The United States Navy Fighter Weapons School was established on 3 March 1969, at Naval Air Station Miramar, California. Placed under the control of the VF-121 "Pacemakers," an F-4 Phantom-equipped Replacement Air Group (RAG) unit, the new school received relatively scant funding and resources. Its staff consisted of eight F-4 Phantom II instructors from VF-121 and one intelligence officer hand-picked by the school's first officer-in-charge, Lieutenant Commander Dan A. Pedersen, USN. Together, F-4 aviators Darrell Gary, Mel Holmes, Jim Laing, John Nash, Jim Ruliffson, Jerry Sawatzky, J. C. Smith, Steve Smith, as well as Wayne Hildebrand, a naval intelligence officer, built the Naval Fighter Weapons School syllabus from scratch. To support their operations, they borrowed aircraft from its parent unit and other Miramar-based units, such as composite squadron VC-7 and Fighter Squadron One Two Six VF-126. The school's first headquarters at Miramar was in a stolen modular trailer.
According to the 1973 command history of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, the unit's purpose was to "train fighter air crews at the graduate level in all aspects of fighter weapons systems including tactics, techniques, procedures and doctrine. It serves to build a nucleus of eminently knowledgeable fighter crews to construct, guide, and enhance weapons training cycles and subsequent aircrew performance. This select group acts as the F-4 community’s most operationally orientated weapons specialists. Topgun’s efforts are dedicated to the Navy’s professional fighter crews, past, present and future.”
Its objective was to develop, refine, and teach aerial dogfight tactics and techniques to certain fleet air crews, using the concept of dissimilar air combat training, or DACT, which uses stand-in aircraft to realistically replicate expected enemy aircraft and is widely used in air arms the world over. At that time, the predominant enemy aircraft were the Russian-built transonic MiG-17 'Fresco' and the supersonic MiG-21 'Fishbed'.
Topgun initially operated the A-4 Skyhawk and borrowed USAF T-38 Talons to simulate the flying characteristics of the MiG-17 and MiG-21, respectively. The school also used Marine-crewed A-6 Intruders and USAF F-106 aircraft when available. Later, the T-38 was replaced by the F-5E and F-5F Tiger II.
One British writer claimed that the early school was influenced by a group of a dozen flying instructors from the British Fleet Air Arm who were assigned to Miramar as exchange pilots and served as instructors in VF-121.[11][12] A British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, declared in a 2009 headline, "American Top Gun Fighter Pilot Academy Set Up by British." [13] However, the British naval pilots mentioned in the article confirmed that the claim was false and that they had no role in creating the curriculum and no access to the classified programs that the Topgun instructors participated in to refine it. An earlier U.S. Navy air-to-air combat training program, the U.S. Navy Fleet Air Gunnery Units, or FAGU, had provided air combat training for Naval Aviators from the early 1950s until 1960. But a doctrinal shift, brought on by advances in missile, radar, and fire control technology, contributed to the belief that the era of the classic dogfight was over, leading to their disestablishment and a serious decline in U.S air-to-air combat proficiency that became apparent during the Vietnam War.[14][15] The pilots who were part of the initial cadre of instructors at Topgun had experience as students from FAGU,[15] but the Topgun curriculum at Naval Air Station Miramar in 1968 was not of anyone's creation but their own.
Air crews selected to attend the Topgun course were chosen from front-line units. Upon graduating, these crews would return to their parent fleet units to relay what they had learned to their fellow squadron mates—in essence becoming instructors themselves.
During the halt in the bombing campaign against North Vietnam (in force from 1968 until the early 1970s), Topgun established itself as a center of excellence in fighter doctrine, tactics, and training. By the time aerial activity over the North resumed, most Navy squadrons had a Topgun graduate. According to the USN, the results were dramatic. The Navy kill-to-loss ratio against the North Vietnamese Air Force (NVAF) MiGs soared from 3.7:1 (1965–1967) to 13:1 (after 1970), while the Air Force, which had not implemented a similar training program, actually had its kill ratio worsen for a time after the resumption of bombing, according to Benjamin Lambeth's The Transformation of American Airpower.
The success of the U.S. Navy fighter crews vindicated the fledgling DACT school's existence and led to Topgun becoming a separate, fully funded command in itself, with its own permanently assigned aviation, staffing, and infrastructural assets. Topgun graduates who scored air-to-air kills over North Vietnam and returned to instruct included Ronald E. "Mugs" McKeown and Jack Ensch. The first U.S. aces of the Vietnam War, Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Willie Driscoll, received no official Topgun training, but had, during F-4 training with VF-121, flown against Topgun instructors.
It was not until after the war in Vietnam ended that the Air Force initiated a robust DACT program with dedicated aggressor squadrons. The Air Force also initiated a program to replicate an aircrew's first ten combat missions known as Red Flag, and the USAF Weapons School also increased emphasis on DACT.
The 1970s and 1980s brought the introduction of the F-14 Tomcat and the F/A-18 Hornet as the primary fleet fighter aircraft flown by students, while Topgun instructors retained their A-4s and F-5s, but also added the F-16 Fighting Falcon to better simulate the threat presented by the Soviet Union's new 4th-generation MiG-29 'Fulcrum' and Su-27 'Flanker' fighters. However, the specially built F-16N developed cracks in the airframe and was retired.
Largely due to the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the Topgun syllabus was modified to include more emphasis on the air-to-ground strike mission as a result of the expanding multi-mission taskings of the F-14 and F/A-18. In addition, Topgun retired their A-4s and F-5s in favor of F-16s and F/A-18s in the Aggressor Squadron.