Top Gun is a 1986 American action drama film directed by Tony Scott, and produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. The movie was inspired by the article “Top Guns” (U.S. navy established an elite school for one percent of its pilots it purpose was to teach the lost art of aerial combat, also known as flight weapon school) written by Ehud Yonay for California magazine. The film starts stars such as Tom Cruise as a young naval aviator named Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell; Anthony Edwards aka “Goose” as a Radar Intercept Officer, and Maverick best friend; Kelly McGillis as “Charley” as a civilian instructor in air combat and a lover of Maverick, and others. The movie Top Gun centers around Maverick (Tom Cruise), a hot-headed, troubled, egoist fighter pilot/navy pilot, and how he grows up as a man/person and as a better pilot with the help and influences from his past and his colleagues. In this paper I will be examining the theory or studies given by Dr. Frank Dully, and relating it to the characters of the movie by identifying their personality traits of naval aviator described in the Dully Article “The Life Style Keys to Flight Deck Performance of the Naval Aviator.”
As mentioned above, this movie portrait around the character Maverick. Who is a very skilled, smart, charming, and one of the best fighter pilots in the nation; but he also is cocky, hot-headed, aggressive, very controlling, emotional, mission-oriented naval aviator who characteristics changes throughout the movie. In the beginning of the film Maverick and his partner Goose are involved in a reconnaissance mission. While maneuvering Maverick and his partner Goose made a contact to enemy aircraft. With his skills and boldness he maneuvered to trail the enemies’ aircraft; while breaking all the rules of flying such as flying under 10000 altitudes, high-speed passes over 5 air controlled tower, uses the illegal breaking maneuver to outsmart the enemy,