Look Inside Topgun From Its Founding Commander

It's hard to read Dan Pedersen's “Topgun” and not think of Tom Cruise rock-'n'-rollin' through the California mountains in the similarly named motion picture more than 30 years ago. The name—when it refers to the naval-aviator training school—is properly presented as a single word, though the movie splits it in two. “I guess it looks better that way on movie posters,” the author concedes.

Now 83 and living near Topgun's former base near San Diego, Capt. Pedersen was Topgun's founding commander in the 1960s. “I still look up like a kid whenever I hear an airplane passing overhead,” he writes. “Sometimes it'll be a pair of Super Hornets smoking over the desert.”