Commander Randall Cunningham – Vietnam fighter ace and the pilot the movie “Top Gun” is based on. A Vietnam war volunteer, “Duke” Cunningham joined the Navy to do his part. He didn’t know that he would make his first air kill in January of 1972 and would become the first ace of the war by May of the same year. The commander of the Navy’s Top Gun School before he retired, “Duke” was then elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990. Always an aviator, he flies each of the Navy’s aircraft before approving funding. “Duke” Cunningham is a true Legend of Airpower.
