50 free Top Gun: Maverick trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Top Gun: Maverick arrived 36 years after the original and became the biggest film of Tom Cruise's career, and this quiz covers all of it: the Mach 10 Darkstar run, Maverick's assignment back to North Island, the beach football game, Iceman's last scene, the canyon run against the uranium plant, and the stolen F-14 that gets Maverick and Rooster home. Early questions are for anyone who has seen it: who plays Rooster, what Penny Benjamin's bar is called, who arrives to save the day at the end. Later ones dig into how it was made and released: the director who died with the sequel in development, the two ideas Joseph Kosinski pitched to Cruise in Paris, what the Navy charged per flight hour, where the museum Tomcat came from, why the flags on Maverick's jacket vanished and reappeared, how many times the release date moved, and which Oscar it finally won. Every answer has been checked against production reporting and the film's own record, and each question links to its source. For the 1986 original, see our Top Gun trivia; this page is all about Maverick.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Top Gun: Maverick?
Joseph Kosinski
He had made Oblivion with Cruise and pitched the sequel with a lookbook, a poster and the title while Cruise was shooting Mission: Impossible – Fallout.
Q 02Whose memory is Top Gun: Maverick dedicated to?
Tony Scott
The original's director had finalised a script and scouted locations with Cruise at NAS Fallon a week before his death in 2012.
Q 03What is the name of the hypersonic test aircraft Maverick pushes past Mach 10 in the opening?
Darkstar
Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works engineers helped design it and a full-scale mockup was built at China Lake; Lockheed denies any link to its rumoured SR-72.
Q 04Which real Navy rank does Maverick hold at the start of the film, having never made flag rank?
Captain
More than 30 years after Top Gun his insubordination has kept him a test pilot rather than an admiral.
Q 05Which old rival, now Pacific Fleet commander, saves Maverick's career by sending him to Top Gun?
Iceman
Val Kilmer, then recovering from throat cancer, had campaigned on Facebook to return; a trailer showed him in a four-star admiral's uniform.
Q 06What is the mission's target?
An unsanctioned uranium enrichment plant
It sits in a bunker at the end of a canyon guarded by SAMs, GPS jammers, Su-57s and, oddly, F-14 Tomcats.
Q 07Why is an attack by F-35s ruled out, forcing Maverick's Super Hornet plan?
The enemy's GPS jamming makes it unfeasible
His plan uses two pairs of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets with laser-guided bombs and a low-level canyon run.
Q 08Who plays Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw, Goose's son?
Miles Teller
He won the role in July 2018 over Nicholas Hoult and Glen Powell, and later pitched a sequel titled Top Gun: Rooster.
Q 09Why does Rooster resent Maverick?
He blocked his Academy application
Maverick had promised Rooster's dying mother that her son would never fly, a promise Rooster knows nothing about.
Q 10Glen Powell's cocky aviator had which call sign in the script he first read?
Slayer
Powell initially found the character a one-dimensional 'Navy Draco Malfoy' and had to be talked into the part by Cruise and Bruckheimer.
Q 11Which actress plays Penny Benjamin, the bar owner and Maverick's old flame?
Jennifer Connelly
She was cast in July 2018 as a single mother running a bar near the base; the daughter was originally to be played by Thomasin McKenzie.
Q 12The Hard Deck bar set was inspired by which real establishment?
The 'I-Bar' at NAS North Island
It was built on the beach at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado with the Navy's permission.
Q 13The dying admiral's advice to Maverick about Rooster is which line?
'It's time to let go'
Q 21Which original cast members appear only in archive footage from the 1986 film?
Anthony Edwards, Meg Ryan and Kelly McGillis
McGillis and Ryan were not asked back; the Goose flashback was added by Kosinski in the edit while Rooster plays 'Great Balls of Fire'.
Q 22How much did the production pay the Navy per flight hour for Super Hornets and their pilots?
$11,374
For external shots real Navy pilots flew single-seat F/A-18Es; actors rode in the back of two-seat F/A-18Fs with a Navy pilot in front.
Q 23How long was the flight 'boot camp' Cruise designed for the actors?
Three months
He also reassures Maverick that both the Navy and Rooster need him; Kilmer's real voice was used, digitally sharpened for clarity.
Q 14What is flown in the late admiral's honour at his funeral?
A missing man formation
Rick Rossovich and Tom Skerritt filmed scenes for the funeral as Slider and Viper, but their material was cut.
Q 15How does Maverick prove his mission plan is possible after Cyclone relaxes the parameters?
He flies the course unauthorised, beating his own time
Cyclone reluctantly makes him team leader afterwards.
Q 16Which two aviators fly the buddy-lasing F/A-18F alongside Maverick's lead jet?
Phoenix and Bob
Rooster leads the second pair with Payback and Fanboy; Hangman is held back as the emergency action pilot.
Q 17After both are shot down, which aircraft do Maverick and Rooster steal from the enemy air base?
An F-14 Tomcat
They wreck the landing gear on takeoff and down two Su-57s before running out of ammunition.
Q 18Which type of helicopter hunts Maverick on the ground until Rooster destroys it?
Mi-24
Rooster disobeys the order to return to the carrier, kills the gunship, then is himself hit by a SAM and ejects.
Q 19Who unexpectedly arrives to shoot down the last Su-57 when Maverick and Rooster are out of ammunition?
Hangman
He had been sidelined as the mission's emergency action pilot, waiting on the carrier deck.
Q 20What vintage aircraft does Maverick own and fly off in with Penny at the end?
A P-51 Mustang
Cruise really does own and fly a P-51; Matchbox even released a die-cast version alongside the F-14 and Super Hornet.
It built up g-tolerance via aerobatics in an Extra 300L and taught the cast to run the cockpit cameras themselves.
Q 24Roughly how many hours of aerial footage were shot for the film?
More than 800
That exceeded the combined footage shot for the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Q 25Which cameras were used to shoot the film in IMAX format?
Sony Venice 6K full-frame
Six were rigged inside the cockpit, four facing the actor and two facing out, after a year of work with the Navy.
Q 26The vintage Grumman swing-wing fighter used in the film came from where?
The San Diego Air & Space Museum
No US F-14s still fly, and Iran's active fleet was off limits because of sanctions, so the museum airframe was shipped in pieces, engineless.
Q 27Which country, the only one besides the US to operate the F-14, was ruled out for Top Gun: Maverick due to sanctions?
Iran
The US scuttled or disabled its retired Tomcats to stop spare parts reaching that country.
Q 28The famous low pass that rips the roof off a guard shack was filmed where, and with what?
China Lake, using a Blue Angels jet
On the 20th and last pass, at under 50 feet and about 450 knots, the roofing came away, held only by cable.
Q 29Where has the Top Gun school been based since 1996, though the film keeps it in San Diego?
Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada
The crew still shot aerial footage there, while the story stayed at NAS North Island.
Q 30The Cascade Mountains flying sequences were flown out of which base?
NAS Whidbey Island, Washington
Routes were scouted by helicopter and in an L-39 before the F/A-18s flew them.