Title: Meet TOPGUN Radar Intercept Officer David "Bio" Baranek  | At the Smithsonian   | Smithsonian Magazine
Headings: Meet TOPGUN Radar Intercept Officer David “Bio” Baranek
Meet TOPGUN Radar Intercept Officer David “Bio” Baranek
It’s difficult to hear the phrase “TOPGUN” and not immediately have F-14 Tomcats zooming around in your brain against a rocking Kenny Loggins soundtrack
You were an F-14 radar intercept officer (RIO), like Goose was in the film. What were your primary flight responsibilities–and were you capable of piloting an F-14, if necessary?
Calm, cool and in control, that's the stereotype of the fighter pilot, right? What was the tightest spot you’ve been in?
As a former graduate and a former instructor, what kinds of things were done to really push the buttons of pilots selected for TOPGUN?
During your time as air-to-air combat instructor, what was the most important advice you passed on to your students?
As an RIO, regarding the type of pilot you’d rather fly with, are you a Maverick guy or an Iceman guy?
You were on board for some of the aerial stunts in Top Gun–so was that you onscreen behind one of the black helmets in one of the enemy fighters?
And how did you help Paramount with the dialogue?
Now with the increase of unmanned drones, do you think dogfighting is dead?
It appears that most of your experience was in the F-14. Is there another particular airplane in which you’re still craving some quality flight time?
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Content: The primary flight responsibilities are spelled out in the F-14 operating manual. Those are navigation, communication and operating the weapons system. When the F-14 was designed, because of parts of its mission and state of automation, they still needed one guy to make the radar be most effective. In addition, the RIO shared responsibility for the safety of the airplane. And if we were in a dogfight, I shared responsibility . He’d keep track of the people he could, and he’d hand people off to me. In terms of piloting the plane, that’s easy. One, the Navy did not train RIOs to fly. And two, the F-14 had no flight controls in the back seat. That was not an option.