I was doing school reports with my youngest today, and we got distracted down some rabbit hole, as people sometimes do, and we got watching scenes on YouTube from Top Gun Maverick. Way into the conversation, something my daughter said about how they got the pilots and filmed reminded me that I knew civilians could request to go out and shoot. That reminded me of how I knew that, and that lead to this guy who’s house I once sat in and thumbed through his photographs with him. He showed me some amazing work he had done by the time I met him in 1990. I still remember some of the photos! He explained to me that he took the civilian route into his military photography to remain competitive with others, even though he himself was a pilot, and could use connections he had to get aboard planes and ships and into situations where he could shoot. Then it popped back into my head, just who he was, and what the world owes to him. His name, C.J. “Heater” Heatley.
“Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer stated explicitly that the inspiration for the famed Paramount motion picture “Top Gun” was the article “Top Guns” by Ehud Yonay, from the May 1983 issue of California magazine, which featured aerial photography by then-Lieutenant Commander C.J. “Heater” Heatley.” –The Aviation Geek Club.
I said to him that some of his images looked like they were right out of Top Gun. He then replied that his work had actually inspired Simpson and Bruckheimer’s style in the movie. I’ll give you a link to his work, and you will see why.
Charles J. Heatley III Photography (heaterpix.com)
But most memorable among his stack of photos was this one:
http://www.heaterpix.com/img/planes_37.jpg
That was the one that compelled me to say what I did. I remember quite a few from the website I liked above. I remember he was called “Heater.” I met him a couple of times over a short period while I was in Florida. Not some ‘seen him at a presentation,’ meeting, but a been to his house, rode in his car, thumbed through his prints and talked about how he got the images on them kind of meeting. And thanks to what my daughter asked me, I suddenly remembered meeting the man without whom we would not have the Top Gun movies.