Top Gun was one of the 1980s most transcendent films. A staple of popular culture, Top Gun launched Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer into international stardom, boosted Navy recruitment numbers, and added several phrases: “talk to me, Goose” and “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you” to the national lexicon. 

Indeed, Top Gun was the top-grossing film of 1986. 

But Top Gun wasn’t the only fighter-jet-centric film to be released in 1986. 

Iron Eagle, starring Louis Gossett, Jr. was released on January 17, 1986, would gross $24 million against a budget of $10 million, and would spawn a four-film franchise. Yet, objectively, Iron Eagle pales relative to Top Gun concerning production quality, script quality, and performance quality. Still, if you enjoy military aviation and/or 1980s popular culture, Iron Eagle is a requisite viewing.  

Let’s take a closer look at the other fighter jet movie of 1986.  

Flying the Snake 

Iron Eagle boasts some of the fanciest flying ever caught on film, when protagonist Doug Masters races his Cessna 150 against a motorcycle, across a winding bit of mountainous terrain known as “The Snake.” The footage of the 150 is fully practical, rendered with a real aircraft in the days before CGI was a mainstream instrument of filmmaking. 

The flight sequence is awesome. 

Renowned stunt pilot Art Scholl pushes the Cessna through a variety of impressive feats, often in close proximity to cliff faces, often near the ground. For my money, the sequence is one of the most enduring action segments of the film, which is ironic given the sequence features the cheap and simple Cessna 150, rather than the fourth-generation multi-million-dollar F-16 Fighting Falcon that stars throughout the rest of the film.  

The flying featured in the Snake sequence was permissible because the Cessna was a non-military aircraft. No military branch, foreign or domestic (the film used Israeli F-16s), is going to allow their jets to be flown in a manner that Scholl flies the Cessna through the Snake. 

Tragically, albeit unsurprisingly to anyone who has watched the sequence, Scholl would die later that year, while piloting a Pitts S-2 camera plane to capture the footage necessary for the flat-spin sequence of Top Gun.  

Begrudging friendship 

Like Top Gun, perhaps the most endearing aspect of Iron Eagle is the evolution of the relationship between the two male leads. 

In Top Gun, the Maverick-Ice Man dynamic is the film’s engine – plus a staple of popular culture in and of itself. The Iron Eagle equivalent, between Masters and Gossett Jr.’s Chappy is not quite transcendent. But the relationship does feature another convincing turn from Gossett as a tough-love authority figure who gradually reveals the hint of a soft side. 

Gossett made a career with such performances, most notably in An Officer and a Gentleman, and to a lesser extent, Enemy Mine. So, the character evolution in Iron Eagle is what we expect from Gossett, but it satisfies, nonetheless. 

In sum, Iron Eagle isn’t for everyone. It’s 80’s schlock. But if you enjoy 80’s schlock – with a soundtrack full of King Kobra, Queen, and Dio; if you’re willing to suspend reality and permit yourself to believe a high-school kid could execute an international exfiltration mission from his hijacked F-16, then Iron Eagle is worth checking out.   

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken. 

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