THE SECRET IS REVEALED | How Tom Cruise and Top Gun: Maverick’s top-secret hypersonic jet was made
The secret behind the incredible top-secret spacecraft featured in Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick has been revealed .
The fictional supersonic aircraft was actually created by the real-life aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin .
The makers drew on the expertise of the American company and its Skunk Works conceptual engineering and design team to create the physics-bending Darkstar .
The plane appears early in the film through Cruise’s character, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, as a test pilot for the US Navy.
The futuristic fighter jet is a stunning introduction to the film’s hyperreal aesthetic.
For aviation enthusiasts, it resembles one of the most revered air vehicles in history, the SR-71 Blackbird.
It was a long-range supersonic aircraft that debuted in 1966 and flew until 1999, capable of three times the speed of sound.
It was operated by both the US Air Force and the US space agency NASA. See other photos of this futuristic spacecraft.
