It did, in fact, all of the [Iron Eagle] sequels did.

The original may make more sense if you think of it as opera --
specifically, a heavy metal rock opera by Ronnie James Dio -- rather
than as a literalist airplane movie. I never saw any of the sequels.



I still want to know what they had to force feed those
Phantoms though to get them to pretend to be Migs

Reminds me of something I saw about five minutes of on cable, killing
time while waiting for somebody. Capsule summary:

Two F-16 pilots out of Alaska are in some sort of intramural contest
to exceed 9 g by as much as they could bear. They stray over Russian
airspace and get intercepted by a couple of those Mig-Donnell products
(painted up as if for an attack role in the desert somewhere).
Missiles and ejection seats start flying around. The remaining F-16
guy and the still-functioning Phantomovich disengage and figure out
what to tell their respective higher-ups.

Complications presumably ensue, but I didn't get to see enough to
figure out what I was watching.

Why filmmakers would think one of the most distinctive looking jets in
the air could be palmed off as anything else (well, maybe a MiG-23
from some angles on dollar beer night), I have no idea. There's a
lot of things I don't know and many of them are in Hollywood...

--Joe