History Main / TopGunned

->''"You've got an enemy on your tail! Use the brake!"''
-->--'''Peppy''', ''VideoGame/StarFox64''

In an epic aerial dogfight (or other vehicle pursuit), our hero is in a tight spot as the enemy aircraft are closing in, approaching speeds he cannot hope to match, so rather then continue to outrun his opponents, our hero does the unexpected trick of putting on the brakes, switching the advantage in a split second as his foes rush out in front of his guns.

TruthInTelevision as forcing your opponent to over-shoot is actually a keynote of dogfighting tactics. There are many ways to do it, including the simple ''[[http://www.flightsimbooks.com/f15strikeeagle/097_1.jpg defensive high-speed yo-yo]]'' to the more complex ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scissors vertical and rolling scissors.]]'' The real-life maneuver most commonly seen in media is the ''[[http://www.flightsimbooks.com/f15strikeeagle/093_1.jpg DO A barrel roll defense,]](press z or r twice)'' where the defending aircraft [[DoABarrelRoll pops up and rolls gracefully before coming back down]] behind the attacker. It looks [[RuleOfCool cool,]] and the split-second reversal of advantage is suitably dramatic. This works just as well on [[OldSchoolDogfighting jets as it does on biplanes;]] it's just that dogfights are much less common in RealLife these days.

The trope also applies to more dramatic depictions where the characters vehicle seems to ''literally'' "brake" in mid-air without fancy maneuvering. This is possible if a pilot drops his flaps, speed brake or even landing gear to slow down (though this is a desperation move since it can also make them an easy target, or worse, stall the plane), or if they have certain kinds of thrust vectoring aircraft, such as an F-22A "Raptor" or Su-30 MKI "Flanker-H", and utilize a ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectoring_in_forward_flight VIFF]]'' maneuver.

And of course, the trope also applies to similar braking maneuvers that are [[RuleOfCool simply unpossible.]]

Compare WronskiFeint.

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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* Erica pulls one in ''StrikeWitches''. Slight subversion in that Gertrud gets the kills.
* Kudo Shin from {{Macross}} Zero does the Pugachev Cobra maneuver. Unfortunately, the enemy knows what he's up to and nothing short of abusing the VF's innate ability to change forms did Shin able to get a shot in.
** The 'braking' version is actually a fairly common {{Ace Pilot}} trick in the entire {{Macross}} franchise. It helps when you can change into GERWALK mode in mid flight and actually have your main engines point forward for a few seconds.
** Alto Saotome's attempt to do it to kill Brera in ''MacrossFrontier'' fails when Brera dodges his attack. [[InvokedTrope And Alto was so certain it'd work too]].
* The various versions of ''{{Area 88}}'' regularly feature these maneuvers since it's a series about {{Ace Pilot}}s in dogfights.
* Yuichi's signature move in TheSkyCrawlers, which wins him several dogfights. [[spoiler:Also the signature move of The Teacher, which turns out to be a plot point.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* Occured in a ''GIJoe'' comic.
* Most hilarious version is probably in Gold Digger, when an opponent in a VTOL uses it to allow him to break, so it's 'Like he's flying backwards'. The protagonist, meanwhile, laughs, and his plane's engines flip around, allowing him to literally fly backwards. BeyondTheImpossible, definitely. CrowningMomentOfFunny? That would be a few pages later in the book.
* Boba Fett did this when he was chase by IG 88 in ShadowsOfTheEmpire comic.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* Named for the iconic scene from ''TopGun''
* ''Film/IronMan'': Tony pulls out the flaps and tries to hide under one of the pursuing jets.
* ''TheIronGiant'' does this as well.
* Taken to extremes in ''HotShots'' with the fighter plane ''braking'' in mid-air, complete with screeching sounds and an "AIR BRAKE" pedal!
* [[StarWars Luke]] does this during the speeder bike chase on Endor.
* Subverted in ''PineappleExpress''. Saul slams on the brakes during the police chase, only to have the following car brake beside him and open fire.
* ''TheTerminator'' Sarah hits the breaks on the car while the Terminators car continues its high speed pursuit.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* Lampshaded in the ''StarWars: XWingSeries''. A fake recruit in training (don't ask; [[spoiler:If you really want to know, it's a sting operation against an officer who's faking crashes and selling fighters on the black market.]]), is in the simulator with other members of her squadron. Her mission is to deliberately be an average student, in order to entrap a villainous instructor into artificially improving her scores. So she takes the lead from her less experienced but determined wingmate during the simulated mission. While being chased by two TIE fighters, she pulls one of these. It doesn't work. After the sim, her commander notes something to the effect of, "you were trying to slow down, in open airspace, while being chased by two more experienced pilots in more maneuverable craft? WhatWereYouThinking?"
** The aforementioned wingmate is able to give the correct response to the situation: drop a missile and use the detonation as a screen for the turnaround maneuver.
** A more complicated variant is a Rogue Squadron tactic: one wingmate stops short, expecting the pursuit to ''also'' stop short. However, the other wingmate continues in a plain arc, and ''that'' pilot's pursuer follows in a predictable manner, becoming an easy target for the first Rogue.
*** This is a classic scissors manuver for a two-plane element. Stackpole indulged in a little ShownTheirWork in the first book of which this is part.
* In ''Shooting Script'' by Gavin Lyall, the hero kills a fighter jet with his unarmed propellor-driven plane by slowing down abruptly right in front of the jet, which stalls while trying to avoid crashing into him and goes into the ground. The fighter had been buzzing him because the local dictatorship thought he was supporting the rebels. They hassled him so much that, well....
* Favorite tactic for Dale Brown's Pat McLanahan, unlike ''normal'' pilots he does it with a B-52

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* This maneuver is referred to as "Good old-fashioned red-dogging" in the pilot two-parter of the ''BuckRogers'' TV series.
** Also shows up in the pilot movie of the original ''BattlestarGalactica'', written by the same guy who did ''BuckRogers''.
*** Only the pilot movie? They do it constantly, in nearly every scene that involves vipers vs raiders dogfighting in the original series. You'd think the poor Cylons would reprogram their pilots to deal with this tactic, but they fall for it every stinkin' time.
* ''Airwolf'' did this practically every single episode.
** Somewhat justified, since it's a helicopter that really can just stop in the air.
* Since the series takes place in space, ''{{Babylon 5}}'' pilots occasionally do this sort of thing. Sheridan trains the station's Starfury pilots in one episode and says that aliens with greater tolerance for G-forces or are willing to let the autopilot fly while they're blacked out can be particularly dangerous in these situations.
** Crazy Ivanova?
** This is one of the exceedingly rare instances of Newtonian physics actually being shown in space. After all, in a vacuum, where you are pointing, where your engines are pointing and the direction in which you are currently travelling can all be quite different things without any particular effort or stress on the spacecraft, unlike a vehicle operating in an atmosphere.
* The correct display of Newtonian physics was also used for a variation several times in the 2003 reboot of BattlestarGalactica, as well as in SpaceAboveAndBeyond: In both cases, the chased pilots simply flipped their fighters backwards while keeping their momentum, thus bringing the pursuing enemy into their sights.
* Interesting variation on ''{{Firefly}}'', with the "[[http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/Crazy_Ivan Crazy Ivan]]"--the manoeuvrable ''Serenity'' pulls a [[DoABarrelRoll 180 flip]], then engages its interplanetary drive, catching the pursuers in its [[WeaponizedExhaust high-temperature exhaust]]. The move is named after a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Ivan real life submarine manoeuvre]] used for detecting ships hiding in sonar shadow.
** Which you will all of course know from TheHuntForRedOctober.
* Done in ''StargateAtlantis'' by Colonel John Sheppard in an F-302 against an AI-controlled F-302 that's trying to kill him.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Newspaper Comics ]]

* Played with in a strip of CalvinAndHobbes, in which Spaceman Spiff pulls this maneuver to turn the tables on some pursuing aliens. This being outer space, they respond by simply turning around, so Spiff speeds up to get back ahead of them again, whereupon they turn around again, and so on. The last panel reveals Calvin is imagining this scenario from a swing set.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]
* A standard tactic in [[Warhammer40000 Aeronautica Imperialis]], especially effective if an Eldar Nightwing dumps the throttle and pulls a nice sharp climb to drop its speed by 5 (on a 0 to 9 scale, no less), forcing the tailing Ork fighter to [[TooFastToStop rocket-booster along]] and let the Nightwing drop down behind it and shred it in a barrage of shuriken cannon fire.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]
* You can do this in ''VideoGame/StarFox64'' during the dogfights with the Star Wolf team.
* Some airship battles in ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' give you the option to slow down and let the other airship get ahead for a clear shot with your Harpoon Cannon (and later, WaveMotionGun).
* Occassionally occurs with some of the more elite pilots in the ''AceCombat'' series. The most obvious are the Su-37 Ace pilots in [=AC2=], which can pull a Pugachev Cobra(see under RealLife). If you don't expect it, you fly straight past and they get a perfect shot at you. If you are expecting it, you get a free shot at a completely immobile enemy.
** Yellow Squadron pilots will also perform this maneuver in [=AC04=]; ironically, their replacements in the final mission do it so much that it back-fires, making them easy gun kills.
* You can do this in ''Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.'', but realistically it's only possible with the higher-performance modern jets and not, say, a "Fishbed".
** However, the type of maneuver the game encourages you to use to get behind your enemies is the one tactic most pilots would try to avoid, which would be deliberately stalling your plane.
* Arguably ''the'' tactic in AceOnline. The choices are, like in their real life counterpart, numerous. Should you lure your enemy to a terrain? Use (or abuse) the Back Move Mach/Turn Around function to engage the enemy? Or use an innate ability to basically keep yourself alive longer than your opponents? The choice is endless.
* Subverted in ''Afterburner Climax''; some enemy planes will do this, but all it does is make them an easy target since they can't fire at you.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* In the ''BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' episode "Inside Job", Buzz uses this twice as it is his [[ChekhovsSkill Chekhov's Maneuver]] for the episode. He referred to it as "Stop, Drop, Rock and Roll!".
* ''SamuraiJack'': Episode XIX "Jack Remembers the Past". Jack is being pursued by bounty hunters riding on giant hornets. Jack has his own hornet stop and draws his sword and cuts off his opponent's head as they fly past.
* Early in ''TransformersCybertron'', Thundercracker pulls this on Optimus Prime. Unfortunately for 'Cracker, when the [[SmokeShield smoke clears]] [[TheWorfBarrage it turns out to have done no damage]], and Optimus kicks off the running gag of [[ButtMonkey Thundercracker]] being [[AmusingInjuries injured for our amusement]] by blowing up the poor Decepticon's own missiles in his face.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* Pugachev's Cobra, named after Sukhoi test pilot Viktor Pugachev who demonstrated it at the Paris Air Show.
** The first MIG-29 sent to the Paris Airshow crashed doing this, ironically. Do not assault your stall speed close to the ground!
* Although RAF Harriers and RN Sea Harriers were widely reported as using VIFF during the Falklands War, in fact the Argentinian pilots were at the edge of their range and did not fly aggressively enough to make it necessary. Slamming the nozzles into "full hover stop" however gave the Harrier a significant advantage in a number of training dogfights.
* Many say [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham Duke Cunningham]]'s combat experiences formed the basis of the film's action sequences, as Cunningham [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZGGbNuXxkI actually performed the maneuver in Vietnam in a big bulky F-4 Phantom II in combat against a MiG-17]].

[[/folder]]
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-->--'''Peppy''', ''StarFox 64''

* You can do this in ''StarFox 64'' during the dogfights with the Star Wolf team.

* Some airship battles in ''SkiesOfArcadia'' give you the option to slow down and let the other airship get ahead for a clear shot with your Harpoon Cannon (and later, WaveMotionGun).

TruthInTelevision as forcing your opponent to over-shoot is actually a keynote of dogfighting tactics. There are many ways to do it, including the simple ''[[http://www.flightsimbooks.com/f15strikeeagle/097_1.jpg defensive high-speed yo-yo]]'' to the more complex ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scissors vertical and rolling scissors.]]'' The real-life maneuver most commonly seen in media is the ''[[http://www.flightsimbooks.com/f15strikeeagle/093_1.jpg DO A barrel roll defense,]](press z or r twice)'' where the defending aircraft [[DoABarrelRoll pops up and rolls gracefully before coming back down]] behind the attacker. It looks [[RuleOfCool cool,]] and the split-second reversal of advantage is suitably dramatic. This works just as well on [[OldSchoolDogfighting jets as it does on biplanes;]] it's just that dogfights are much less common in RealLife these days.

The trope also applies to more dramatic depictions where the characters vehicle seems to ''literally'' "brake" in mid-air without fancy maneuvering. This is possible if a pilot drops his flaps, speed brake or even landing gear to slow down (though this is a desperation move since it can also make them an easy target, or worse, stall the plane), or if they have certain kinds of thrust vectoring aircraft, such as an F-22A "Raptor" or Su-30 MKI "Flanker-H", and utilize a ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectoring_in_forward_flight VIFF]]'' maneuver.

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

* Most hilarious version is probably in Gold Digger, when an opponent in a VTOL uses it to allow him to break, so it's 'Like he's flying backwards'. The protagonist, meanwhile, laughs, and his plane's engines flip around, allowing him to literally fly backwards. BeyondTheImpossible, definitely. CrowningMomentOfFunny? That would be a few pages later in the book.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

* In ''Shooting Script'' by Gavin Lyall, the hero kills a fighter jet with his unarmed propellor-driven plane by slowing down abruptly right in front of the jet, which stalls while trying to avoid crashing into him and goes into the ground. The fighter had been buzzing him because the local dictatorship thought he was supporting the rebels. They hassled him so much that, well....
* Favorite tactic for Dale Brown's Pat McLanahan, unlike ''normal'' pilots he does it with a B-52

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* This maneuver is referred to as "Good old-fashioned red-dogging" in the pilot two-parter of the ''BuckRogers'' TV series.

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

[[AC:RealLife]]

* Although RAF Harriers and RN Sea Harriers were widely reported as using VIFF during the Falklands War, in fact the Argentinian pilots were at the edge of their range and did not fly aggressively enough to make it necessary. Slamming the nozzles into "full hover stop" however gave the Harrier a significant advantage in a number of training dogfights.

<<|CombatTropes|>>
<<|TruthInTelevision|>>

->"You've got an enemy on your tail! Use the brake!"
-->Peppy, ''StarFox 64''

* Occassionally occurs with some of the more elite pilots in the ''AceCombat'' series. The most obvious are the Su-37 Ace pilots in [=AC2=], which can pull a Pugachev Cobra (see under RealLife) If you don't expect it, you fly straight past and they get a perfect shot at you. If you are expecting it, you get a free shot at a completely immobile enemy.
** Yellow Squadron pilots will also perform this maneuver in AC04; ironically, they do it so much that it back-fires, making them easy gun kills.

The trope also applies to more dramatic depictions where the characters vehicle seems to ''literally'' "brake" in mid-air without fancy maneuvering. This is possible if a pilot drops his flaps, speed brake or even landing gear to slow down (though this is a desperation move since it can also make them an easy target,) or if they have certain kinds of thrust vectoring aircraft, such as an F-22A "Raptor" or Su-30 MKI "Flanker-H", and utilize a ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectoring_in_forward_flight VIFF]]'' maneuver.

* Many say [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham Duke Cunningham]] is the real life inspiration for the movie and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZGGbNuXxkI actually performed the maneuver in Vietnam in a big bulky F-4 Phantom II in combat against a MiG-17]]. Say what you will about his recent years, this guy was considered godly in the world of aerial combat.

* Although RAF Harriers were widely reported as using VIFF during the Falklands War, in fact the Argentinian pilots were at the edge of their range and did not fly aggressively enough to make it necessary.

* Occassionally occurs with some of the more elite pilots in the ''AceCombat'' series. The most obvious are the Su-37 Ace pilots in AC2, which can pull a Pugachev Cobra (see under RealLife) If you don't expect it, you fly straight past and they get a perfect shot at you. If you are expecting it, you get a free shot at a completely immobile enemy.

** Alto Saotome's attempt to do it to kill Brera fails when Brera dodges his attack. [[InvokedTrope And Alto was so certain it'd work too]].

*** Only the pilot movie? They do it constantly, in nearly every scene that involves vipers vs raiders dogfighting.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Draken_TopGunned.jpg
[[caption-width:432:The Draken can be my BadassGrandpa CoolPlane any day.]]