Top Gun

Top Gun is a 1986 film directed by Tony Scott and stars Tom Cruise as Maverick, a hotshot Navy pilot sent to the Naval pilots training facility at Miramar, California.

F-14A Tomcat
The plane flown by Maverick and his carrier unit. It is also flown by the pilots training at Top Gun.

F-5E Tiger II
The Northrop F-5E is an evolutionary improvement over the F-5A Freedom Fighter. Because it is small, fast and agile, American fighter pilots are taught to fly against it in Dissimilar Combat Training, with the F-5 simulating supersonic fighters like the MiG-21. Although the F-5E was used in actual TOPGUN programs, the plane does not appear in that guise in the movie. Instead, using a coat of black latex rubber paint, F-5Es, and their two-seat sibling, the F-5F are presented as "Mig-28s".

A-4 Skyhawk
The Douglas (later McDonnell-Douglas) A-4 Skyhawk is a small, subsonic, strike aircraft that first flew in 1954. Like the F-5, the A-4 has been used in DACT programs, including TOPGUN. Much as the F-5E simulated the MiG-21, the A-4 was a flying analogue of the subsonic MiG-17. In "Top Gun", Skyhawks are flown by Jester and Viper.