Red Flag: The Ultimate Game

During the funeral sequence, the USAF Air Demonstration Squadron "Thunderbirds" perform the Missing Man Formation in honor of a fallen pilot. Filmed in 1981, the Thunderbirds would themselves deal with tragedy three times during an 8 month span, losing 3 members of the formation seen in the film, and 6 pilots in all. In May of 1981, Thunderbird 6, Captain Nick Hauck (flying the rear-most aircraft, closest to the viewer during the funeral sequence), was killed during an airshow at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Four months later, Thunderbird Commander/Leader, Lt Col David "DL" Smith, was killed when attempting to eject from his aircraft, shortly after takeoff from Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, Ohio, following their annual airshow. Four months later, the Thunderbirds would lose Commander/Leader, Major Norm Lowry, Captain "Willie" Mays, Captain "Pete" Peterson (the pilot executing the pull up in the Missing Man sequence in the movie), and Captain Mark Melancon, when all four Diamond Formation aircraft crashed during practice at Indian Springs, Nevada, at what is now Creech Air Force Base.

Major Rivers obviously is from a Air Base in Florida as several times he or his wife references it. But the aircraft he flies has a Nellis Tail code and markings of the 414 Aggressor Fighter Squadron, the very squadron he is up against.