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The shooting locations of Top Gun: Maverick

Now a test pilot for the Navy, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) takes control of an experimental stealth plane in an attempt to reach Mach 10. Its objective? To prove to the military brass that men still have a role to play. A scene shot at the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. Inaugurated in 1943, this air force station gradually specialized in the design of missiles, bombs and rockets. She also played a role in the famous Manhattan Project, as part of the design of the atomic bomb. In Top Gun: Maverick, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell manages to reach Mach 10 with an experimental plane. He even manages to slightly exceed this fateful level, causing the destruction of the plane in question. In reality, the speed record was set by the NASA X-43 Scramjet, which reached Mach 9.6, or 10,240 km/h. One of the major differences with the film is that during the real test, the device was piloted remotely and not by a person.

Recalled by his friend Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer), Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) returns to TopGun to oversee the training of young U.S. Air Force pilots for a particularly risky mission. The opportunity for Tom Cruise to return to the North Island Naval Air Station more than 30 years after the release of the first TopGun.The first Top Gun left an indelible mark on San Diego and more particularly on the North Island Naval Air Station, a vast complex belonging to the US Army, attached to the Coronado base. Almost all the pilots here grew up with Top Gun and all of them consider Maverick, the hero played by Tom Cruise, as a true role model.

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) organizes a soccer game on the beach near the TopGun training base. This is a way for the new instructor to bond the pilots before they go on a mission. The filming of Top Gun: Maverick not only allowed Tom Cruise to return to his iconic character of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell but also to return to the places of his first exploits. It is thus on Breakers Beach, on the part reserved for the naval base of Coronado, not far from the ground where was once filmed the mythical game of volleyball of the first part, that the actor and his comrades shot the game of soccer.

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) takes the lead in the mission to destroy weapons at an enemy base deep in the mountains. A sequence that director Joseph Kosinski filmed in the Rimrock Lake area in the mountains of Washington State. Operated as part of the Yakima Irrigation Project, this lake is controlled by the Tieton Dam, a 97-meter-high structure dating from 1925. Near the communities of Rimrock and Silver Beach, the lake sits in the middle of Yakima County. The Yakima River has its source in the Cascade Mountains. It was visited by the explorers Lewis and Clark on October 17, 1805. For Tom Cruise, Top Gun: Maverick could only be made on two conditions: that Val Kilmer be part of the cast and that he and the other actors actually ride in jets.

A devastated Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) attends the funeral of his friend Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer) at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. Now alone, the pilot decides to do everything he can to impose what he thinks is the best decision to his superiors to carry out his mission. The funeral scene of Iceman (Val Kilmer) is one of the most moving scenes in Top Gun: Maverick. For the sake of realism, director Joseph Kosinski’s teams decided to shoot the scene in the real Navy cemetery at Point Loma near the city of San Diego, where the action of the feature film also takes place. A way to anchor Top Gun 2 a little more in a logic that is not only realistic but also respectful of the institutions of the Navy. From the beginning, Tom Cruise asked the producers to include Val Kilmer in the project. Diminished by a terrible disease that has deprived him of speech, so to speak, the interpreter of Iceman gladly accepts and shoots a particularly touching scene alongside Tom Cruise. Val Kilmer himself suggested the idea of including his illness in the script.