Posted by jamesgibbon on
URL: https://www.shado-forum.com/Ship-in-DESTRUCTION-tp1501486p1501509.html

[hidden email] wrote:
> The F4 US fighter being used for a MIG was only because they
> couldn't get a MIG. It was the cold war and I can't see John
> Sturges calling up the USSR and asking for the loan of a MIG. The
> F4 are what they used I believe during Top Gun train to simular
> MIGs.

The only reason the F4 ('Phantom') was used is because it was
available stock footage of an aircraft doing a pickup from a cable.
It wasn't filmed especially for the film.

In any case, if they DID want to shoot the scene especially for the
movie, there were a few MiGs 'in captivity' in the West that could
conceivably have been used. Or they could have worked round it, or
a model could have been used - lots of possibilities, but using
stock footage of an F4 was just about the worst possible option in
my opinion.

.. then Griff wrote:

> Maybe... but if they'd used an F86, not many people would have
> noticed then... even some US batteries and even fighters 'took
> out' F86's thinking they were MIG15's. In the end they had to have
> special marking... all this eventually went away with reliable and
> encoded FOF systems...

I don't think it HAS gone away yet, sadly.