HAS ‘COBRA’ LOST ITS AMMO?
“Top Gun” also is drawing at Navy recruitment offices: Navy spokesman Bill Bartkus tells us that the number of local applicants and inquiries about the Navy’s fighter pilot program has soared since “Gun” opened on Armed Forces Day (May 16). Some flyboy leads came from recruitment tables set up in the lobbies of L.A. and Orange County theaters showing “Gun,” Bartkus said.
But Bartkus said that prospective MIG-busters must pass a rigid physical and mental screening process, followed by two years of officer and flight training school and four years of non-combat flying. Only the top 1% of aviators make it to the Top Gun school for fighter pilots at San Diego’s Miramar Naval Air Station.
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