Visible crew/equipment: When they return to Enterprise after their successful mission, Iceman points and shouts, "You!" at Maverick. In the shot facing Maverick as he turns his head, the reflections of the camera and large reflector screen are visible on Maverick's sunglasses. Also, note the lack of a crowd of people behind Ice in the reflection. (01:40:45)
Continuity mistake: While having dinner with Charlie Mav puts his left hand next to his chin, but it disappears a shot later.
Continuity mistake: Charlie shows up while Mac is studying his flying moves. His hand is raised holding a pencil. From the opposite angle it's lowered. (00:36:10)
Continuity mistake: When the guys stop singing you've lost, check the waiter behind Charlotte. He turns around, gives his back to her and smokes. A shot later he's turned 180° and is now facing her.
Visible crew/equipment: When the pilots are introduced to Viper check the TV behind him. A huge white screen used for lighting is reflected.
Continuity mistake: Right before the pilots know who Charlie really is, the mechanics inspecting the plane behind change positions between the first and second shot. (00:22:51)
Continuity mistake: At the bar during the 'You've lost that loving feeling' part someone has his hand on Goose's shoulder or not depending on the shot. No continuity.
Deliberate mistake: During the final dogfight, Maverick tells Merlin he's going to "hit the brakes" then when Maverick gets a good lock on the enemy he fires. The shot of his last missile firing is a flipped shot, note "VF-213" is backwards. (01:38:50)
Continuity mistake: At the bar, when Goose and Ron are talking Goose's beer is held down, but a shot later he's drinking from it.
Visible crew/equipment: When Charlie walks down to the front of the class in the hanger, Jester is the only one at the front. Look at the reflection of Maverick's glasses, and the reflection shows lots of people standing in front of him.
Continuity mistake: When "Charlie" is first introduced to the class, she struts down the aisle in heels. When she follows Maverick into the building, you can briefly see that she is wearing flats to compensate for Maverick's short stature.
Continuity mistake: At the end, a victorious Maverick is hoisted on the shoulders of the guys. As he goes up, he isn't wearing sunglasses. His head goes out of the shot, and when he comes down, he's wearing a pair.
Factual error: Tom Cruise says of the song 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay' "my folks loved it". However, his father died in 1965, his mother died "shortly after him", and the song wasn't written until 1967.
Continuity mistake: During the whole elevator scene with Mav and Charlie, her earrings change.
Suggested correction: They are the same earrings the light just hits them at different angles.
Factual error: Before "classes" begin, the pilots are told that they would be flying against planes that are faster than their F-14's. The F-14's top airspeed is over 500 mph faster than the F-5's, and more than DOUBLE that of the A-4.
Character mistake: In the opening scene is a paragraph describing why the Top Gun school was started. The word "insure" is used when the word should have been "ensure". They wanted to guarantee the U.S. had superior pilots, not take out an insurance policy.
Suggested correction: Insure and ensure are equivalent in US usage, and are from the same Anglo-Norman root.
Having the same root word is irrelevant. Many distinct words have the same root. In the US "insure", "ensure", and "assure" are not equivalent, therefore this correction is not valid. One could argue that "insure" was used to mean to be protect against risk as "insure" doesn't specifically mean "take out an insurance policy." But generally one would use the phrase "insure against."
Revealing mistake: Near the end of the movie, when Maverick's plane is about to be launched, there is a quick closeup of an F14's nose gear, which is quite obviously not hooked up to a catapult or anything else.
Continuity mistake: In a scene soon after Cruise's partner dies, when he's flying with his new partner, you can see his call sign on his helmet, but when they get on the ground and he's talking to Cruise, all the letters on his helmet are removed.
Revealing mistake: In the last dogfight, we see four MIGs circling around Iceman, trying to get him down. A few moments after, Maverick gets to the scene, and the same shot is being used.
Continuity mistake: In the final dog fight scene, Maverick is flying with Merlin as his co-pilot. Merlin's helmet is purple and can be seen many times behind Maverick. In one scene though, the helmet behind Maverick's is orange, which is Sundown's colour.
