---
title: "Watch an F/A-18 Super Hornet pull off an insanely-low flyby for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’"
description: "New footage from the Top Gun: Maverick film crew which first surfaced on Instagram and was first identified by our friends at The War Zone shows a Blue Angels F/A-18 Super Hornet conducting a super-low flyby over the crew during filming at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake"
date: "2020-04-10"
modified: "2020-04-10"
authors:
  - name: "Jared Keller"
    job_title: "Former Managing Editor"
    link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jaredkeller/"
url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/top-gun-maverick-super-hornet-flyby-video/"
categories:
  - "Aircraft"
  - "Culture"
  - "Entertainment"
  - "Fighter Aircraft"
  - "Mandatory Fun"
  - "Tech & Tactics"
---

# Watch an F/A-18 Super Hornet pull off an insanely-low flyby for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/top-gun-maverick-flyby-3.jpg>)

The premiere of *Top Gun: Maverick* may [have been pushed back](<https://taskandpurpose.com/category/fighter-aircraft/>) to December due to the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), but you can still satisfy your need for speed with this new behind-the scenes shot from the upcoming sequel.

New footage from the *Top Gun: Maverick* film crew, first surfaced on Instagram and [found](<https://www.twz.com/32899/this-blue-angels-flyby-is-how-top-gun-2-captured-that-crazy-hypersonic-jet-takeoff-scene>) by our friends at The War Zone shows a Blue Angel F/A-18 Super Hornet conducting a super-low flyby over the crew during filming at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RA286_RHso

It's unclear how long this footage will persist — the original Instagram account which surfaced it has since been deleted — so here's the flyby in beautiful GIF form:

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/giphy-2-3.gif>)

As The War Zone [points out](<https://www.twz.com/32899/this-blue-angels-flyby-is-how-top-gun-2-captured-that-crazy-hypersonic-jet-takeoff-scene>), the shot appears to correspond to a shot of Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell in a fictional hypersonic jet at the end of the movie's second trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4U4BQW9OEk

Here it is again in GIF form:

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/giphy-3-2.gif>)

The only downside of this video is knowing that [there was no way in hell that the Navy was letting Tom Cruise get behind the stick in that Super Hornet](<https://taskandpurpose.com/news/top-gun-maverick-tom-cruise-f-18-super-hornet/>), but it's still quite the shot.

Directed by Joseph Kosinksi and starring Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, and Val Kilmer, *Top Gun: Maverick* [finally hits theaters on December 23, 2020](<https://taskandpurpose.com/category/fighter-aircraft/>).

## Author
Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/jaredbkeller>)  
[Facebook](<https://www.facebook.com/jaredbkeller>)  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredbkeller/>)  
[Instagram](<https://www.instagram.com/jaredbkelller/>)