The Canyon Was For the Camera

B-2 Spirit bomber

A while back I came across Top Gun: Maverick on television. (No surprise there.) It was the part where they just started the canyon run. I started thinking about how the mission could have been handled better and with less risk to equipment and pilots. 

The excuse given for the tactics they used was that there were GPS jammers surrounding the target so they couldn't use smart munitions. That's not totally true (more on that later). 

I started talking to Grok about it. I first asked why they used F/A-18 Super Hornets instead of fifth-generation fighters. Grok said it was because of the demands of making the movie. There are no two-seater fifth-generation fighter aircraft. Since the Super Hornet has a back seat, they could put the actors there and have a real pilot fly the plane, making it look more realistic. 

Then I, with Grok's help, came up with a better plan to destroy the target.

First of all, you need to use EA-18 Growlers to jam the anti-aircraft missile batteries and then use anti-radiation missiles (AGM-88 HARM or AGM-88E AARGM) to do DEAD (Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses). They likely didn't do this in the movie to make it more exciting.

Then launch Tomahawk missiles at the GPS jammers. Tomahawks don't use GPS but use inertial navigation plus terrain mapping to find their target. According to Grok, they've been doing that since the 1980s. Or use F-35C Lightning fifth-generation fighters to attack the jammers with stand-off missiles while remaining outside the anti-aircraft missiles' envelope.

(Technically you could use Tomahawks to do the whole mission since they don't use GPS and can hit very precisely.) 

Keep some F-35C Lightning fighters lurking about in case the enemy brings in jets of their own.  

Once the GPS jammers are gone, fly B-2 Spirit bombers over the site at altitude (as high as 40,000 feet; safe from any remaining anti-aircraft missiles) and hit them with Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs to destroy the target. The MOPs do use GPS but have inertial backup, too. And the mission is completed without the dangerous flying in the movie.

Problems: B-2s live at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. They would have to take off many hours before the strike (something like 15 hours before assuming the foreign country is somewhere near Iran) yet be over the target at the right time: within minutes of the DEAD being completed. That would include in-air refueling and rest periods for pilots. Operation Midnight Hammer (June 22, 2025) had all these logistic problems except for the precise timing component. 

Spies for the foreign country could see the B-2s take off and have plenty of time to tell their bosses that something was up. The enemy country could have its fifth-generation fighters around to fight off our F-35C Lightning fighters. If the enemy nation is flying Russian SU-57 fighters, they have a service ceiling of over 61,000 feet. They could conceivably attack the B-2s but odds are they won't be able to find them with their radar. The mission would have to be moved to night time to keep the B-2s from being spotted by the Mk I eyeball. 

Also, this would have to be a joint Navy and Air Force operation. Then you get into politics of the inter-service rivalries. Also, two chain of commands increase the possibility of a leak somewhere. 

This operation would not put lives and equipment in as much risk as they did in the movie. Of course everyone lived because it was a movie. But it wouldn't be nearly as exciting as the Death Star trench run that they did.