chunk: Maverick flies recklessly in part to compensate for his father Duke Mitchell, a Naval Aviator with VF-51 aboard the USS Oriskany (CV-34) during the Vietnam War. The elder Mitchell died when his F-4 Phantom II was shot down in an incident Maverick refuses to believe was his fault. Goose is cautious and devoted to his wife Carol and child. The two officers are nonetheless close friends and effective partners. At a bar the day before Top Gun starts, Maverick, assisted by Goose, unsuccessfully approaches a woman. He learns the next day that she is Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood, an astrophysicist and civilian Top Gun instructor. Upon learning that Maverick is the pilot who flipped off a MiG-28 pilot (and as a result disproved her data suggesting the MiG-28 was limited in performing a "negative-G pushover" due to a "problem with its inverted flight tanks"), she is instantly more interested in him.