Navy Fighter Weapons School

The United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program (SFTI program), more popularly known as Topgun or TOPGUN, teaches fighter and strike tactics and techniques to selected Naval Aviators and Naval flight officers, who return to their operating units as surrogate instructors. It began as the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, established on March 3, 1969, at the former Naval Air Station Miramar, north of San Diego, California. In 1996, the School was merged into the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at NAS Fallon, Nevada.

In 1968, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Thomas Hinman Moorer ordered Captain Frank Ault to research the failings of the U.S. air-to-air missiles used in combat in the skies over North Vietnam.Operation Rolling Thunder, which lasted from 2 March 1965 to 1 November 1968, ultimately saw almost 1,000 U.S. aircraft losses in about one million sorties. Rolling Thunder became the Rorschach test for the Navy and Air Force, which drew nearly opposite conclusions. The USAF concluded that its air losses were primarily due to unobserved MiG attacks from the rear, and were, therefore, a technology problem. The service responded by upgrading its F-4 Phantom II fleet, installing an internal M61 Vulcan cannon (replacing the gun pods carried under the aircraft's belly by Air Force Phantom units, such as the 366th Fighter Wing), developing improved airborne radar systems, and working to solve the targeting problems of the AIM-9 and AIM-7 air-to-air missiles.

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