“You made a bad choice”: Top Gun’s Viper Teaches ADM
A few days in advance of the sequel to our favorite movie, here’s an argument that despite all its hotdog flying, Top Gun provides a decent lesson in aeronautical decision making….
Everyone remembers the scene: halfway through his 8 weeks at the U.S. Navy’s Fighter Weapons School, hot shot pilot Maverick continues to show off his instinctive aerial combat skills.
After he wins a mock dogfight, the school’s wise, tested Commander Viper critiques Maverick's winning maneuver in the film room: "The bogey has good position right here . . . a moment of choice . . . [you have] a chance to bug out right here. Better to retire and save your aircraft than push a bad position . . . .” With a knowing look, Viper concludes: “You made a bad choice."
Maverick’s civilian instructor (and crush), Charlie, piles on: "The encounter was a success, but I think we've shown it as an example of what not to do."
Has Maverick’s “I feel the need for speed” ego finally been deflated? Maybe. But as the music builds, his colleague Hollywood leans in and whispers in his ear, "Gutsiest move I ever saw, man."
There's no movie scene that singlehandedly captures the critical concept of aeronautical decision making (ADM) quite like it. Sure, in general aviation the bogey is rarely a U.S. Navy Douglas A-4E pretending to be a Russian MiG-28 trying to blow your F-14’s wing off with an air-to-air missile. In general aviation, our bogey's usually weather. But the lessons are the same: (1) err on the side of safety in any risk assessment, (2) successfully negotiating a hazard doesn't mean you were right to launch into it in the first place, and (3) bravado has no place in aviation decision-making.
The FAA sets out the long version of these concepts in Chapter 2 of the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and in its 112-page Risk Management Handbook. Every pilot knows (or at some point knew) the acronyms. Employ the 3 Ps (perceive, process, perform) to: perceive risks with P.A.V.E. (pilot, aircraft, enVironment, external pressures); evaluate the pilot with I’MSAFE (illness, medication, stress, alcohol, fatigue, emotion); process hazards with C.A.R.E (consequences, alternatives, reality, external pressures); and address risks with T.E.A.M. (transfer, eliminate, accept, mitigate). For any choice, D.E.C.I.D.E. (detect, estimate, choose, identify, do and evaluate). Oh, and don’t confuse the 3 Ps with the 5 Ps of single-pilot resource management (plan, plane, pilot, passengers, programming).
All of that alphabet soup might make you sympathize a little with Maverick’s response when he’s asked what he was thinking when he performs a heroic Split S during his mock sortie: “You don’t have time to think up there. If you think, you’re dead.” I’ll leave it to the military pilots — with different training, equipment, objectives, and risk tolerances — to say whether that’s true for military flying. But in general aviation, there are few events or emergencies that require that type of split-second reaction, and they are rare. While we train for those, our time is equally well spent — as FAA instructional materials have recently emphasized — developing the concepts behind these ADM acronyms to help us make better decisions before our circumstances require instant, instinctual reactions. As Gemini and Apollo astronaut Frank Borman quipped, “A good pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill.”
At different points in Top Gun, Maverick personifies each of the five hazardous attitudes that ADM is designed to help us identify and avoid and/or counter:
Anti-authority: “Sorry, Goose, it’s time to buzz the tower.”
Impulsivity: “Hollywood, you’re lookin’ good, I’m going after Viper.”
Invulnerability: “I had the shot. There was no danger, so I took it.”
Macho: “What you should have done was land that plane!”
Resignation: “Ah, it’s no good. It’s no good,” disengaging from the final dogfight.
CDR Stinger sums that up nicely, of course: “Son, your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash.”
Viper ultimately helps Maverick overcome these shortcomings with a directive worth remembering: “Rules of engagement exist for your safety and for that of your team. They are not flexible, nor am I. Either obey them or you are history. Is that clear?”
“History” in the movie meant being kicked out of Top Gun. But ignoring flight regulations in the real world can result in, and has resulted in, much worse. And, as general aviation pilots, we know that even following FAA regulations is no guarantee of safety. Remember, for example, that under Part 91, we may, with just a few exceptions, legally launch in “zero-zero” conditions, i.e. with literally no forward visibility. Try it sometime—simulated under the hood and with a CFI—and holler if you felt safe!
Near “zero-zero” conditions
The ADM concepts outlined above help us bridge the gap from legality to proficiency and safety. They do so in part by suggesting we each adopt “personal minimums,” our own individual rules and criteria for deciding whether and under what conditions to fly. Despite being self-imposed, these personal rules of engagement — like Viper’s 10,000’ hard deck — shouldn’t be broken opportunistically.
But aren’t all these concepts hard to manage, especially with Hollywood constantly whispering in our ear about our next gutsy move, the next destination we must make, the passenger we can’t disappoint, the strong crosswind we can surely handle? No. It’s easy to add PAVE, IMSAFE and other ADM concepts to any pre-flight checklist. In fact, personal minimums work best when written down, co-signed, and applied dispassionately from an armchair (checklist here). For the paper-challenged, there are numerous electronic flight risk assessment tools (FRATs), including those by the FAASTeam (Excel), MMOPA (app), COPA (Cirrus) (website), Twin Cessna, and NBAA. (Note: Some numerical FRATs can be manipulated to give wonky results, so be sure to understand what you’re using.) AOPA discontinued its FRAT a few years ago, but it maintains a collection of useful resources to help pilots apply ADM concepts to their flying.
The important thing, no matter how you do it, is to identify, evaluate, and deal with the potential risks of every flight. In Top Gun, Viper makes clear that fighter pilots must operate in a markedly different risk regime. “Up there,” he says, “we gotta push it. That’s our job.” That’s decidedly NOT the job of GA pilots. As we flock this week to watch the aerial derring-do in the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, it’s probably worth remembering that our job as GA pilots starts with Viper’s broader advice: “Better to retire and save your aircraft than push a bad position.”
See you at the movies!
