Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

About this film

Top Gun: Maverick is that rarest of things — a sequel that understands why the original worked and builds on it honestly rather than simply replicating it. Released in 2022 after a pandemic delay, Joseph Kosinski’s film returned to San Diego, to Miramar and to the Pacific thirty-six years after Tony Scott’s original. The locations carry the weight of that gap deliberately. Maverick walking the same corridors, the same flight line, the same bar — the film is as much about time and place as it is about aircraft.

The production made a deliberate choice that defines the film: real aircraft, real carriers, real flying. Tom Cruise and the cast trained for months to fly in the back seats of F/A-18 Super Hornets. The aerial sequences were captured with cameras mounted on the aircraft rather than CGI. The result is the most viscerally real aviation footage in a Hollywood film since the original Top Gun.

MCAS Miramar — returning to the beginning

Maverick opens at Miramar — now a Marine Corps Air Station — and the film makes the transition from the original’s Navy base to its Marine successor part of the story. The Darkstar hypersonic aircraft sequences were filmed at an undisclosed facility in the California desert, but the Miramar flight line sequences used the actual base with real cooperation from the military. The contrast between the 1986 F-14 Tomcats and the 2022 F/A-18 Super Hornets is one of the film’s quiet pleasures for aviation enthusiasts.

Visiting: As with the original, MCAS Miramar is a working military installation. The October air show remains the best access point. The film’s Miramar sequences will be immediately recognisable to anyone who visited for the original.

USS Theodore Roosevelt — the carrier

The carrier sequences in Maverick were filmed aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), a Nimitz-class nuclear carrier operating out of Naval Base San Diego. The flight deck, the catapult launches, the arrested landings — all real, all filmed at sea off the San Diego coast. The carrier dock at Naval Base San Diego on Harbor Drive is not a public area, but the ships are visible from the waterfront and from the USS Midway Museum immediately adjacent.

The USS Midway Museum — a decommissioned carrier permanently moored on the San Diego waterfront — is the closest most visitors will get to the environment depicted in both films. The flight deck, the aircraft on display and the below-deck tours give genuine context to the carrier sequences. It is one of the finest naval museums in the United States.

Visiting: USS Midway Museum, 910 North Harbor Drive, San Diego. Open daily. Allow three hours. The flight deck at sunset, with the San Diego skyline behind the aircraft, is one of the better photographs in San Diego.

Hotel del Coronado — the bar, revisited

Maverick returns to the Hotel del Coronado — the bar where Maverick first met Charlie in 1986 is revisited, now a place of memory rather than encounter. The Del’s role in the sequel is more understated than in the original but the location carries thirty-six years of association. The beach volleyball scene’s spiritual successor is the beach football sequence filmed on the same stretch of Coronado Beach.

Visiting: Same access as the original — the hotel and beach are both accessible to non-guests. The contrast between the 1986 bar and its 2022 appearance is part of what makes a combined location visit to both films rewarding.

The backcountry flight sequences

The low-level canyon flying sequences — Maverick’s team threading through a mountain valley at extreme low altitude — were filmed in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, using a combination of real flying in F/A-18s and the mountains of Inyo County as backdrop. The specific valleys used are in the high desert east of the Sierra, accessible from US 395 — the most scenic highway in California. The Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, frequently used as a film location for their dramatic rock formations against the Sierra Nevada, are in the same area and worth combining with any visit.

Visiting: US 395 from Lone Pine north through Bishop and Mammoth Lakes is one of the great California road trips — the Eastern Sierra in one direction, the Great Basin desert in the other. The Alabama Hills Recreation Area outside Lone Pine is free to visit and requires no reservation for day use.

Practical information

The same San Diego base applies as for the original — downtown San Diego, Coronado and Miramar are all within thirty minutes of each other. A dedicated Top Gun location day covers the Hotel del Coronado, Kansas City Barbecue, the USS Midway and Point Loma comfortably.

For a combined Top Gun and Maverick location experience: start with Kansas City Barbecue for breakfast (it opens early), cross to Coronado for the Hotel del Coronado and the beach, return to downtown for the USS Midway Museum, drive to Point Loma for the late afternoon light. The full circuit is under thirty miles.

See our Top Gun (1986) guide for the original film’s locations and the story of how San Diego became synonymous with Naval aviation on screen.