The Top Gun expansion for Microsoft’s Flight Simulator is now available to download for free. The expansion is a promotion for the film Top Gun: Maverick, starring Tom Cruise, a sequel to the 80s classic Top Gun. The Expansion in Flight Simulator includes new features that are based directly on the film, as well as some sneaky references to the franchise’s more obscure history.
The expansion has a new Top Gun theme livery for the F/A-18E Super Hornet, one of the main jets in Maverick. Three new training missions are part of the expansion and include unrestricted take-offs. These missions will also have you maneuver through complicated terrain while at low altitude, just like in the films. The biggest new feature in the expansion though is the carrier deck landing challenge.
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The carrier deck landing challenge is not only a reference to the original Top Gun movie, but it is also a reference to the Top Gun NES video game from the 80s. The NES game was notoriously difficult, and the main feature of that game is taking off and landing on a carrier. Even for the time, trying to land on the carrier deck proved almost impossible for most young players of that decade.
The full list of features in Top Gun: Maverick expansion is listed below:
- A “Top Gun: Maverick Edition” livery for the F/A-18E Super Hornet.
- Three training missions for the Super Hornet that will allow you to master radical flight maneuvers including unrestricted take-offs, split S maneuvers, and low altitude, high-speed maneuvering through complex terrain.
- Five high-speed, low-level challenges that require utmost skill to navigate just above mountains and traverse through canyons.
- A carrier deck landing challenge, is one of the most demanding operations in the world of military aviation.
- A never-before-unveiled hypersonic aircraft that can attain speeds of Mach 10 and altitudes greater than 150,000 feet above sea level.
- A mission to roar into the stratosphere.
