page_title: United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program
section_title: Fighter Weapons School
hierarchical_section_title: United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program / History / Fighter Weapons School
caption_attribution_description: English: Two U.S. Navy/U.S. Marine Corps General Dynamics F-16N Viper and two Douglas A-4F Skyhawk of the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School ("Top Gun") flying over Lower Otay Reservoir, Chula Vista, California (USA).
context_page_description: The United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, more popularly known as TOPGUN, teaches fighter and strike tactics and techniques to selected naval aviators and naval flight officers, who return to their operating units as surrogate instructors. It began as the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, established on 3 March 1969, at the former Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego, California. In 1996, the school was merged into the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada.
context_section_description: The United States Navy Fighter Weapons School was established on 3 March 1969, at Naval Air Station Miramar, California. Placed under the control of the VF-121 "Pacemakers," an F-4 Phantom–equipped Replacement Air Group (RAG) unit, the new school received relatively scant funding and resources. Its staff consisted of eight F-4 Phantom II instructors from VF-121 and one intelligence officer hand-picked by the school's first officer-in-charge, Lieutenant Commander Dan A. Pedersen, USN.  Together, F-4 aviators Darrell Gary, Mel Holmes, Jim Laing, John Nash, Jim Ruliffson, Jerry Sawatzky, J. C. Smith, Steve Smith, as well as Wayne Hildebrand, a naval intelligence officer, built the Naval Fighter Weapons School syllabus from scratch. To support their operations, they borrowed aircraft from its parent unit and other Miramar-based units, such as composite squadron VC-7 and Fighter Squadron ONE TWO SIX VF-126. The school's first headquarters at Miramar was in a stolen modular trailer.
  According to the 1973 command history of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, the unit's purpose was to "train fighter air crews at the graduate level in all aspects of fighter weapons systems including tactics, techniques, procedures and doctrine. It serves to build a nucleus of eminently knowledgeable fighter crews to construct, guide, and enhance weapons training cycles and subsequent aircrew performance. This select group acts as the F-4 community’s most operationally orientated weapons specialists. TOPGUN’s efforts are dedicated to the Navy’s professional fighter crews, past, present and future.” 
  Highly qualified instructors were an essential element of TOPGUN's success. Mediocre instructors are unable to hold the attention of talented students. TOPGUN instructors were knowledgeable fighter tacticians assigned to one or more specific fields of expertise, such as a particular weapon, threat, or tactic. Every instructor was required to become an expert in effective training techniques. All lectures were given without notes after being screened by a notorious "murder board" of evaluators who would point out ambiguities or flawed concepts in the draft presentation. The curriculum was in a constant state of flux based upon class critiques and integration of developing tactics to use new systems to combat emerging threats. Instructors often spent their first year on the staff learning to be an effective part of the training environment.
  Its objective was to develop, refine, and teach aerial dogfight tactics and techniques to certain fleet air crews, using the concept of dissimilar air combat training, or DACT, which uses stand-in aircraft to realistically replicate expected enemy aircraft and is widely used in air arms the world over. At that time, the predominant enemy aircraft were the Russian-built transonic MiG-17 "Fresco" and the supersonic MiG-21 "Fishbed".
  TOPGUN initially operated the A-4 Skyhawk and borrowed USAF T-38 Talons to simulate the flying characteristics of the MiG-17 and MiG-21, respectively. The school also used Marine-crewed A-6 Intruders and USAF F-106 aircraft when available. Later adversary aircraft included the IAI Kfir and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon; and the T-38 was replaced by the F-5E and F-5F Tiger II.
  In addition to maneuvering skill, knowledge of weapons systems was recognized as important. Weapons system knowledge was determined as a common thread among the 4 percent of World War II pilots who accounted for 40 percent of the enemy aircraft destroyed. The complexity of modern weapons systems requires careful study to achieve design potential.
  One British writer claimed that the early school was influenced by a group of a dozen flying instructors from the British Fleet Air Arm who were assigned to Miramar as exchange pilots and served as instructors in VF-121. A British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, declared in a 2009 headline, "American Top Gun Fighter Pilot Academy Set Up by British." However, the British naval pilots mentioned in the article confirmed that the claim was false and that they had no role in c
caption: TOPGUN F-16 and A-4 aircraft in formation over Lower Otay Reservoir
exif: {}