Some technical errors in the movie:
-The AWG-9 radar in the F-14 is a nose mounted phased array, it does not present a 360' picture. Furthermore radar sweeps are never clear or easy to interpret, except on training equipment.
-The ejection scene where Goose is killed is impossible. There is a lanyard in the back of the canopy that does not allow the Pilot/RIO seats to eject until it has reached full length and pulled out a small pin. I.e. a good thirty feet behind the tail of the aircraft.
-SAR swimmers would leave Goose's dead body in the water, and would have put Maverick on a spine board before loading him into the aircraft. Almost all ejections cause minor, (stress fractures in multiple vertebrae, slipped discs, etc.) to severe spinal injury (broken back or neck caused by being out of position during the ejection cycle.) Some pilots never fly again after their first ejection. The maximum number of ejections allowed a pilot over the total span of their career before they are grounded is three.
-Maverick would have been 'med down' for six to eight months following the ejection. See above.
-NAS Miramar has closed and is now MCAS Miramar. Top Gun is now located in China Lake, California.
From Lometa:
Though there is no officially recognised term Top Gun, the United States Navy instituted a school aimed at creating an elite group of fighter pilots to recapture the lost art of aerial combat on 3 March, 1969. The top one percent of Navy pilots are selected to attend. The flyers call it Top Gun after the wildly popular 1986 movie staring Tom Cruise. Officially the Navy calls it Fighter Weapons School.