American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, luminary and celebrity in his discipline, took to Twitter to point out a sequence of “Top Gun : Maverick”, which he considers very unrealistic.
Top Gun : Mavericka questionable realism
“Science, bitch!“. The famous punchline of Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad could probably apply here. In Top Gun : Maverick, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and his pilots undertake a very dangerous bombing mission, and everything in the film tends to make this operation as realistic as possible. Whether in the elements of his script or in the means of production implemented, Tom Cruise and Joseph Kosinski insisted that their film generates public support through its credibility.
But the intro sequence, in which “Maverick” performs a test flight of the Darkstar prototype at Mach 10 (10x the speed of sound), is perhaps the least realistic and most abstract part of Top Gun : Maverick. In any case, this is what advances American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in a tweet that got fans of the film to react.
“His body would crush like an earthworm under a chainmail glove”
In this sequence, “Maverick” pushes the Darkstar to its extreme limit, resulting in its destruction in flight. He ejects, and returns to earth stunned but unscathed. Impossible, according to the astrophysicist who explains:
I’m a little late, but this year in the movie Top Gun : Maverick, the Maverick character played by Tom Cruise ejects from a hypersonic plane at Mach 10.5, before it crashes.
He survived there uninjured.
At that speed, his body would crush like an earthworm under a chainmail glove. “Just sayin'”.
He then explains that the faster an airplane flies, and breaks the sound barrier – the supersonic speed -, the air “hardens” and penetrating it causes friction. This is why, between for example an A320 type airliner, which flies at Mach 0.8 and a fighter plane, which can for example reach Mach 2, the design is not the same. The faster an airplane goes, the thinner it must be to penetrate the atmosphere. In a way, by way of analogy, a close experience would be that of fall into water if you move over it at high speed. The friction on the water is such that it will first prevent you from entering it, you will bump into it and bounce.
Tom Cruise can’t die, period
In short, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s point is therefore to say that at this extreme speed, ejecting Maverick would have instantly destroyed his body. A scientific truth, but without apparently taking into consideration altitude which is “Maverick”, as noted by former astronaut Scott Kelly.
This specifies that at the stratospheric altitude at which a hypersonic aircraft flies, ejection is not the problem, but rather re-entry into the atmosphere, which cannot be done without special equipment. We will stop there, at the risk of going into more details with serious approximations. In any case, we will agree that this scene is not the most realistic of the film, but because its function is to establish the character and the quasi-mythological nature of the “Maverick” character. And as such, it works perfectly. And then, anyway, Tom Cruise can’t diedespite all his efforts, as he proves with each film production.
