TOPGUN DAYS, Back When Miramar Was Fighter Heaven

Topgun Days

By Dave ‘Bio’ Baranek
$24.95, 320 pp
Skyhorse Publishing

I told the publishers, who sent me an advanced copy of Dave’s book, that I would be compelled to tell the truth, if for no other reason than to see what it feels like.

And the truth is, while this is an engaging, interesting, if somewhat sanitized recounting of his days flying at Topgun back in the mid-80s, it’s somewhat misleading.

You’d never know that from the cover - “Dogfighting, cheating death and Hollywood glory as one of America’s best fighter jocks” - nor the biography on the back. To hear their copywriter tell it, Dave was a Sierra Hotel fighter pilot who was so good they recruited him to be an instructor after he graduated from TOPGUN, used him to fly hot scenes in the movie of the same name and sent him to the movie premier in a limo. Not exactly.

But Dave wasn’t a pilot, he was a radar intercept operator, a RIO, an NFO (non-flying object), a backseater. A fighter jock (short for jockey) is the driver.

A RIO sits in the back, looks at a little screen and watches the pilot’s six o’clock. He also has to learn maneuvers, situational awareness, enemy tactics and capabilities and even run the radio. (Granted, there was one line on the back that admitted he graduated as a Naval Flight Officer.)

For the sake of simplicity, I call him Dave because I knew him. When the movie TOP  GUN came out, I was invited to the premier in San Diego with the topgun Squadron (it’s one word, not two) and their Adversaries, the guys who fought them in blue “bags” (flight suits) in F-5s and A-4s.

Afterwards, my small son and I were invited to the squadron by F-14 pilot/instructor Dennis “Loner” Broska and I interviewed both he and Dave, which he kindly mentions twice in the book, (he thought it was 30 minutes but it was more like two hours). Dennis flew Tom Cruise on his first flight (in which Cruise got sick but overcame it to become a hot pilot and P-51 owner).

Loner also flew many of the sorties used in the movie. He had dinner at my house twice and we spent hours talking about tactics and the real story of TOPGUN, which had very little to do with the movie. Dave’s book is that way.

There’s no TOPGUN trophy, no buzzing the tower more than once (if you do, it’s civilian time) and a lot of study, study, study, practice, practice, practice. There’s endless briefings, debriefings and dogfights (at least there was then, before they moved to Fallon, Nev. to become “strike fighters”) between one plane vs. one plane (1v1), one versus two (1v2) and one, two or more against an unknown number.

In Dave’s book, he goes through the specifics of what it was like to be in a Tomcat squadron at sea and the thrill of being selected for training at Miramar. But he’s also honest about it, never claiming to have hung out with the stars of the film except to shake hands, the limo was hired by the pilots not the studio, and he’s not even sure that that’s him in the back of a black F-5E that’s supposed to be a “MiG-28.”

Unlike Randy Arrington’s tell-all about A-7 pilots, “Kereosene Cowboys,” in Dave’s book there’s no profanity, no porn flicks, no X-rated follies aboard ship and everyone’s a great guy and a great pilot or RIO. He asked to be an instructor at TOPGUN, he wasn’t recruited, and, contrary to what’s written in the public relations puffery, he had little to do with the film, except chat with his pilot while watching some dailies so the writers would know how they really talk (the writers had to make up a bunch of stuff because most of the talk is very brief, almost in code).

He flew in the back of two-seat F-5Es during filming, wearing a black flight suit, but the flying, he says, was relatively benign so Clay Lacy’s Learjet could capture it, and to save fuel. Hard to imagine that was 25 years ago and but Loner is still around (a subscriber even) and Dave’s working in Washington as a “defense contractor.”

When I suggested that this book had been screened by the Navy, my wife said it was probably a memoir for his children and grandchildren. For me, it was like going back in time, when Miramar was fighter pilot heaven and F-14s circled endlessly in the pattern, when I could come and go on the base and hang out with the best of the best.

And then I got to sit in a movie theater that was 95% Naval Aviation (the rest Hollywood types) and hear that wonderful opening song “Danger Zone!” with the guys who actually did it. There was cheering when familiar faces were recognized in the background, cheering when Maverick beat his instructor in the movie, and cheering when he buzzed the tower.

It was probably the best night of my life and Dave brought all that back. Thanks, Dave. You did good.
- Wayman Dunlap, Editor