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56 EW SHOW DAILY Monday, April 22, 2013 continued from page 55 those scenes came directly from Dr. Schallhorn's experience makes one think, "Wow." Mind you, it's only a fraction of the "wow" Dr. Schallhorn felt when he was flying in an F-14 Tomcat at 1,000 miles per hour on full afterburner. As he told his local newspaper some years back, it was "totally cool." The next time you make some popcorn and pop in a DVD of Top Gun, turn to your spouse or kids and relate the following about your colleague in ophthalmology, Dr. Schallhorn. • Near the beginning of the movie, "Maverick," played by actor Tom Cruise, is on a Navy ship in the Indian Ocean when he gets orders to attend the Top Gun school at NAS Miramar. Compare that with … "I was in the Indian Ocean on the USS Ranger and got a message saying that I was selected to be a TOPGUN instructor," Dr. Schallhorn said. • In the opening sequence, Maverick shepherds his wingman, very shaken-up "Cougar," back onto the aircraft carrier at night. After that, Cougar turns in his wings and retires. "There was a guy in my squadron who had a very difficult time landing on an aircraft carrier at night," Dr. Schallhorn confirmed. "He turned in his wings and said, 'I can't fly anymore.' Flying onto an aircraft carrier is strenuous, being very difficult mentally and physically, especially at night." • Much later in the movie, Maverick and rival "Iceman" are both chasing another pilot, "Jester." Iceman finally gives way to Maverick, who then flies through the jet wash of Iceman's plane and suffers a flameout of his aircraft engines. Maverick's plane enters what's known as a flat spin, and he and his co-pilot have to eject from the aircraft. Maverick's co-pilot "Goose" ejects into the aircraft canopy before it is fully jettisoned, breaking his neck and dying. Dr. Schallhorn said during his interview for the movie, he explained how a flat spin could actually happen with an F-14 and that it complicates ejection. "The aerodynamics of the F-14 flat spin affects the timing of the ejection sequence," Dr. Schallhorn said. "The canopy is jettisoned, followed by the ejection of the back seat, followed by the front seat. In a flat spin, the canopy, when it ejects, bobbles for an extra few hundredths of a second above the aircraft. That upsets the carefully engineered sequence because the guy in the back could then hit the canopy. That sequence made it into the movie." • Also in the movie, Maverick competes for a Top Gun trophy, which he wins at the end of the film. In real life, Dr. Schallhorn won the semi-annual air-to-air combat exercise fighter derby in 1981 with the highest score ever recorded. • That all happened at the tactical air combat training range outside Yuma, Ariz. "It was the best, state-of-the-art training facility when I was flying," Dr. Schallhorn said. "Right after an air-to-air combat training flight we would go down to the debrief area and replay the flight visually in computer simulated 3D. 'What were you thinking about here?' 'What would you do next time in this and that scenario.' The movie was filmed in the actual debrief room [with Maverick's romantic interest and civilian instructor 'Charlie' Blackwood]."