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One of the F-14 pilots who flew in The Final Countdown shares his personal notes on the movie that introduced the Tomcat to Hollywood. “Splash the Zeros!”
Six years before “Top Gun” prominently featured the F-14 Tomcat, “The Final Countdown” proved that Grumman’s twin-tailed fighter had star quality. When he was a lieutenant F-14 pilot, Al “Shoes” Mullen flew in The Final Countdown and has generously allowed the author to review his notes regarding the experience.
Shoes joined Fighter Squadron 84 (VF-84, the Jolly Rogers) as a nugget in September 1977 and distinguished himself as a pilot, as indicated by being selected to attend the Topgun class in September 1978 with RIO Jim “Tex” Huston. Just a few months after completing Topgun, Shoes and Tex were part of a group of pilots and RIOs who spent several weeks at NAS Key West to film the science fiction adventure movie, in which the USS Nimitz is transported back in time and encounters parts of the Japanese strike force in the days before the Pearl Harbor attack. If you can get over the idea of time travel, it’s a pretty good movie.
The idea for the movie came from PeterDouglas, son of actor Kirk Douglas. It had languished for several years untilCommander Emory Brown heard about it shortly before becoming commanding officerof VF-84 and offered to support the project. That’s how the Jolly Rogers, whoflew some of the Navy’s more colorful F-14s, became internationally famousmovie stars.
Shoes says filming in Key West “started with a helicopter as a camera platform, two T-6s (and a spare) playing Zeros, and about five F-14s: two painted as ‘202,’ two painted as ‘203,’ and one spare ready to be anything.”
“The strategy was doomed from the start.The movie guys wanted the Tomcats flying with their wings swept back to lookcool (so we had to be fast), the T-6s flying with their canopies open to lookcool, (which slowed them down) and the helicopter hovering as a stable cameraplatform, theoretically in a known location.” That is, until the tropical windsblew it around.
Before flying any scenes, the aviators andmovie crew planned and briefed every shot, similar to preparing for any flight.
But a helicopter as camera platformcomplicated their filming. Shoes said, “Every scene was an attempt to get threepool balls to collide on a pool table at exactly the same time. Try itsometime!”
Adding to the difficulties, the crew wasshooting film, with no video for quick looks. They shot scenes all day and thatfilm was sent off to be developed. Then they filmed for another day or twobefore the first film was returned, at which time they found out there wasn’tmuch useful footage.
“Either the Tomcats and Zeros were awesome,but no helicopter was there to film it. Or the helo was trying to hang on to aformation of Zeros and the Tomcats fell out of the sky trying to slow down tobelow 200 knots with the wings swept back.” It was an expensive waste of time.
Eventually the movie company obtained amodified B-25 from Tallmantz Aviation, with a camera in the tail gunner position.
“This was a game changer because the bomberwas speed compatible with the Zeros and they could comfortably fly in formationwith the bomber as one element. We (Tomcats) could fly at 300 knots or more tosweep the wings and finally we only had to get two pool balls to hit on thetable at the same time. Infinitely easier!”
The final product included some memorablescenes of not only the F-14, but the air wing and carrier ops. Highlightsinclude the scene when two alert Tomcats are cleared to arm, and acceleratewhile sweeping their wings back. A moment later, after they have thumped theZeros and the Zeros split, we see a Zero skimming cloud tops and a Tomcatappears menacingly behind it.
The Final Countdown was released Aug 1,1980. Intended as a summer blockbuster, it received what can best be describedas a lukewarm reception. The website “The Numbers” shows worldwide box officerevenue of nearly $57 million – not bad, but most of that was from overseas showings.
Today some movie websites use favorableadjectives to describe The Final Countdown, such as interesting, entertaining,thought-provoking, and fun to watch. It is surely most appreciated by Tomcatfans, who can’t get enough of the big jet in action.
Note: For more behind the scenes information, watch an interview with 6 pilots and RIOs who flew in the movie, which was uploaded to YouTube. It describes the origin of the film and has many additional details about film production and the flying scenes.
Author Dave “Bio” Baranek was a student RIO when The Final Countdown came out in August 1980. He went through the Topgun class in 1982 and LT “Shoes” Mullen was one of his instructors. Bio’s next book, Tomcat RIO, will be published in May 2020.
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