Top Gun: Maverick

More than 30 years after graduating from the Top Gun training school,[b] United States Navy Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is a decorated test pilot whose insubordination has kept him from flag rank.[c] When Rear Admiral Chester “Hammer” Cain plans to cancel Maverick’s “Darkstar” scramjet-powered hypersonic aircraft program, Maverick manages to reach the final target speed, but the prototype is destroyed when he cannot resist pushing beyond Mach 10. Cain tells Maverick that Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, Maverick’s friend and former Top Gun rival, now commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, has had Maverick assigned to the Top Gun school at NAS North Island, keeping his career alive for now.

The Navy has been ordered to destroy an unsanctioned uranium enrichment plant in an unnamed foreign country before it becomes operational. The plant, located in an underground bunker at the end of a canyon, is defended by surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), GPS jammers, fifth-generation Su-57 fighters, and F-14 Tomcats. With the GPS spoofing making an attack by the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II unfeasible, Maverick devises a plan employing two pairs of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets armed with laser-guided bombs. However, instead of participating in and leading the mission himself, Maverick is ordered to train elite Top Gun graduates who will complete the mission, assembled by Air Boss Vice Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson, who barely tolerates Maverick’s presence in deference to Iceman.