Find a fighter pilot who doesn't have a copy of the movie "Top Gun" and you've found a guy who doesn't own a VCR.
First Lt. Terry George has three copies. "I have a copy that my kid gets to watch all the time. I've got a brand new copy that we bought because it was a good deal and we figured the other one's going to wear out sooner or later. And I've got the sacred copy."The "sacred copy" was presented to George by a pilot named Tom Wingo, idealized by George as one of the two top fighter pilots in the world.
George, 31, is the most junior pilot in the 419th Fighter Wing. The junior status has earned George monikers like "Boy George" and "Man Cub." Wingo is a former member of the 419th George looked to as a mentor.
"(Wingo) called me the `little lost puppy dog' because I was always following him around saying `How can I do this? How do you do that? Teach me this. Teach me that. Show me that.' So, he gave me his copy of `Top Gun,' telling me that everything he learned to be a fighter pilot he learned from the movie."
The gift represents a rite of passage. It is also an example of how "Top Gun" has become immortalized as the fighter pilot movie.
Most of the 30 pilots in the 419th were already in the system by the time "Top Gun" was released 10 years ago. George is the squadron's notable exception.
George said his interest in flying dates to an air show his father took him to when he was 4 or 5 years old. "I knew right then that I wanted something to do with flying."
Years passed, and during the summer of 1986 he found himself in line to see "Top Gun" with a girlfriend. "I had waited and waited and waited to see the movie. We got really good seats, and my girlfriend said I just about broke her hand," George said. "At that point, I knew that not only is this what I want to be doing, this is what I'm going to do."
He enlisted in the Air Force that fall and later took a job as a police officer in West Valley City while working his way toward a job in the cockpit. He's now a full-time Air Reserve technician with the wing, orchestrating the training schedule when he's not flying himself.
Even though "Top Gun" didn't ignite his interest in fighters, it cemented and then sustained it. "It's a great movie. It was very well done."
"I watched it in college. That was the film you'd always rent when you felt like you were going to flunk out of college and you were never going to make it as an officer and you were never going to make it to pilot training," he said. "Even in pilot training, it was a motivational film that we'd get together and watch when we were discouraged after the instructor pilots had basically told us we were worthless and couldn't even fly paper airplanes."
Like it or not, civilians curious about his job invariably ask about the movie and whether the Tom Cruise image fits. "I'll run into an old high school buddy and they'll say, `What are you doing?' and I'll say, `I fly F-16s for the Air Force.' And within a couple of minutes they've gotta ask: `Well, is it just like it is on `Top Gun'?"
"Well, `Top Gun' is the most realistic movie that's out there, but it is Hollywood and it is far-fetched," George said.
"Everybody thinks we have that lifestyle, which we don't. A couple of (pilots) drive motorcycles, but I don't think any girls would get too excited watching us play beach volleyball," he said, bursting into a laugh. "They might get blinded by the white skin."
Pilots' criticism of the movie are few - and usually the same: "You don't engage in aerial combat 3 feet away from your partner. You get as far away from him as you can. The last place you want to be is right next to somebody (the enemy) is trying to shoot," George said.
Maj. Mike Brill, the 419th's training officer and the world's most experienced F-16 pilot, added that people notice the pilots are always looking around while they fly. "Do you actually do that?" he is asked. "Your neck is always on a swivel in an airplane. You're hardly ever looking straight out in front. If you are, you're probably getting ready to get shot because somebody's looking for you."
Brill believes fighter pilots are a unique breed. "We enjoy walking the fine line between being in control and losing control," he said. "Push the envelope - you hear that term term a lot in `Top Gun.' "
While "Top Gun" gave fighter pilots an image worthy of the "Recruiting Tool of the Decade" award, the Tailhook scandal paint-ed a shadow around it.
Never mind that the film and Tailhook both played in the Navy's arena; both affect the Air Force. "The Navy and the military as a whole paid a price for the indiscretions of a few," Brill said about Tailhook.
"We are different. Work hard, play hard - it's a philosophy we've always had," Brill said. "For some reason we expect pilots to act and behave like Joe Average Citizen. At the same time they're selected differently, they're trained differently, they're treated differently, and they're the only guys in the Air Force likely to get killed."
Overall, Brill believes the military has a much better reputation than it did during and immediately after the Vietnam War. "I went to the (Air Force) Academy in the '70s, and it was pretty funny walking around with short hair when everybody else had it down to their shoulders. They knew right away what school you went to.
"It's not true today. The military is regarded with a lot more esteem now."