The original "Top Gun" features a ton of high-intensity stunts, including a few that would have serious consequences for real-life military aviators (like flipping off the enemy and "buzzing" the control tower). To achieve the realism necessary, the filmmakers turned to highly trained military pilots — including Scott Altman, a young aviator who went on to command the space shuttle Atlantis.
"The skipper of our squadron picked four guys he thought he could trust to have this kind of carte blanche to break the rules a little bit," Altman told CNN in a 2009 interview. He also revealed that he's the pilot who has the memorable moment of giving the finger to an enemy fighter. "They said go ahead and gesture at the other airplane. So when you're looking at the scene where he's communicating with the Russian, or the bad-guy pilots in the movie, that would be my finger."
