The F-14 in these photos is aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Taken in San Diego on Feb. 14, 2019, the interesting photos in this post appeared on @Jeremiejca17 Twitter Account and they show an F-14 Tomcat aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier during Top Gun: Maverick production.
As it can be seen the aircraft features fictional markings.
Tom Cruise and the movie crew were aboard the aircraft carrier too.
Besides the F-14 Tomcat, Top Gun: Maverick will likely feature the Navy’s new Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters alongside older Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets.
As we reported in August last year, in fact, a film crew from Paramount Pictures was aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) the same time the Navy began launching F-35C jets off the ship interchangeably with F/A-18E/F Super Hornets as an integrated air wing.
Instead as pointed out by #AW#’s contributor Ryan W. Gilchrist, the F-14 in these photos is aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71).
Noteworthy an F-14 aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is quite a cool sight: the iconic Tomcat in fact was retired from active service in 2006 but the Aviation Geeks all over the world never forgot the last of the Grumman Cats.
The first scenes featuring the legendary F-14 for Top Gun Sequel were filmed in December last year when some photos showing Tom Cruise and Miles Teller on location for ‘Top Gun: Maverick‘ in Lake Tahoe appeared. On that occasion Cruise, Teller and crew gathered inside a hangar to go over the day’s shooting schedule before heading out to start filming.
31-year-old Teller is playing the role of Goose’s son, Bradley Bradshaw who is the protégé to Maverick in the sequel.
According to CVW – US Navy Carrier Air Wing Aircraft 1975-2015 book series Facebook Page, the Tomcat featured in the movie is “F-14A BuNo 159631 (on the charge of the San Diego Air & Space Museum) which was seen ‘road running’ in the Lake Tahoe, California area in a post by the California Highway Patrol, believed en route to a site for use in the filming of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. Well, she’s received markings of a spurious air force and is seen in this post going through rehearsals…just a shame any flying F-14s in the film will be only via CGI.”
According to some Facebook rumors the Tomcat in Top Gun: Maverick will play the role of enemy aircraft.
Last November, the actor had reportedly delayed filming for the hotly-anticipated sequel so that he could master a new skill – piloting fighter jets.
An insider told The Sun: ‘He already has a license to fly planes but isn’t qualified to fly fighter jets, which he’s now learning to do.’
‘He won’t film all the flight sequences — it’s too dangerous — but he will fly some, making him the first actor in cinema history to do so. The producers would prefer not to put their leading man, not to mention their whole film, at risk.’
As we have already explained the movie was assigned a theatrical release date of Jul. 12, 2019, last year, but in September Paramount announced that had delayed the sequel nearly an entire year, assigning it a new release date of Jun. 26, 2020.
Noteworthy as already reported Maverick’s rides for the Top Gun sequel will be a cool special painted F/A-18F Super Hornet (which experienced a mid-air issue while it was flying with Tom Cruise onboard in September) and a new motorcycle that Tom Cruise already drove around the airfield (as he did on a Kawasaki Ninja in 1986 original) as shown in first pictures from Top Gun: Maverick set.
Tom Cruise teased the start of filming on the long-awaited Top Gun sequel on May 31, 2018, with a tweet featuring an image of an older Capt. Pete Mitchell standing in a flight suit with his famous HGU-33 helmet (that wore to fly his F-14A Tomcat) in hand.
Top Gun: Maverick will also see Kenny Loggins re-recording ‘DangerZone’ for the movie as well as Harold Faltermeyer and Hans Zimmer joining forces on the score for the movie.
H/T Christian Nentwig
Photo by @Jeremiejca17 Twitter Account
