1988 San Francisco Fleet Day I had the privilege of visiting the USS Ranger CV 61.
They were proud to mention they had been the main star of the movie “Top Gun”.
The credits for “Top Gun” mention this as well.

Hmmm, just look at the hat worn by the ship’s captain in the movie, it clearly says USS Enterprise. Likewise, I got all my info from various web sources, not to mention the movie itself.

Where can I get the DVD named CARRIER, recently shown on PBS (Honolulu)?

(I was in NATS in WW-II.)

Is this the DVD you were referring to? Amazon would be a good place to look.

Just wait until the Chinese have their Soviet-made Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier “Shi Lang” operational.

I’m guessing “Shi Lang” is Mandarin for “target scow”, right?

The soviet carriers are really kind of lame, on top of the fact that they are extremely old models and are very vulnerable to sub and surface attack, they are also relatively slow compared to actually speed of our carriers, they have no catapult which gives their aircraft a lower survivability on take off, and makes them use more fuel. Plus the strike group with US carriers make them the most formidable force in the world, with the ability to completely annihilate many countries and a carrying capacity larger than many countries aircraft their is no doubt the Ford class carriers will be the finest ship to ever sail the sea.

Is there a better definition of “peace through strength” than a US Navy carrier strike force?

I think not!

The US Navy currently has more fighter aircraft than the US Air Force. The military brass sees the need to place the force next to the battle and fortunately for us the commitment to do so in a manner that gives us the highest chance of not just survivability, but air supremacy. Kinda makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. How awesome.

Gute Arbeit hier! Gute Inhalte.

the soviets never had a real carrier ever, they went after submarines now they have a few of those floating around.

Ford the best car

Ford is a good car

just a note, considering a US carrier is rarely stationed off a countries coast alone (without another super carrier + another carrier group), any attempt a country makes to create a carrier that is anywhere close to the capacity of one american carrier is moot. Currently in the gulf, there are 3 carriers on station…… so china can build one ship (their surface fleet is laughable in both size ad ability), and i am not worried 20 and i might think they almost stood a chance.

from a guy who did time in the air force, the saying is, “second to none” always have been a navy fan. Always look for peace, always lend a helping hand and nothing wrong with that, but make sure that other hand is a fist just in case! Nothing better to have a navy emblem on that fist………go Navy go!!!!

oh yeah, it’s all very impressive, no doubt, but these buckets still couldn’t stop the US & A from getting its ass well and truly whooped in good ole Viet-nam! Hot damn!

If you go to goggle earth, you can find the old soviet navy sitting as a rust bucket, including nuclear subs!

To be clear, the USS Ranger was never featured in ‘Top Gun’. You may have your Paramount-made 1986 movies confused. ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ had to shoot it’s carrier scenes aboard the USS Ranger in San Diego (which substituted for the Enterprise) because the Big-E was out to sea and unavailable for filming at the time.

Our armed forces are the best in the world–GO NAVY! But don’t underestimate the Chinese and the new carrier they are building, are they coming to the party late, yes but the Chinese are consummate planners, patient in the extreme, persistent, talented and driven. (Of course so are most of our people.) The real selling point of new navy ships, carriers or otherwise, will be a rail gun system…a carrier and its task force are no good if they are the bottom of the sea and the critical ability to track and remove hostiles from the air or sea (in the form of cruise missiles, etc.) is going to be key. The USS Gerald Ford looks to be an awesome ship and the technology updates look to be quite impressive, especially the new catapault system.
I love this country!

us af employment

Just to mention a few things. I deeply believe that we the US have the most impressive Navy in the world. I’m a Navy Submarine Vet and I can tell you this!!! Do not discount the Chinese, that would be a very costly mistake. The Ford looks great on paper, but I have worked on a Grumman Navy project before, and it’s still tits up right now, and that project started in 2000! I hope it all works out that we just build’em and never have to use ‘em.

Shi Lang means reviewed at the bottom of the sea after combat bit like the Argentine Air Force in 82

Sad and not enough money for universal health care-the price of empire

Shi Lang is the name of the admiral (?) that conquered Taiwan in the 1600′s, btw.

Top Gun was filmed on the Ranger. The overhead shots were surely the Enterprise, but no actual filming took place on her.

How interesting to know we are spending money we don’t have to fight an enemy that doesn’t exist with aircraft we don’t have because the military-industrilal complex says we need them.

Ford class supercarrier is the best of this world but my design of omega dreadnought ship will destrops ford class supercarrier with super rail cannon in one shot with my idea of weapon and working theory is 90 by 100 working. I know other countries will love to have my ideas and blueprints of omega class dreadnought and super weapons. Ford class is suck when my ship will be built with advanced metal alloy are thousand times stronger than high yield strenght steel is outdate and obselote because american are refusing me to get job for engineer in military.

I read the navy is replacing 11 Nimitz class with the Ford class. I am a patriot and have the deepest regard for our armed forces, but…..we are going in debt to the tune of 1.2 trillion a year. Do we need 11 carriers. No other coutry operates more than two. Russia and UK only have one operational air craft carrier. I doubt that any carrier except the UK could even come close to the Nimitz class. So could we get along with say seven of these and save about 36 billion dollars? Unfortunately, the government lueted social security and I find it hard to tell people that contributed to that program all their lives that we are going to raise the age to 70 so that on average they will get almost nothing for all the hard earned dollars they paid, unless we first can justify every dollar we spend. God bless our folks in uniform, but are 11 of these really needed?

The reason we have 11 carriers is to ensure victory in the worst case scenario conventional war.