top Gun

Tom Cruise plays Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a young United States Navy F-14 Tomcat pilot aboard the USS Enterprise. Maverick is the son of Duke Mitchell, a fighter pilot shot down during the Vietnam War and listed as missing in action with all details classified, a mystery that haunts Maverick. Former Top Gun instructor pilot (and later Member of Congress) Randy "Duke" Cunningham claimed to have been the inspiration for Duke Mitchell, although the movie's producer denied this, saying that the character was not based on any specific aviator. In any case, Cunningham survived while Mitchell did not, leaving his son Maverick wondering whether his father "screwed up".

The film begins "somewhere in the Indian Ocean" with Maverick and his Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) "Goose" (Anthony Edwards) flying wingman to lead pilot "Cougar" and his RIO "Merlin", en route to intercept an unknown inbound aircraft (a bogey). It turns out to be two hostile Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-28 aircraft; the country is unnamed, though the adversary pilots (masked by flight helmets) are presumably Soviet advisors flying for some country that is presumably equipped with Soviet equipment and having Soviet military advisors, such as South Yemen. Though restrained by rules of engagement against pre-emptive fire, and despite Cougar being outflown and trapped almost immediately, Maverick manages to intimidate both "bandits" into withdrawing by playing "chicken" with them, gaining a missile lock on the first (though he holds his fire) and outflying the second. Though saved, Cougar is thoroughly shaken and does not obey return-to-base orders from an increasingly impatient "Stinger", despite his fighter's dwindling fuel supply. Maverick, also low on fuel, disobeys Stinger's orders and risks his own plane to guide Cougar home.