
Top Gun Maverick flight scenes filmed in the North Cascades
I won’t forget the date: Saturday, June 4th, 2022.
This was the day my family walked into Wenatchee’s Gateway Cinema to watch “Top Gun Maverick” on the big screen, the second weekend of its release. The hype and anticipation were getting out of control as every person I spoke with said MAVERICK was “incredible,” “worth the hype,” and “oh, you gotta see it on the big screen!”
My family took time to pay a small fee to stream the original TOP GUN on Amazon Prime. This helped remind me and my wife of the back story and helped my son finally see it.
I knew MAVERICK was gonna be a nostalgic tale of Maverick, Rooster (the son of Goose), and Penny Benjamin…Maverick’s old flame is mentioned in the original by Goose’s wife, Meg Ryan, as “The Admiral’s daughter.”
If you read my bio, After graduating high school in 1986, I was a Navy ROTC Midshipman for my first two years at the University of Washington. I aimed to graduate and qualify for flight school in Pensacola, Florida. After my sophomore year, I took an eye exam at NAS Whidbey (Oak Harbor), and my right eye tested at 20/30.
This meant I was no longer eligible to fly jets for the Navy.
My love of Naval aviation has stayed with me through today. Seeing the TOP GUN sequel was something I’ve anticipated since first reading about it in the late 10s. I was also excited to see it after hearing that some of it was filmed here in Washington State, as I’ll mention later.
Finally, seeing TOP GUN MAVERICK in the theater was emotional for me. I watched it with my hoodie wrapped around my face. I did this to cover my yells and some tears. The highly anticipated film WAS worth the wait.
A month later, my 11-year-old son went to Summer Camp at Tall Timbers Ranch, just North of Lake Wenatchee. One of the camp employees told me that TOP GUN MAVERICK film crews, in 2019, had set up shop at the campgrounds to capture some flight scenes of jets zooming low and fast over the campground. More Tall Timbers camp counselors raved to me about seeing “TOP GUN SIGHTINGS” daily.
Then it happened.
My wife and I were driving back up to Lake Wenatchee to pick up our son from camp…we were less than a mile from Tall Timbers when I heard an extremely loud STREAK rumbling the area around us. My brain made me believe it was a bulldozer or heavy machinery in the area. In less than an actual second after hearing the sound, a fast-moving shadow streaked in front of our car. The shadow was from an EA-18 Growler, zipping along - just above the treetops.
When I arrived at camp, I found my son, hugged him, and asked how his week was. Then I wondered:
“DID YOU SEE THE NAVY JET?”
“YES! YES, I DID! IT WAS THE LOWEST PASS OF THE WEEK!”
“How many times did you see those Navy Jets?”
“About 14 times, sometimes they flew by in pairs, sometimes all by themselves.”
“Wow”
The Navy jets that my son saw were from NAS (Naval Air Station) Whidbey Island. They use the Northern Cascade mountains as a great training area to prepare themselves for low-level flying missions worldwide. An electronics-jamming aircraft aims to get in low and fast, then pour an incredible amount of electronic fuzz to jam any radar and communication systems that may threaten the attacking aircraft flying in behind the Growlers. Part of the EA-18 Growler’s role as described by Boeing engineers: “The INCANS system (that) will allow the EA-18G to conduct voice communications over ultra-high radio frequencies with friendly forces, while simultaneously jamming enemy communications” (circa 2005, from Boeing.com)
photo credit: Connor
The mountains above Tall Timbers Ranch pictured above (from a pic I took while helping at a wedding in late May) were used as the setting for the 3rd act of Top Gun Maverick when <<<< SPOILER ALERT>>>> Maverick and his crew of fellow Navy flyers were flying in low and fast into enemy territory.
My son told me the jets would fly in from right to left and around the left ridge in the picture. I wish I could have seen this in real-time. By the way, If you haven’t seen Top Gun Maverick yet in theaters, you need to see it on the big screen. It was amazing.