United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor Program - Course

Course

TOPGUN conducts four "Power Projection" classes a year. Each class lasts nine weeks and consists of nine Navy and Marine Corps strike fighter aircraft—a mix of single-seat F/A-18 Cs and Es, and two-seat F/A-18 Ds and Fs. The TOPGUN course is designed to train already experienced Navy and Marine Corps aircrews at the graduate level (although it is currently not a regionally or nationally accredited educational program) in all aspects of strike-fighter aircraft employment, which includes tactics, hardware, techniques and the current world threat for air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. The course includes eighty hours of lectures and twenty-five flights that pit students against TOPGUN instructors. When a pilot or WSO completes the TOPGUN course he/she will return as a Training Officer carrying the latest tactical doctrine back to their operational squadron, or go directly to an FRS squadron to teach new aircrews. SFTIs can also become instructors themselves at TOPGUN later in their career. Each year, a small number of aircrews do not meet TOPGUN's standards and are dropped from the course.

TOPGUN trains four to six Air Intercept Controllers in each class on advanced command, control, and combat communication skills. They are completely integrated in the course and participate in most of the training missions. These "AIC" students, some of whom are E-2C Hawkeye Naval Flight Officers, go back to their Carrier Air Wings after graduation and are given the responsibility of training all the air controllers and fighters in their Carrier Strike Groups in the art of air intercept control.

TOPGUN also conducts an Adversary Training Course, flying with adversary aircrew from each Navy and Marine Corps adversary squadron. These pilots receive individual instruction in threat simulation, effective threat presentation and adversary tactics. TOPGUN provides academics and flight training to each Carrier Air Wing during their Integrated and Advanced Training Phases (ITP/ATP) at NAS Fallon which are large scale exercises that can involve as many as fifty aircraft. These large scale exercises serve as "dress rehearsals" for future combat scenarios. In addition to training crews, TOPGUN also conducts ground school courses six times a year. The Training Officer Ground School (TOGS) offers graduate level academics to Fleet aviators, adversary instructors and other officers and enlisted personnel.

TOPGUN holds a Strike-Fighter Tactics Refresher Course (also known as "Re-Blue") once a year, usually in the fall, bringing current fleet SFTIs back to Fallon for a two-day refresher, updating TOPGUN's recommendations.

The TOPGUN course has changed over time. In the 1970s it was four weeks long, in the 1980s five weeks. The final F-4 Phantoms went through the class in March 1985, and the final F-14 Tomcats in October 2003. Programs formerly run by TOPGUN that have been transferred to other commands or discontinued include Fleet Air Superiority Training (FAST) and Hornet Fleet Air Superiority Training (HFAST): coordinated programs of academics and simulators, training fighter pilots and WSOs in Maritime Air Superiority in the carrier group arena.

TOPGUN was made famous in popular culture by the 1986 release of the motion picture Top Gun.