Viper - Mike Metcalf Name Tag Patch With Hook Backing

In the 1986 film Top Gun, Cmdr. Mike "Viper" Metcalf was the man who had flown with Maverick's father aboard USS Oriskany and watched Duke Mitchell's F-4 Phantom II go down over Vietnam. He ran the Navy Fighter Weapons School in the film, and he carried that secret through most of it. When he finally told Maverick the truth about his father, it turned the story. Tom Skerritt played him, and a lot of people who watched it at seventeen still picture Viper when they think of a fighter squadron skipper. This is his name tag, laid out the way naval aviators wear theirs, wings over name.

Viper's backstory puts him in Vietnam with Duke Mitchell, who was shot down on 5 November 1965 in the film's history. In the film he is a seasoned fighter pilot who chews out his hotshot student at the school and later becomes the steady hand that gets him back in the cockpit. The students fly the F-14A Tomcat, and the story is set at Miramar. Tom Skerritt was an Air Force veteran himself, enlisting in 1951 and serving at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Texas, until 1955. He said the character drew on his older brother Dick, who flew P-51 Mustangs in World War II.

The patch is a 4 by 2 inch black rectangle with a gold merrowed border. Gold naval aviator wings sit across the top, the anchor and shield centered between two feathered wings. MIKE METCALF is stitched below in gold block letters, with "VIPER" in quotes underneath. It is laid out like a flight suit name tag, the kind every aviator wears with his wings above his name. The back is a hook backing, so it attaches to any loop panel on a flight jacket, bag or vest.

Callsigns and name tags are a small thing that matter a great deal in naval aviation. A callsign usually comes with a story, and the aviator rarely gets to pick it. Viper was written as the old hand who had seen combat over Vietnam and came back to teach it. That quiet authority is the part of the character people remember. He is the skipper a lot of future aviators first saw on a screen in 1986.

Put it on the loop panel of a flight jacket or a range bag, or use it to finish a costume next to Maverick, Goose and Iceman name tags. It is also a good gift for a Navy pilot whose own callsign came with a story. The hook backing lets it move from one jacket to another. Viper never said much more than he had to, and neither does this name tag.