Top Gun Maverick Reviews

OldRetSWO said:
He went on and on about Iran and real world agreements but strangely enough, the movie that I watched had the scene of action in a snowy area that was clearly NOT the middle east.
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Lots of snowy mountains in Iran.
www.adventureiran.com

Iran's most famous mountains and high peaks

Iran has a long list of high mountains above 4000m in different regions, proper for trekking, mountain biking, and skiing.
www.adventureiran.com www.adventureiran.com
 
CatDog99 said:
Lots of snowy mountains in Iran.
www.adventureiran.com

Iran's most famous mountains and high peaks

Iran has a long list of high mountains above 4000m in different regions, proper for trekking, mountain biking, and skiing.
www.adventureiran.com www.adventureiran.com
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Yes, I'm aware of Iran's mountains but the snowy mountain forest that go right down to the sea are more a feature of areas far from the Middle East. It looked a lot like Northern Norway/Sweden which I saw a number of times on NATO exercises.
 
loyal1912 said:
is it likely that a navy pilot (iceman) could rise to the rank of Admiral?
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Sure - if he had squadron command as an O-5 Commander, was successful in that, was selected for promotion to O-6 Captain, and was then selected for major operational command as an O-6, for something like air wing command (commander of the air group, all the squadrons which deploy on a carrier) or aircraft carrier command, which means he would have had to go to nuke school along the way. If he was successful in that, he’s in play for flag rank.

The pyramid narrows abruptly and drastically at the top. So many superb captains with outstanding performance in command, and the Navy will choose the ones with the skill sets it needs in the next crop of future admirals.

There are admirals in every officer designator community, sometimes not very many, as the number is proportional to community size and admiral roles in the community. For example, the JAG community is relatively small, they are a supporting staff role, and I think at any one time, they might only have 1-2 admirals (that was always my impression). The heavy-hitter 4-star admirals come from the big unrestricted line communities (surface, air, subs, etc.) to command the major operational and fleet commands, joint commands, NATO commands. The 1, 2 and 3 star admirals are sprinkled about.

Finally, many do not realize an unrestricted line officer has their operational specialty which they hone at sea, but also a sub-specialty, often related to their Master’s, in which they develop expertise ashore, for all the skill sets needed to run big Navy. Sub-specialties might be financial management (worked in budget and programming roles ashore), manpower management, training, strategic planning, operations management, requirements analysis, cyber operations, international affairs, Congressional liaison, etc. That’s often critical as the Navy looks ahead and determines what flag officers it needs in its future group of admirals.

As an example, you can see that VADM Stockdale had command of a fighter squadron and an air wing.
en.wikipedia.org

James Stockdale - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
I went to see this yesterday with son #2. I did heed the advice from this thread and went in with the idea that it was for entertainment and not analysis. I kept that to myself, but when we walked in the door after seeing the film, the first thing Mrs. Stealth said to me was “I don’t want to hear about how unrealistic the flight scenes were, but how was the movie?”. I guess she knows me a bit after 37 years?

It was an entertaining movie and I enjoyed it.

Stealth_81
 
loyal1912 said:
is it likely that a navy pilot (iceman) could rise to the rank of Admiral?
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The last two USNA Supes are NFOs who have achieved flag rank — three stars, to be exact. Not pilots but backseaters, which is as impressive, if you ask me.

Harry Harris, another NFO, was CINC of Pacific Command, which carries four stars. We sat a couple rows in front of him at a Navy-AF game several years ago. Was interesting to see how unassuming he was, with minimal entourage, given his lofty and critical post at the time.
 
Love those old salty photos! And the “working fleet casual “ look - ADM Halsey wearing his wings of gold and his 4-star collar device and garrison cap device, plus the Navy officer crest on the cap on the other side. VADM McCain the same, with 3 stars. All you really need to say you’ve arrived. It looks like ADM Halsey is wearing an “I’ve been there” belt buckle, but I can’t make it out.
 
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I think Bull Halsey is still the oldest person to earn his wings in the Navy to this day. He was already a CAPT and in his 50s.
 
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