‘Dunked’ and ‘dragged’: Navy cap’t on grueling ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ training
27.05.2022 - 15:39
/ nypost.com
original “Top Gun” movie debuted in 1986, the blockbuster led to a major bump in Navy recruiting — reportedly a whopping 500%.“I don’t know if that figure is accurate but I will tell you that it definitely had an effect on recruiting if only one guy, which is me,” Captain Brian Ferguson, 53, told The Post. “I saw the movie, thought it looked like the most exciting job in the world.
And it is.”After college, Ferguson, whose favorite characters were Maverick and Iceman, joined the Navy and later attended Top Gun’s Adversary Training Course. So it’s only fitting that at the twilight of his military career and after 28 years of being a Navy pilot, he landed the gig of a lifetime: the Navy’s technical advisor on “Top Gun: Maverick,” which hits theaters today.“It’s funny because they didn’t order me to do it, they asked me to do it.
I turned it down several times,” said Ferguson, citing family and work commitments. But eventually the job kept coming back to him and his wife convinced him to take it.
“I was indifferent to the job, which I think was attractive to the Navy because there was no worry that I would be taken with Hollywood.” After all, among Ferguson’s many jobs on set was to ensure the military branch’s values, integrity and interests were represented. He also was in charge of making sure that the equipment wasn’t damaged, the cast and crew were safe and flying scenes were done as authentically as possible.“We were using real airplanes.
It’s dynamic and technical,” said the San Diego resident.In the beginning, Ferguson said he would sit down with the creative team, including Tom Cruise, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Kevin LaRosa II. They’d go over scenes and Ferguson would apply his aviation expertise to make their
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