Hotshot Pilots Are Target of Choice on Miramar’s Ladies Night

Tom (Wink) Winkowski may have been far from the cockpit of his F-14, but the Navy fighter pilot was ready for action.

It was Ladies Night at the Miramar Naval Air Station Officers’ Club, and flocks of young women were streaming through the doors. Clad in the trademark olive-green flight suit of his breed, Winkowski scanned the throng with cool detachment, looking for just the right target.

He didn’t have far to look. They were coming right to him.

“We’re not supermen, but a lot of these girls seem to think we are,” Winkowski said, flashing a Boy Scout grin as a trio of women closed in to inspect his military garb. “I guess they’ve just got good taste.”

For years a rather ho-hum affair attracting scores of men but only a smattering of eligible females, Ladies Night has escalated into a major happening this summer, hoisted to grand scale by the release three months ago of the hit movie “Top Gun.”

The film, starring teen dream Tom Cruise, is a romance-action picture showcasing the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School at Miramar. Also known as Top Gun school, the rigorous program trains the top 1% of pilots in the Navy to perform the ultimate in airborne derring-do.

With its heart-pumping flight sequences, handsome leading men and luscious lovesick lady, “Top Gun” describes a world that has sparked a flame of intrigue among a certain slice of the female populace in San Diego.

The premise of Ladies Night--which some pilots refer to derisively as “Hog Call”--is simple: Any woman over 18 who submits her name, age and address can receive a hostess pass--good for one year--and obtain access to the base. Men are not invited, a Navy spokeswoman said, because “this is an event for officers,” nearly all of whom are male.

Since the movie’s release, the number of applications for hostess passes has doubled. The event has even been plugged on radio station KFMB, where one of the deejays is chummy with a few of the pilots.

The Navy cooperated extensively on the film--providing a battery of technical advisers, extras and hardware--and, much to the Navy’s delight, the picture has prompted a surge in recruiting nationwide.

But apparently the soaring popularity of Ladies Night is not something the Navy likes to talk much about. Although it is essentially a public event, drawing several hundred civilian women onto the high-security naval air station each Wednesday, repeated efforts by The Times to obtain assistance from base public affairs officers in covering the story were spurned.

“This is just not a story the Navy needs to do or wants to do,” explained Lt. Cmdr. Ellis Woumnm, Miramar’s top public affairs officer. “With the movie and everything, these guys have had enough attention lately. We don’t need a bunch of cameras and microphones in there. Why don’t you just leave them alone?”

A request for a press pass to the event was rejected. But Woumnm did say, “You can go as a private citizen,” and pledged to send along an application for a hostess pass. The application never arrived.

So a Times reporter did what many women apparently do--showed up at the Miramar gate one Wednesday night and asked for directions to the O Club. Initially, the sentry--an enlisted man clearly resentful of the many women heading for the O Club, which is off limits to seamen--balked, citing “increased security.” Later, he relented, waving the car through.

Woumnm said denial of a reporter’s request to cover the event did not mean “we have anything to hide.” Instead, he cited the pilots’ need for privacy as Miramar’s main motive in barring coverage. Other comments, however, indicated that the Navy’s reluctance stems in part from a fear that the officers may overindulge and embarrass themselves.

“Is the image of a guy drinking booze and getting crazy the image the Navy wants to project? Frankly, no,” said Cmdr. Ronald E. Wildermuth, force public affairs officer for Com Nav Air Pac in San Diego.

“This is a place where the guys let their hair down. It’s a private place for them to go shoot the bull, laugh and giggle and scratch without worrying about anything,” Wildermuth said.

At first glance, the Ladies Night scene resembles just another crowded nightclub--shoulder-to-shoulder masses talking, drinking and swaying to the heavy bump of rock ‘n’ roll. But there are differences.

Although it’s after 8 and the steamy confines of the O Club are drawing sweat from many a brow, dozens of pilots remain dressed in their regalia--black boots and zippered flight suits complete with numerous pockets, patches identifying the type of planes they fly and their “call sign,” or nickname, in black stitching.

Aviation memorabilia--including a giant, lighted picture of a warplane behind the bar--are everywhere, and “Top Gun” is shown on a video screen in the club lobby.

The social repartee among the crowd, which numbers about 600, is unique as well. At this party, which has become a mandatory stop on the social flight plan of many a single San Diego woman, females are most often the aggressors, hotly pursuing the pilots elevated to heroic stature by the cinematic exploits of Tom Cruise.

Still, some aviators--and other military officers drawn to the Miramar event by rumors of its attractive payoffs--choose not to wait for an invitation.

“Oh, don’t move, my arm’s in love,” one pilot informed women as they slid past him through the throng toward the bar one recent Wednesday. Another, his upper body draped over the cigarette machine near the restrooms, had this come-on when a woman jostled him and apologized: “Oh don’t worry, I enjoyed it. Was it good for you, too?”

A third officer’s routine was to simply grab a woman’s purse strap, follow her and explain, “I’m with you.”

Other pilots skip the preliminaries and just flirt with their hands.

While most military bases have some version of Ladies Night, Wednesdays at the Miramar O Club are legendary, Navy pilots say.

“Guys from the Midwest and the East are dying to get out here, not only because it’s the top fighter pilot school but because of hog call and the Southern California women,” said a flier who recently left the Navy and asked not to be named.

“A lot of these women are young beach women, real novices. That’s what these guys are looking for. The novices.”

And what makes these brash, boyish air jockeys with their close-cropped hair and distinctive swagger such hot commodities?

Some women migrate through the Miramar gates because they like the cocky self-confidence and lust for high-risk adventure the pilots exude. Others say the aviators are simply well-rounded, clean-cut men who haul in attractive salaries of $35,000 a year or more.

“Basically they are stable, steady, together guys,” Charlotte Baker, a platinum blond in a black-and-white polka dot halter dress, explained over the din of top-40 tunes at the height of Ladies Night recently.

“They’ve got college degrees, they’re committed to something--to the Navy and to flying--and unlike guys in bars they’re not always asking you out to their car to do a line (of cocaine). Plus they have a lot of talent. I mean, my ex-boyfriend is a Top Gun instructor and plays classical piano!”

The pilots’ only flaw, Baker said, is that “they’re pretty egoed-out guys. That can get in the way. And some of them get jerky, calling girls toads and stuff. You gotta’ make ‘em respect you or you’ll get burned.”

Like Baker did.

“Oh yeah, it happened to me, it happens to most girls here. But the guys don’t really mean it. They’re like boys. Take my ex, for example. He really pursued me, and finally we got together. Then he did some really rude things to me and that was it. But now we’re friends. I understood.”

Many women admit they are attracted to Ladies Night by the prospect of landing a husband.

“The ratio’s good and let’s face it, a fighter pilot is one hot catch,” said Sandy as she surveyed the O Club crowd with the quick, skeptical eye of a veteran one recent Wednesday. “They never let on, but 90% of these girls come here hoping to get married.”

Amy, a recent UC San Diego graduate who lives in Tierrasanta, agreed.

“I’ve been coming here since I was 19, because it was free and we could get drinks,” she said. “It was dead back then. But ever since Top Gun came out it’s been wall-to-wall girls, all looking for a Mr. Right who looks just like Tom Cruise.”

As for the men, most say Ladies Night is a time to get drunk, swap stories and bask in the attention their female guests lavish upon them. Few seem interested in matrimony.

“Marriage? No way,” Winkowski said. “A lot of these girls look good, but when they open their mouths you realize they’re idiots.”

Pilot Dave Pegg, teetering on the edge of the crowd one recent Wednesday, also seemed uninterested in a romantic commitment: “Look at all these different women! Who needs a wife or girlfriend?”

Baker, a Ladies Night regular since November, confirmed that some pilots show up Wednesdays for one thing and one thing only--”to get lucky.” And, with the Bachelors Officers Quarters (BOQ)--where some men live and others take rooms by the night--just across the street from the club, it’s all very convenient.

“The girls who aren’t smart just smile and go along, thinking that this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship,” said Baker, who works in a photocopying shop. “Not me. When a guy says BOQ to me I slap his face. I say, ‘You want me, boy, you take me out to dinner Saturday night.’ ”

Because Wednesdays are considered boys’ night out at the club, wives and girlfriends generally stay home, and their mates are free to frolic.

“I rarely come, because it’s just tradition that the guys are on their own here on Wednesdays and a lot of them get wild,” said Amy, a personnel headhunter whose boyfriend is enrolled in Top Gun school and stayed home to rest on this particular night.

“When I do come I always see these married guys with different girls--girls who don’t know they’re married. I hate to see that. It really hurts.”

At 8 p.m., the scene at the O Club--a dark, wood-paneled place bedecked with red-white-and-blue streamers and balloons--swings into high gear. Cars packed with women pull up and hunt for parking spots, and it’s jammed inside the club and on the large patio out back. The restrooms are teeming with female guests, who lather on makeup in front of the mirrors and discuss their prospects over the stall walls.

Waitresses clad in T-shirts bearing the insignias of their favorite flight squadrons fight their way through the dense crowd. Behind the bars, mixing drinks with no-nonsense style, are matronly, gum-chewing women in similar dress who seem at once protective of and infatuated by the flight-suited fliers.

Many pilots hang together by squadron in tight circles, seemingly oblivious to the circus-like atmosphere as they trade tales of the day’s training. Some escape the fray for a quiet meal in the dining room; others boogie to tunes like “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “Nasty Boy” and “Addicted to Love” on one of the club’s numerous dance floors.

The aviators--who go by “call signs” like Mongo, Jungle, Flex, Lingus, Jambo and Hoser, nicknames that are easily barked over their warplane radios--aren’t the only men cruising the scene.

No civilian men are admitted, but riding the contrails of the fighter pilots--the O Club’s hottest ticket--is a herd of lesser-trained Naval aviators, Navy reservists, even a few Coast Guard officers. And numerous Marine Corps pilots show up as well, donning their green flight suits and driving in from as far away as El Toro and Yuma.

“The Marines don’t do well, because this is a Navy bar,” Baker said. Although their flight suits are similar, “I can spot a Marine a mile away. It’s the hair, the walk, everything.”

Sometimes, non-pilots attempt to masquerade as Top Gun hotshots and cash in on the women’s infatuation with the sky warriors. One recent Wednesday, for example, a short-haired man in a store-bought flight suit appeared, attempting to woo women with his garb and tales of heroism amid the clouds. But he was outmatched.

“We called his bluff and won,” said Amy, well-versed, like many of the women, in the hardware, history and terminology of the pilots’ trade. “He hadn’t done his homework.”

With the release of “Top Gun,” the number of applications for hostess passes, awarded at the discretion of the club manager, shot skyward. Everyone credits the movie.

“Now we’ve got such a backlog it takes six weeks to get a pass out,” the spokeswoman said, noting that married women need not apply. “They’re all dying to get in here to find their Mr. Right.”

Some of the veteran attendees don’t much like the influx. The increased competition, they say, is a drag. And the crowds have swollen the pilots’ egos even more.

“It used to be empty, and the ratio was 10-to-1 in our favor,” said Baker, whose mother was married to a fighter pilot killed in a crash. “Now it’s a zoo. You know, these guys are really getting spoiled.”

Veteran fliers and retirees say they chuckle at the glowing image of fighter pilots as irresistible wunderkinder. Because they remember another era.

“When I joined up, back in ‘73, it was a very different time, with Vietnam and all, and you hid the fact you were a military pilot,” said the aviator who recently left the Navy. “These guys have it pretty easy, to say the least.”