Question
In the movie Top Gun: Maverick, Maverick and Rooster are intercepted by two enemy fighters one of whom communicates with Maverick and Rooster using gestures, trying to identify friends from foes.
Realistically, for the two enemy fighter pilots, when trying to tell if Maverick and Rooster are hostile or not, choose gestures over wireless comms?
Is this some kind of military practices that is unfamiliar to us?
Answer
Not realistic at all, I think.
For a hand gesture to be seen, the two pilots must have direct line-of-sight on each others' cockpit canopies, they must be relatively close to one another, they must remain that way long enough for a human observer to see and recognize the gesture, the recipient must be aware they should be looking for such signals, and the recipient must stop paying attention to their flight instrumentation for the entire time that they are looking for and attempting to recognize the hand signal.
All practical elements of line-of-sight will be frustrated by the need to maneuver in combat. Because of that, opportunities to flash hand signals will be very few and far between. And because those opportunities are rare, no pilot will prepare for such an occurrence. Nobody will prepare themselves to use an communication channel that is extremely limited and unreliable.
And all of this ignores the fact that even when those elements are aligned, hand signals will be impossible to see at night, while sunlight on the canopy during the day can obscure the interior of the cockpit.
Answered By - Tom
