talk the flight surgeon into the location of a particular circuit break as we got onto the catapult because we were having an issue.

Still took a minute or two but we did get airborne.
Hunter concludes; ‘Yes, there are a lot of things that are only in the back seat including certain circuit breakers.
You also need the RIO to turn on the weapons system and inertial system to have a functioning fighter.
However, you could start the jet, close the canopy, and probably take off in a dumb jet without doing all the required procedures if for some reason you had to.

I can’t really think of a real world case where you would have to do that without putting somebody in the back seat.’ Back seat of the F-14A Or the F-14D The stick in the rear seat cannot fly the aircraft. It is like a mouse for the weapons system. It controls the cursor on the displays and can move the position of the radar and TCS (Television Camera System) and things like that. Pulling the trigger is like clicking on the mouse to place things or lock onto things.

Is it possible to fly an F-14 alone without RIO (or another back seater doing the aforementioned things)? ‘It was possible but probably not legal if a transponder was required,’ says John Chesire, former US Navy F-14 Tomcat pilot, on Quora,
The RIO was the only one who could turn on and manage the transponder which was most always required.

We used to laugh about this as pilots. RIOs had a lot of say in the development of the F-14. We figured that they made it hard to fly without them, which we could do in the F-4.’ This model is available from AirModels – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS Photo credit: U.S. Navy

Is it possible to survive a Mach 10 crash?

Not a chance. If you did make it past the fuselage of the aircraft, the air forces would rip your body apart. Even a simple ‘supersonic’ ejection is barely barely survivable and then even with low odds.

Can Maverick eject at Mach 10?

Maverick Probably Couldn’t Survive Ejecting At Mach 10 – Ejecting at Mach 10 would likely obliterate Maverick instead of leaving Top Gun: Maverick ‘s hero with some superficial cuts and a bruised ego. Since Top Gun: Maverick is a Tom Cruise vehicle, few viewers were shocked when the actor’s character didn’t die in the opening sequence.

However, in reality, no known aircraft has ever traveled above Mach 3 and no manned aircraft has had a pilot eject at a speed higher than Mach 2.5 and live to tell the tale.
The relative weight and density of air outside the craft would kill the pilot instantly.
However, some viewers online have noted that the Darkstar, a fictional aircraft, could have an ejection capsule.

This safeguard would allow Top Gun: Maveric k a lot of leeway when it comes to depicting Maverick’s unlikely survival. An ejection pod that can decelerate at a relative speed to the Darkstar would decrease the likelihood of an immediate death, although it is worth noting that Top Gun: Maverick doesn’t explicitly state that an ejection capsule is present.

How did Maverick survive Mach 10?

Neil deGrasse Tyson commented on Twitter that one Top Gun: Maverick stunt in particular would result in certain death.If Maverick ejected at Mach 10.5, which is 10.5 times the speed of sound, he’d be toast, or more likely, the consistency of jelly.A pilot did survive ejecting at just over the speed of sound, but just barely.

Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t tiptoe around the truth, no matter how grisly. The astrophysicist stated recently on his Twitter account that Tom Cruise’s character, Maverick, would have failed quite badly if his stunt in the blockbuster film Top Gun 2: Maverick had been real.

At the beginning the movie, which racked up $1.45 billion worldwide, Maverick ejects from a hypersonic fighter plane while speeding along at Mach 10.5. He survives without injury, which is great, but it’s solely due to movie magic. “At that air speed, his body would splatter like a chainmail glove swatting a worm.

Just sayin’,” Tyson tweeted on October 9. Mach 10.5 is equivalent to about 7,980 miles per hour, or 10.5 times the speed of sound. A supersonic airplane is transcending the speed of sound, or going faster than Mach 1. A hypersonic airplane is going faster than Mach 5.

When an airplane breaks the sound barrier (about 760 mph), those on the ground hear a particular boom as the plane passes overhead.
That’s the noise of incredibly compressed air forcibly parting before the plane.
At supersonic speeds, air cannot smoothly part for you.
You must pierce it, which largely accounts for the difference in fuselage designs between subsonic and supersonic planes,” Tyson went on in a related tweet with an illustration showing a supersonic plane encountering overlapping sound wavefronts that form a “shock cone” in front of the plane.

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“For this reason, the air on your body, if ejecting at these speeds, might as well be a brick wall.” Tyson says Maverick ejected at 7,000 mph, “giving him 400 million joules of kinetic energy—the explosive power of 100 kg of TNT. A situation that human physiology is not designed to survive. The Darkstar experimental plane Maverick takes to Mach 10.5 before ejecting. Lockheed Martin Even if that figure may vary a little—it does depend on air density and temperature—at that speed, we’ve gotta believe that even the fantastically talented and skilled Maverick wouldn’t make it.

Inetic energy, the energy a body in motion has by virtue of being in motion, depends on the speed of the object.
If you want to imagine the deleterious effects of an object in motion coming to a sudden stop, think about this: A car traveling at 60 mph has four times the kinetic energy of the same car traveling at 30 mph.

The faster car is four times more likely to result in destruction if it crashes. Here’s an account of what happened to Captain Brian “Noodle” Udell, who ejected at just over the speed of sound in 1989 and almost lost his limbs. His copilot was killed instantly.

People don’t understand what wind does to someone at that speed,” he says in a video interview.
He suggests thinking about what happens when you stick your arm out the window of a car at 60 miles per hour.
It blows back.
Imagine doing 800 miles an hour and what that will do—it starts ripping you apart.” Udell felt like he’d been hit by a train.

He was rescued after hours of floating on a raft, and he eventually recovered. Meanwhile, Elon Musk responded to Tyson’s analysis with his own tweet, musing that a “sealed escape pod with a heat shield would probably work.” Service Editor Before joining Popular Mechanics, Manasee Wagh worked as a newspaper reporter, a science journalist, a tech writer, and a computer engineer. She’s always looking for ways to combine the three greatest joys in her life: science, travel, and food.

Do fighter pilots still have a Rio?

For category page, see Category:Radar Intercept Officers, For Wikipedia article page, see Wikipedia:Radar intercept officer, A radar intercept officer (RIO) is a naval flight officer who occupies the rear seat of such aircraft as the F-4 Phantom II and the F-14 Tomcat,

LTJG Nick “Goose” Bradshaw LTJG Sam “Merlin” Wells LTJG Ron “Slider” Kerner LTJG Marcus “Sundown” Williams LTJG Leonard “Wolfman” Wolfe

What is higher than a pilot?

FAQ – What does the number of stripes on a pilot’s uniform mean? The number of stripes on a pilot’s uniform represents the pilot’s level of experience and corresponding responsibility for the aircraft, crew, and passengers. A second officer or a flight engineer wears two stripes, a first officer (co-pilot/second-in-command) wears three stripes, and a captain, also known as a pilot-in-command, is awarded four stripes.

Why do fighter jets have 2 pilots?

What Is a Dual Pilot Flight? – A dual pilot flight is when two pilots in the cockpit share responsibilities to fly the aircraft, monitor all the aircraft instruments and help provide a safe flight from beginning to end. During long flights, they can relieve each other of specific duties and get some rest.

Pilot flying: The captain, or the pilot flying, sets up autopilot, controls the aircraft and ensures everything goes smoothly with the flight path. Pilot monitoring: The other pilot — the pilot monitoring — handles communications with air traffic control. They also monitor the aircraft’s instruments and double check information such as the programmed flight path.

Why is maverick called an ace?

Maverick is said to have killed five or more enemy combatants, making him an ‘ace’ in the eyes of his students.

Why is his nickname maverick?

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell – What do you call someone who refuses to play by the rules, shows off some mad flying skills, and does things his own way? That’s right: a maverick, That’s what Pete’s call sign means! He’s a maverick, so they call him Maverick. Top Gun may burn a lot of jet fuel, but it’s not rocket science. (image: Warner Bros.)

Have F-22 ever seen combat?

After $67 billion and more than 20 years, the F-22 finally won a dogfight against an unarmed, nearly immobile opponent. When it officially entered military service in 2005, the U.S. Air Force hailed the F-22 Raptor as an ‘exponential leap in warfighting capabilities.’

Is F-16 better than F-18?

#2. Manufacturers –

The F-16 Fighting Falcon, which is manufactured by General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, is a single-engine multi-role fighter originally created for the US Air Force.
It was designed to be a day fighter but evolved to be a multi-tool of sorts, being used in whatever situation it was needed.
General Dynamics is the 4th in the world, and they have manufactured some very iconic weapons and aircraft used in warfare today.
They manufacture several types of aircraft, including the F-111 Aardvark.
They have been in business for 71 years, as they were founded in 1952.
McDonnell Douglas, on the other hand, was founded in 1967 but merged with their competitor, Boeing, in 1997.
Boeing was founded in 1916 and has become the second-largest military contractor in the world.

Nearly 50% of their revenue comes from domestic defense contracts, which amounts to around $62.2 billion per year. They produce a massive variety of aircraft, including civilian passenger jets like the 747, 767, and 787. They decided all civilian aircraft would start and end in a 7.

Can Tom Cruise fly a jet?

Why It’s Sensible That Tom Cruise Wasn’t Allowed To Fly A Fighter Jet – The Super Hornet jet does feature in the sequel, but Tom Cruise did not fly them in Top Gun: Maverick as those scenes were all completed with assistance from Navy pilots. According to producer Bruckheimer, Cruise does fly a P-51 propeller-driven fighter plane, as well as some helicopters.

With the assistance of skilled editing, the action sequences are convincing to even the best-trained eye. There’s no confirmation about why the US Navy might have denied Cruise’s aspirations to pilot a Super Hornet, even though the actor has experience flying Top Gun ‘s supersonic military aircraft,

However, the most logical reason would be insurance concerns, which is always enough of a consideration to prevent actors from doing their own stunts. The cost of the plane also figures into this – a real F-18 Super Hornet would make up roughly half of Top Gun: Maverick ‘s $152 million budget.

That would be likely to create logistical nightmares for the insurance of the film. That’s not even to mention insuring Cruise himself, who, though already a certified pilot, may not have the specific training required to fly the F-18 safely. Insurance woes aside, should an inexperienced pilot such as Cruise lose control of a high-speed aircraft, it could also mean peril for civilians and/or military personnel on the ground.

Besides, while Tom Cruise does his own stunts to great effect, the real Navy pilots in Top Gun: Maverick ‘s brought more than enough authenticity to the sequel.

Has Tom Cruise ever flown an F-14?

Tom Cruise Says Becoming A Pilot in Top Gun: Maverick Was ‘Dream Come True’ and ‘Life Changing’ Hollywood actor ‘s latest movie Top Gun – Marverick premiered at the prestigious 2022 ahead of its release worldwide. The film has Tom Cruise reprising his role of Captain Pete Mitchell after over 30 years since he took our collective breath away in Tony Scott’s Top Gun. Indiatimes The 59-year-old actor has finally opened up about how he felt playing the Navy pilot in the film, which is slated to release on May 27 worldwide. According to reports, Tom Cruise has expressed that landing the role of Navy pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in ‘Top Gun’ was nothing less than “life-changing.”

“All I ever wanted to be was a pilot or an actor, so ‘Top Gun’ was a huge moment in so many respects, including my passion for aviation,” the Hollywood star was quoted as saying to HELLO magazine, as per media reports. Gushing that it was a life-changing opportunity, the actor further revealed that this time he got to actually fly in an F-14 jet. AFP

“I got to actually fly in an F-14 jet which was a dream come true, and play a character I loved in Maverick,” the three-time Oscar nominee said. In the latest installmemt of the blockbuster film series, Tom Cruise performed more plane stunts than ever in his life. AFP

Can a Rio fly a Tomcat?

Did the F-14 Tomcat Have Flight Controls in the Rear Cockpit? This has to be one of the most common questions heard by former F-14 Radar Intercept Officers (RIOs). RIOs were the back-seaters who operated the F-14’s weapon system, were responsible for communication and navigation, and performed other aircrew duties.

During a radar intercept the RIO directed the pilot, so he was “verbally flying” the aircraft.
The short answer is: no, the F-14 had no flight controls in the RIO cockpit.
In many photos of the rear cockpit you can see a “stick,” but it controlled several radar functions.
Another stick on the left side panel in later Tomcats controlled the LANTIRN precision targeting and laser illuminator pod.

The Navy traditionally does not install flight controls in the rear cockpit of two-seat fighters. The fighter that preceded the Tomcat, the F-4 Phantom, didn’t have flight controls in the rear cockpit and neither does the Tomcat’s replacement, the F/A-18F Super Hornet.

In contrast, the US Air Force does have flight controls in its two-seat strike fighter, the F-15E Eagle.
But Navy leaders decided that the extra weight and maintenance did not warrant flight controls for RIOs.
People often follow-up with, “What if the pilot is incapacitated?” The F-14 was in active service from 1974 to 2006, 32 years, and I believe there was only one incident where a pilot was incapacitated that resulted in loss of the aircraft.

That happened in 1997, and the pilot was lost at sea. Virtually all RIOs had some experience actually flying an aircraft when they were in the Training Command, flying dual-control trainers. Instructor pilots usually gave the student some stick time, so we know it’s fun.

—-
Author Dave “Bio” Baranek thanks Dave “HeyJoe” Parsons, another former F-14 RIO who is well-versed in Tomcat history and a published author, as well as Bill Barto, former Assistant Historian, Grumman History Center, for their assistance with this article.
Re: The News report on the 1997 mishap mentioned above.
The short version is:

Pilot and RIO flying a routine training flight off Virginia Beach with at least one other F-14. The airplane started to drift out of formation. After a few seconds the RIO asked the pilot on ICS: “Where are you going?” He got no reply. He said, “Are you okay?” No reply.

They descended toward the ocean and after repeated attempts to contact his pilot, the RIO punched them out.
The pilot had automatic flotation and automatic release from parachute when he hit the water.
Sadly, his body slipped out of his harness and was never recovered.
The RIO was rescued with no injuries.

For the full story, you can check out this article online:

Why was the F-14 retired but not the F 15?

The F-14 Tomcat was anything but junk – An F-14D aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt completes the final catapult launch of an F-14, July 28, 2006. US Navy/MCS3 Nathan Laird If you started reading this article with a special place in your heart reserved for the F-14, you may be grinding your teeth by now — but it’s important to remember that being expensive and problematic doesn’t mean the Tomcat wasn’t also a mind-boggling performer with no real peer in its era.

Again, it pays to draw comparisons between Maverick’s fighter and the modern F-35.
Today, you don’t have to go far to find people calling the F-35 a failure because of cost over-runs, production delays, and some early reports of the fighter’s poor performance against older jets.
The people you won’t find calling the F-35 a failure, however, are the men and women who fly the 5th-generation powerhouse in combat.

The F-35 is just too different to grade using the same metrics we use for fighters like the F-15. It relies on technology, not brute force, to win fights — and effective as that approach may be, it doesn’t make for exciting press releases. The F-14 Tomcat also had a troubled development run and sometimes got beat up by America’s other fighters in wargames, but like the F-35 it was built to do things no other fighter was capable of doing at the time.

When the F-14 first took to the skies, it was bigger, heavier, and could carry more ordnance than any carrier fighter in history.
It could track and engage enemy bombers from triple-digit ranges in a time when many national Air Forces were still focused on guns and cannons for air-to-air fighting.
Through subsequent upgrades, it was on the cutting edge of avionic systems and eventually even picked up respectable air-to-ground capabilities like its multi-role peers.

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But reaching so far ahead is expensive and ultimately, it’s dollars and cents that dictate the makeup of America’s fighter fleets. Could the F-14 have been modernized, upgraded, and improved to still be flying today? Of course it could. But like the bringing the F-22 Raptor back from the dead sometimes it would cost more to keep a really good older fighter than it would cost to design and build a great new one.

What are the duties of a Rio?

Rail Incident Officer: normally a Network Rail employee who takes control at the scene of a rail incident or accident. Works with Incident Officers from emergency services to co-ordinate the tasks at the scene. +21

What is the role of a Rio?

The release date for Top Gun: Maverick may have been delayed to next summer, but to whet readers’ appetite for tales of dogfighting, Berenice Healey spoke to former F-14 radar intercept officer and Topgun training programme instructor Dave ‘Bio’ Baranek,

Dave ‘Bio’ Baranek flew the flying aerial sequences in the original 1985 Top Gun film and served as dialogue advisor. His role as radar intercept officer (RIO) – the air flight officer involved in air operations and weapons systems – in the F-14 Tomcat was the same as that of Goose in in the film. In current aircraft, that role is now known as a weapons systems operator (WSO, pronounced wizzo).

Baranek’s third book, Tomcat Rio: A Topgun Instructor on the F-14 Tomcat and the Heroic Naval Aviators Who Flew It, offers an unparalleled insight into the experience of flying in an F-14 in war and peace. The chapters spanning his career are interspersed with ‘intel briefs’, nuggets of insider information. // Image: Hours of boring patrols, a camera, and a little imagination led to this selfie Baranek took in 1989. He rigged a small tripod on top of his instrument panel and a remote release to capture the image, which has been used in many humorous memes on the Internet.

Credit (all images): Dave Baranek. My earlier books were a little bit more objective, but I wrote this one for the F-14 audience – there are a lot of fans out there. Every aviator likes their plane; I was an F-14 guy. There’s a small percentage who hate what they’re assigned to, and that’s too bad. The Tornado guys love the Tornado; I don’t want to offend you, but the F-14 can outperform it in almost any arena.

Like the F-35, the Tomcat was a multi-mission airplane. Some people claim the Tomcat was designed as an interceptor and I hate when people say that; it was a multirole fighter. It was designed with all the lessons from Vietnam that they could fit into it, and the main lessons were visibility, manoeuvrability and the gun.

The F-14 I flew was the F-14A which was the original version. The biggest flaw was it had what were planned as temporary engines – TF30 engines – which was to do with navy funding, so the airplane was underpowered. Another was that even though the radar had a lot of power and range and was very good for the time, the navy convinced Congress that it wasn’t going to be very expensive and so they had to make a lot of compromises on it.

The radar was designed in the 1960s and it was going to be on the navy version of that F-111 which was very old. When the navy came out with the F-14, they said, to save money, you will reuse these components. Well, they got what they paid for. Fifteen or 20 years later when the F-14D came out, it had big engines and digital radar and a lot of other things. // Image: In one of Baranek’s squadrons, the pilots and RIOs used watercolour paint to camouflage their gloss grey F-14s in preparation for exercises. Later the navy would adopt low-reflectivity paint. This photo was taken over Southern California in 1988.

One of the points I make in my book is the value of training, not only ‘school house’ training as in formal training programmes, but also in squadron training and the experience of flying a reasonable amount because I saw the value of that in my own performance. When I came back to a squadron in 1996 after six years away, the level of professionalism was higher than I remembered and the level of performance in the airplane was better.

And I have to credit the navy’s establishment of the Strike Fighter Weapons and Tactics programme. The thing that helped me was that I tried to be good. When I was out there flying over the Indian Ocean on a boring patrol or training flight, I was always playing with dials to adjust the radar, seeing what they would do and going to the limits, because I had a lot of time to kill.

Not only that, but I’d ask the more senior RIOS in the squadron how did you get to be so good, and I would try to emulate them.
I had the opportunity to go to the Topgun school as a fairly junior Lieutenant.
And that was very valuable training and experience.
When I went back as a Topgun instructor, the workload was incredibly hard.

Last year, we went to the Topgun 50th anniversary reunion and the new instructors told us the workload’s very hard, but that’s what it takes to maintain the level of expertise that Topguns are known for anyway. // Image: In the 1990s the F-14 added air-to-ground capability to its mission set. This photo shows a Tomcat with the LANTIRN precision targeting pod (right wing station) and two cluster bombs (belly) during Operation Southern Watch over Iraq in 1997.

I was flying with Hooter ; he and I had both happened to have seen this article in the naval aviation safety magazine, which is called Approach.
It had this interesting graph showing how the mishap rate went down and down as your experience increases, and then it climbed and then it went down again.
They said it was down to complacency; people become comfortable and confident and they start to relax about some of the basics.

Hooter spotted that in our performance in just two flights over two days, and when he said that it got both of our attention and probably saved us from more mistakes. My first deployment was on the Constellation, that’s in the previous book and my second deployment was on Ranger.

In this book, I did two deployments on Ranger and one on Nimitz; my five deployments were Constellation, Ranger, Ranger, Ranger, Nimitz. quite different. Part of it is mental; when you are training as a pilot or RIO you do hundreds and hundreds of ‘carrier’ landings at a base. There’s a small rectangle painted on the airfield; you can see them if you call up an airfield on Google Earth.

There’s an landing signal officer standing by the runway and he’s grading every one of those passes for the carrier learning practice. So you’ve done hundreds of them; it’s the same lens on the side of the runway, it’s the same size painted on the runway, but you have your peripheral vision. // Image: Baranek makes a point to put the flying in context, with stories and photos such as this one showing a ‘steel beach picnic’ on the USS Ranger in the Indian Ocean in 1989. It was chance to give the crew a break after intense operations. You felt like you’re ready, you’re excited to go over there.

At that time in the 1980s we were not being shot at. We figured if we would go into combat everyone would have been nervous. It didn’t seem likely, but I felt like we were ready; we planned for it and we all said I’ll survive, because it was not imminent. Years later when I went back and I did Southern Watch we were flying over hostile Iraq.

Even though they weren’t shooting at us, there was a bit more tension because there had already been the first Gulf War so we knew you know there could be a shooting war here. You have confidence in your systems and your mates. I’d say go for it. I think back to myself and I had difficult times especially along the way to college graduation, commissioning and all that where I could have given up and said oh I flunked out or I didn’t make it or it looked like it was going to be hard.

But I stuck with it and I got through it. I understand it’s not for everybody, but if somebody wants to do this, I would say they should make the effort. Second, I knew plenty of people who said, “If I can’t be a pilot. I don’t want to be in the plane”. That’s fine, that’s their opinion. But for me, there was no chance of me being a fighter pilot so I was very happy to be a RIO because it got me in this incredible fighter and the more I learned about it, the more I thought, wow, this is really cool.

There are WSOs and in one of the Navy Carrier Wing Compositions, one of the four squadrons is F-18Fs, so there are still some seats for WSOs in fighters and of course the Growler jammer airplane. There are still some airborne seats for non-pilots and those are great jobs and it’s a great mission and a great life. // Image: Baranek captured the F-14’s impressive afterburners in this image he took one evening in 1989 over the South China Sea, off Vietnam. He likes the grain in the photo because it indicates the fast film he had to use.

What does a Rio officer do?

Radar Radio detection and ranging. A system for detecting the presence, direction, distance, and speed of electromagnetically-significant objects. Intercept Officer. An NFO Naval Flight Officer. A US Navy commissioned officer assigned to non-pilot-in-control aerial duties such as weapons control, radar intercept, or electronic countermeasures.

Can a Rio fly the plane?

During a radar intercept the RIO directed the pilot, so he was “verbally flying” the aircraft.
The short answer is: no, the F-14 had no flight controls in the RIO cockpit.
In many photos of the rear cockpit you can see a “stick,” but it controlled several radar functions.
Another stick on the left side panel in later Tomcats controlled the LANTIRN precision targeting and laser illuminator pod.

In contrast, the US Air Force does have flight controls in its two-seat strike fighter, the F-15E Eagle.
But Navy leaders decided that the extra weight and maintenance did not warrant flight controls for RIOs.
People often follow-up with, “What if the pilot is incapacitated?” The F-14 was in active service from 1974 to 2006, 32 years, and I believe there was only one incident where a pilot was incapacitated that resulted in loss of the aircraft.

—-
Author Dave “Bio” Baranek thanks Dave “HeyJoe” Parsons, another former F-14 RIO who is well-versed in Tomcat history and a published author, as well as Bill Barto, former Assistant Historian, Grumman History Center, for their assistance with this article.
Re: The News report on the 1997 mishap mentioned above.
The short version is:

They descended toward the ocean and after repeated attempts to contact his pilot, the RIO punched them out. The pilot had automatic flotation and automatic release from parachute when he hit the water. Sadly, his body slipped out of his harness and was never recovered. The RIO was rescued with no injuries.

For the full story, you can check out this article online: