Airfield Mural Honors ‘Top Gun’ Inspiration to Fly

For the past two years Seattle-area artist Myron Curry created larger-than-life images that pay homage to local aviation connections. The latest mural to appear on the airside of the municipal hangar is one that depicts the likeness of a fictional Naval aviator, Lieutenant junior grade Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, a character from the original Top Gun movie.

Top Gun, released in 1986, tells the story of Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (played by Tom Cruise, who is also a pilot in real life) and his radar intercept officer, Bradshaw who are given the opportunity to train at the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, known as Top Gun.

The movie, with its rocking 1980s soundtrack, is filled with aerial combat scenes, the requisite love interest, and a memorable beach volleyball game that helped make it one of the highest grossing films of the decade. It is also credited with boosting enlistment in the U.S. Navy by 300 percent and inspiring a generation of pilots.

One of those aspiring pilots was Doug Wilson, who today runs FBO Partners. Wilson took his first flying lesson at the age of 10 in April 1986 in a Cessna 152.

“A month later of course, Top Gun came out and I was hooked—along with the rest of the country,” Wilson said. “I’ve seen Top Gun easily 150-plus times and can virtually recite it word for word.”

Wilson, based at S50, holds ratings for both airplane and helicopter. He was intrigued with the airport makeover that began a few years ago that included the placement of benches with a view of the runway and murals.

The first mural commemorated the renaming of the airport to Auburn Municipal Airport-Dick Scobee Field.

Scobee was born in Washington state and, in 1957, graduated from nearby Auburn High School. He became a U.S. Air Force test pilot, engineer, and astronaut. He was the pilot of the space shuttle Challenger on its last flight in 1986. The Challenger exploded 73 seconds after takeoff, killing all seven crewmembers.

In 2004, the crew was named to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, and the airport was renamed Auburn Municipal Airport-Dick Scobee Field. 

The Scobee mural and the memorial bench, which is inscribed with the date the airport opened, were so well received that airport officials invited people to suggest and sponsor more benches and mural designs. The main rule was that they needed to be aviation related.

For Wilson, that meant something from Top Gun. It began, he said, when he offered to sponsor a bench, then after seeing Top Gun: Maverick with his daughter Eve, who is also learning to fly, it grew into a discussion about finding a way to honor "Goose."

According to Wilson the cost of sponsoring a bench is about $500, a mural is about $3,000, and the design has to be approved by Auburn Airport director Tim Mensonides. That was not a challenge, according to Wilson, because Mensonides is also a pilot and a huge Top Gun fan.

“The confluence of these stories gave us the idea, and after a few rounds of layout with the artist, Myron Curry, the mural was designed,” Wilson said.

The mural is done as a memorial because (spoiler alert) "Goose" died in the movie during an unsuccessful attempt to eject from a Grumman F-14 Tomcat. The mural honors the character "Goose" as if he were a real person—so much so that people unfamiliar with the movie pause in front of it wondering, did he train at S50?

No, but he sure inspired many of the pilots who have trained there, and those who are still doing so.

Other murals at the airport include: U.S. Air Force Colonel Joe Jackson, a career military man who was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Lyndon B. Johnson for his efforts in saving three airmen in an evacuation during the Vietnam War; the recognition of Valley Fliers, a local flight club that has launched hundreds of aviation careers since its inception in 1986; and Fly Baby, the experimental aircraft designed by Seattle resident Peter Bowers that won the Experimental Aircraft Association design contest in 1962.