Top gun movie jacket

[HodgePodge]

You're lucky that woman didn't cry "rape" and spray you with Mace.

:confused2:

 

[Edward]

Hi Edward. Well, sorta but not exactly. Career Naval and USMC Aviators usually manage to acquire several issued flight jackets along the way. They often keep one as a uniform jacket upon which their current patches and insignia are attached. Others become "trophy repositories” where patches from their many prior cruises and assignments are attached. You may be thinking of the civilian jackets that are often made in foreign countries and are patched or embroidered to memorialize a specific assignment.

Sometime last winter I was in the grocery store check out line behind a middle-aged woman who was wearing her dad's old "trophy" or "cruise" G-1. It was covered from top to bottom with squadron and cruise patches from the late fifties through the early seventies. Happily, she was aware of the value of the jacket (both sentimental and actual) and she promised me that she would always care for it as if it were one of her children.

AF

Ah, gotcha. Thanks. The marketing bumph for the Cruise (as in Tom) type jackets I've seen will often insist that the USN pilots wear all the patches of everything to which they have been assigned on their uniform jackets, which has never quite rung true to me. Makes perfect sense for them to go on a second jacket, though.

 

[Atticus Finch]

You're lucky that woman didn't cry "rape" and spray you with Mace.

I have to admit...I really liked her jacket, but I didn't try to rip it from her body!

Around here, starting a conversation with someone in the grocery line doesn't usually result in a criminal indictment. The problem usually comes when you try to extract yourself from the conversation before you've killed an hour of your day. Remember the television advertisement where the northern city dweller guy asks the southern visitor guy, "How 'ya doin"?" It is actually kinda like that.

AF

 

[Fifty150]

Ah, North & South. Wasn't that a TV mini series with Patrick Swayze & Kirsty Alley?

What do I know? I live on The Left Coast. I wish they all could be California Girls.

 

[Highlander]

Does anyone know or have any ideas why on the Jacket Pocket Flap they had a Cheif Petty Officer Collar Device Fouled Anchor? Just seemed a bit odd...

 

[Brettafett]

Hi
Anyone out there got a top gun movie heroes jacket, still wearing it .Its 25 years since the film was made. Whats it like, I never actually saw one of them back in the eighties , had cheaper version of the g1 not the right patches on it.
Averex made them now made by the Cockpit,got this urge to get one. Surely their apart of flying jacket history.

The Cockpit Vintage G-1 without patches looks real nice for a day to day wearable G-1... Supposed to be same as the Top Gun version, which has a lighter shaded colour and is slightly less 'distressed'... The patches though..... mmmm no ;-)

 

[AviatorBRZ]

Unfortunately there's no good replica in the market. You'll have to study about it and create your own. Try to find a jacket with a perfect fit and with same design, then buy the good patches and... do it yourself. It's the only way.

I was wondering... AND IF THE MAVERICK'S JACKET, NOT HAD THOSE PATCHES.

 

[Aerojoe]

In the above picture you can guess hand warmers behind the pockets If true, hand warmers and "good replica" don't go well together. :eusa_doh:

 

[ButteMT61]

In the above picture you can guess hand warmers behind the pockets If true, hand warmers and "good replica" don't go well together. :eusa_doh:

For sure on both points.But he also had a patched-up G-1 in the movie. That looks like a promo shot...not that it matters.

 

[Aerojoe]

he also had a patched-up G-1 in the movie. That looks like a promo shot...not that it matters.

I think both are the same jacket :eeek: At least, both, promo jacket and movie jacket, have the patches in the same places.

BTW, since the flying school in the movie existed, it would be possible to find a real top gun pilot jacket.

Flightjacket.com sells two allegedly real "top gun" G1s. One was owned Commander Jim D. "Buggy" Bugart;

and the other one owned by Captain J. J. "Chucki" Smith;

However both have hand warmers again :eeek: :eeek: Maybe those patches are following a real pilot career but the jacket itself must be fictional. Not only because hand warmers but pocket flaps are wrong and zipper is wrong.

 

[AviatorBRZ]

Hi guys. YES IT'S TRUE, the Maverick's G-1 jacket on the movie have hand warmers. I think they maybe used a civilian g-1 in the movie.
About the picture... I've removed the patches with PHOTOSHOP.
here's the orignal picture

Another picture:

 

[ButteMT61]

It was the 80's. My expectations for this sort of thing were and are low. Gear has certainly improved in recent years. That movie defines the 80's well. Cheese.

 

[AviatorBRZ]

In this scene you can clearly see that the side of the pocket have an entry and it's not stitched to the front panel.

The jacket from the movie could had being custom made to fit perfectly in the actor (Tom Cruise), and then distressed to looks aged. Because there's no way to "ADJUST" a G-1 jacket. Or it fits you or it not. And they always adjust clothes for the actors. It's my guess.

Damn you Maverick, trying to fool us

 

[Aerojoe]

I told you Hand warmers are wrong, pocket flaps are wrong, zipper is wrong and I have serious doubts about the collar shape. That blonde color in the mutton collar usually developed as these jackets aged. However there were no original m422s or G1s with hand warmers. So, it must be just a fashion detail [huh]

Some patches on the Top Gun jacket are quite strange. Does a Seebee unit have top gun pilots? A top gun bulldozer would be more accurate. :eusa_doh:

 

[AviatorBRZ]

Actually the jacket used on the movie pretty much looks like an 7823(AER) in terms of design.
The color of the mounton collar and the pocket flaps have the correct design from 50's in the jacket from the movie.
According the movie history, that jacket belong to Maverick's father. In the movie you can see a photo of Maverick young with his dad as a pilot. If the maverick's father have a 10/12 years old son he must had around 35 years old in 1965. So the jacket should be from 50's

They used the correct design in the movie, but they definitely did not used an military-issue jacket.

About the patches, they are a mixture of USN, USMC, and even the Engineering Batallion (SEABEES).
The director of the movie, when he was asked about the incorrect patches by some real naval aviators, aswered...:
"-This movie was not made for naval aviators, this movie was made for general public who doesn't know the difference"

That photos you have posted, they are kind of "repros"

 

[kojax]

i have the g1 cockpit vintage goatskin with out the patches nice looking jacket very easy to wear. what i like about it the collar is small. not a cheap jacket i paid 620.00 last winter.

 

[AviatorBRZ]

I Never grabbed an Cockpit's G-1 Vintage model in my hands, but in pictures the jacket looks pretty nice.

Look what I've found, an mil. spec. MIL-J-7823E(AS), from Orchard M/C Dist. Inc., contract DLA100-86-C-0481.
And it have side entries on the front pockets. [huh]

 

[Aerojoe]

Maybe the owner opened those hand warmers. Other pictures of the "E" version don't show this feature;

I think the last collectible G1 was MIL-J-7823C spec. "E" series don't look very good. This batch appeared in 1971. During the 1970s decade everything looked pretty horrible.

 

[AviatorBRZ]

Yes, maybe he did, because the SPEC-J-7823E(AS) not supposed to have "side" pockets.
You can download here a .pdf file of the 7823E(AS) specification from 1971:
http://www.everyspec.com/MIL-SPECS/MIL-SPECS-MIL-J/MIL-J-7823E_9437/

I agree with you, as everyone says and I've confirmed, the 7823C(WEP) was the last of "the best".
I have an amazing C(WEP) jacket from STAR SPORTSWEAR with japanese coins from 50's and 60's atached to the zipper puller, and it have an so smooth goatskin leather that you feel like you're wearing a coton's sweater.
But you also can find some 7823D(WP) with very good quality too.
However I'll have to disagree about the "horrible" adjective on the "E(AS)".
Depending of who manufactured the jacket, some 7823E(AS) are pretty nice for an every day jacket, but they are not collectible.

I have two "E(AS)" one from Brill Bros(1975) and another from Ralph & Edwards(1977), they are both good quality jackets, very solid an well made. And is considerable easy to find an unused to buy. But obviously can't compare them to the old ones.
I already saw some jackets from the 80's that doesn't look so good. So I prefer to buy between the 40's and the 70's.

 

[armscye]

Filmmakers won't let the truth get in the way of a good story...

It's not surprising that Director Tony Scott would treat uniform details casually-- he has long been noted for an amazing casualness with the truth in his films. Oddly, his brother Ridley Scott is noted in the movie business for meticulous and respectful accuracy, as in Blackhawk Down.

Tony Scott's last movie before his suicide, the breakneck-pace runaway train film "Unstoppable", was described as "based on a true story." In fact the true event in question was a train that never exceeded 51 miles an hour, was carrying a small fraction of the quantity of toxic chemicals described in the film, and was successfully slowed to a trotting pace by the technique that the movie shows as failing. Scott basically doubled the speeds, quadrupled the dangerous payload, and subtracted all of the true-life techniques used to resolve the crisis!

Before that, despite the success of Top Gun, the US Navy actually pulled out of support for Scott's "Crimson Tide" because the plot was so inaccurate regarding key points of nuclear missile firing protocol.