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Hi, I'm Ben Mathis. Welcome to Kickass News.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the creation of Top Gun, the elite Navy fighter jet school made famous by Tom Cruise in the movie of the same name.

And now the founder of the program and the man known as the godfather of Top Gun, Captain Dan Patterson separates Fact from Fiction and shares the remarkable inside story of how he and eight other risk takers revolutionized the art of aerial combat in a new book titled Top Gun, an American story.

And today, Captain Patterson joins me on the podcast to recall entering the Navy at a time when aerial combat training was all but banned and how he and his fellow pilots learned their skills at a secret fight club in the sky off the coast of San Diego.

He discusses how the pilot losses he witnessed in the Vietnam War directly led to the formation of the Top Gun program, how he and the other original nine bros, as they're called, got it up and running in just a matter of weeks with little or no funding.

And what they looked for in new recruits, he talks about getting to train against real Russian mig fighter jets at the most secretive place in America, the mental and physical stamina required to perform the kind of aerial acrobatics taught at Top Gun and the toll that it can take on a pilot's personal life.

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