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David Harmer of San Ramon, the Republican nominee to challenge incumbent Democrat Rep. Jerry McNerney this November, has been named one of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns” – the top of the NRCC’s campaign recruitment and training program.

UAE’s top guns spread their wings Hassan Hassan Last Updated: June 23. 2010 9:48P ABU DHABI // The Emirati fighter jets locate their target, lock on, drop their payloads and wait for the blast, which doesn’t come. The dramatic scene is not from actual combat, but from a new documentary called Desert Falcons that follows 140 fighter pilots and maintenance staff during two weeks of aerial combat games called Red Flag held in Nevada last year. While there is no pouting Tom Cruise playing Maverick, the film, which premiered to hundreds of military men in the auditorium of the Emirates...

The U.S. Navy has refurbished a surplus U.S. Air Force National Guard F-16 flight simulator to help keep its F-16 pilots in shape for using F-16s to train navy pilots (in F-18s) how to best deal with Chinese, and other potential enemy, pilots. The navy uses F-16s because these aircraft are best able to replicate the performance of likely high end enemy fighters. That's because Russia and China have used the F-16 as the model for most of their latest fighters (the Russian MiG-29 and Chinese J-10). The navy bought 26 of a special model (F-16N) of the aircraft in...

A FIGHTER pilot who appeared in the 1986 hit movie Top Gun has been appointed as the highest-ranking US military commander in Asia and the Pacific. Admiral Robert F Willard took control of the US Pacific Command after a ceremony in Hawaii yesterday. Defence Secretary Robert Gates presided over the proceedings during a stop en route to meetings in Japan and South Korea. Willard succeeds Admiral Timothy Keating, who is retiring. The F-14 fighter pilot spent the last two years heading the US Pacific Fleet. During that time, Willard outlined a new US maritime strategy at the Australian Navy Sea...

Kelly McGillis, best known for playing teacher to Tom Cruise in "Top Gun," has confirmed long-held rumors that she's a lesbian, according to an interview on the website shewired. "I'm done with the man thing," says McGillis, 51, who is twice married and twice divorced and has two teenage daughters. "I did that, I need to move on in life. It's a part of being true to yourself. That's been a challenge for me." The Daily Mail says McGillis' sexual orientation was Hollywood's worst-kept secret. (Funny, we thought the worst-kept secret was that Jodie Foster was gay. Or John Travolta....

In the movie Top Gun, the F-14 is (presumably) in a flat spin and Goose ejects into the canopy. I need some professional opinions on the possibility of that happening.My experience with the F-16 is that the canopy ballistics make the canopy long gone prior to seat firing at any point in the envelope. Normally the aerodynamics would strip the canopy away in forward flight in any ejection. But, in a flat spin, did the F-14 aerodynamics create an environment where the canopy could remain over the plane/crew resulting in a crew strike?

American Top Gun fighter pilot academy set up by British The American Top Gun fighter pilot academy was inspired by the Royal Navy elite flying instructors, a new book has revealed. By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent Despite the all-American hero imagery of the film starring Tom Cruise, the US Navy's expertise was in large part due to their instruction by aviators from the Fleet Air Arm. When British pilots arrived at Miramar airbase in California in the early 1960s the Americans were losing a large number of dogfights in their multi-million Phantom fighters to the enemy's relatively "cheap" MiG 21s....

Exclusive   Top Gun vs. UFO   Locked on ... Sabre jet had UFO in sights  By JOHN COLES Published: Today       A FORMER Top Gun told yesterday how he was ordered to shoot down a massive UFO — over NORWICH. RAF controllers told US pilot Milton Torres to “lock on” and launch all 24 of his rockets over the city.   Tale ... Milton Torres as a young man, and today  But as he came within seconds of firing at the alien intruder — “the size of an aircraft carrier” on his radar — it vanished...

"Pfc. Benjamin Ulery, medic and native of Jay, Maine, with 3rd" RADWANIYAH — Baghdad is like any big city. Throughout the day the streets are busy, vendors sell their products to passing Iraqis and traffic can be a nightmare. It seems homes are one on top of the other, with what seems to be little privacy to the neighboring person. Things are different on the outskirts of Baghdad in Radwaniyah—a very rural area. There is no overhead light—with exception to the gazing moon—traffic doesn’t seem to be a problem, and the nearest neighbor could be quite some distance away...

Bush to nominate acting FAA chief to be administrator * Story Highlights * Robert A. Sturgell is the acting FAA administrator * President Bush to nominate him for promotion to the permanent position * Sturgell is a lawyer and former Topgun Navy fighter pilot WASHINGTON (AP) -- A former Topgun Navy fighter pilot who went on to fly commercial jetliners is being nominated to run the Federal Aviation Administration for the next five years. Now acting FAA administrator, Robert A. Sturgell, 48, who goes by Bobby, will be nominated by President Bush for promotion by Congress to the permanent position....

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - The F-14 Tomcat, the dogfighting Cold War fighter jet immortalized in the movie "Top Gun," made its ceremonial final flight Friday in a display that suggested the timing was right for retirement. Pilot Lt. Cmdr. David Faehnle and radar intercept officer Lt. Cmdr. Robert Gentry gave a final salute from inside their cockpit before aircraft no. 102 taxied down the runway and out of sight at Oceana Naval Air Station. The plane that actually took off as thousands applauded and whistled, however, was aircraft no. 107, with Lt. Cmdr. Chris Richard at the controls and intercept...

NEW YORK -- A man convicted of raping Top Gun actress Kelly McGillis in 1982 went on trial Wednesday for a similar crime against two women years later. Leroy Johnson Jr., 39, is accused of forcing his way into the women's home and attacking them at knifepoint on Nov. 18, 1996. Both were blindfolded and unable to identify their attacker. However, Johnson was arrested and charged after cold-case investigators said DNA tests tied him to the crime. Jurors in the trial in state Supreme Court in Manhattan will not be told of Johnson's conviction for raping McGillis, by law, because...

A former Navy Top Gun with decades of flying experience forgot to put his plane's landing gear down during an air show practice run in Tucson in March, the Federal Aviation Administration found. Retired Capt. Dale "Snort" Snodgrass, a seasoned pro on the military air-show circuit, was piloting a Korean War-era F-86 Sabre that scraped to a stop and caught fire in the March 4 mishap at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Snodgrass, 57, was given counseling as "corrective action," according to the FAA report, obtained by the Arizona Daily Star under the Freedom of Information Act. The pilot was unhurt...

'Top Gun' Jets Retired By U.S. Navy F-14s To Be Replaced By Super Hornets POSTED: 5:52 pm EST March 10, 2006 UPDATED: 7:18 pm EST March 10, 2006 VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- The last two squadrons of the Tomcat -- the sleek, Cold War fighter jet -- returned home from their final deployment Friday, two decades after the warplanes were glamorized in the 1986 Tom Cruise movie "Top Gun." All 22 Tomcats of fighter squadrons VF-213 and VF-31 arrived in style, flying together in a wedge formation over Oceana Naval Air Station as hundreds of sailors and their family and...

OCEANSIDE – The Top Gun House will be a waiting room for a restaurant at the city's premier resort, Mayor Jim Wood told 180 people attending a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored dinner last night. Wood showed a rendering of the 400-room beachfront hotel, proposed by S.D. Malkin Properties of San Diego. City officials decided last year that it would be more effective to save the Top Gun House than to face possible Coastal Commission opposition and a lawsuit if it were not included in the project. Malkin had promised to incorporate the 1887 home, used in the “Top Gun” film starring...

End of an Era, the F-14 tomcat makes its final public appearance. VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (NNS) -- The venerable F-14 Tomcat took a final bow with a boom at its last air show Sept. 16-18 at Naval Air Station Oceana, Va. The classic Northrup Grumman fighter jet that rose to prominence in the 1986 hit film "Top Gun" and has worn U.S. Navy colors since its first test flight in 1970 attracted a legion of fans from around the world at its public goodbye. “It’s basically a bittersweet day for us,” said Lt. Cortney Kinna, an F-14 naval flight officer...

WASHINGTON – When Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham first responded to questions about his dealings with defense contractor Mitchell Wade, he stressed that his position on the House defense appropriations subcommittee did not enable him to secure contracts for Wade's company, MZM Inc. "I do not have the authority or ability to award a contract to Mr. Wade's company and no single member of Congress, no matter how influential, can dictate to the armed services who will be awarded contracts," the Rancho Santa Fe Republican said during a June 23 news conference. While Cunningham's claim is technically correct under the government's...

California Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham has just announced in a press conference that he will not stand for re-election.

FBI Searches Home of California Congressman at Center of Federal ProbeBy Seth Hettena Associated Press Writer Published: Jul 1, 2005 SAN DIEGO (AP) - Federal agents on Friday searched the California home of U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, along with the yacht in Washington, D.C., where he has been living, the FBI said. Agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and the Defense Department's criminal investigative service also searched the Washington offices of a defense firm whose founder bought the congressman's previous home, leading to a federal investigation, said Debra Weierman, a Washington FBI spokeswoman. Cunningham, 63, has said that...

Dec 11, 2004 Air Force Base Re-Enacts Rocket Sled Test 50 Years Ago That Propelled Earth's Fastest Human The Associated Press HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AP) - A rocket-propelled sled blasted down a track to re-enact a test 50 years earlier that helped prove humans could survive the gravitational stresses of spaceflight. On Friday, a mannequin was strapped into the sled instead of Air Force Col. John P. Stapp, who became the fastest man on Earth through the Dec. 10, 1954, test at Holloman Air Force Base. Stapp, who died in 1999, had volunteered to be strapped onto Sonic...