Why California Should Mourn the Loss of Topgun

The Navy’s School for Elite Pilots, Once Based in San Diego, Taught Us to Deal With Technological Failure

Bring back Topgun!

By that, I do not mean Top Gun, the cliché-ridden, late-Cold War, Tom Cruise film about speed-crazy Naval fighter pilots that still defines San Diego in the public imagination. That Top Gun never really left us, and it is already on its way back with a sequel scheduled to crash-land in theaters next year.

No, what California really needs back is Topgun, the U.S. Navy’s graduate school for elite fighter pilots that inspired the movie. For nearly 30 years, Topgun thrived in San Diego—before it was moved to …