Watch an F/A-18 Super Hornet Pull Off an Insanely-Low Flyby for 'Top Gun: Maverick'

This article by Jared Keller originally appeared on Task & Purpose, a digital news and culture publication dedicated to military and veterans issues.

The premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick” may have been pushed back to December due to the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), but you can still satisfy your need for speed with this new behind-the scenes shot from the upcoming sequel.

New footage from the “Top Gun: Maverick” film crew, first surfaced on Instagram and found by our friends at The War Zone shows a Blue Angel F/A-18 Super Hornet conducting a super-low flyby over the crew during filming at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake.

It's unclear how long this footage will persist — the original Instagram account which surfaced it has since been deleted — so here's the flyby in beautiful GIF form:

via GIPHY

As The War Zone points out, the shot appears to correspond to a shot of Pete “Maverick" Mitchell in a fictional hypersonic jet at the end of the movie's second trailer:

Here it is again in GIF form:

via GIPHY

The only downside of this video is knowing that there was no way in hell that the Navy was letting Tom Cruise get behind the stick in that Super Hornet, but it's still quite the shot.

Directed by Joseph Kosinksi and starring Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, and Val Kilmer, "Top Gun: Maverick" finally hits theaters on December 23, 2020.

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