The new Top Gun: Maverick trailer officially reveals call signs for the new class of young pilots featured in the upcoming film. Call signs - monikers given to military pilots - were a big part of the fun of the first Top Gun, and they will undoubtedly big a significant part of the story for each new character.
Over 30 years after the events of the first Top Gun, the long-awaited sequel brings back Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell to train a new group of young and upcoming pilots who will undergo a dangerous mission for the U.S. Navy. For the new film, Maverick will leave the F-14 Tomcat behind to pilot the F/A-18F Super Hornet. Like the original, Top Gun: Maverick - which was filmed with 6K technology - will put an emphasis on aerial combat and realistic dogfights, with real Navy jets flying through the sky. The cast of Top Gun: Maverick includes Miles Teller as Goose's son, along with Jennifer Connelly as Maverick's love interest, Val Kilmer (who played Iceman in the first film), Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, and more.
A chunk of the cast of Top: Maverick consists of the aspiring pilots training under Cruise's character. True to the spirit of Top Gun, the new characters will receive distinguishing call signs that will surely be used throughout the film. Here's every new call sign revealed so far in Top Gun: Maverick.
- Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller)
- "Hangman" (Glen Powell)
- "Phoenix" (Monica Barbaro)
- "Payback" (Jay Ellis)
- "Fanboy" (Danny Ramirez)
The call signs for some of the the characters, such as the ones played by Danny Ramirez and Monica Barbaro, were shown in the trailers. While sitting in their cockpits, they can be seen wearing helmets bearing their call signs. The real names of most of the new pilots still haven't been confirmed, so for some, only their call signs are currently known. As Top Gun: Maverick features a fairly large cast consisting of multiple young actors, each of them will likely have their own unique call sign. Perhaps the most interesting one is "Rooster", which is a humorous way to continue Goose's legacy with his son.
Call signs were used so frequently through Top Gun that most of the characters in the movie aren't recognized by their actual names, but by their nicknames. Among the most memorable call signs for the original cast were "Goose", "Wolfman", "Iceman", "Merlin", "Viper", and of course, "Maverick". Top Gun: Maverick is expected to carry on this tradition, and as was the case with the original cast, the new pilots may have comedic or backstory-related reasons for their designated call signs.