Top Gun NES - How to Land the Plane and Refuel

Read the description for a LOT of information!

A tutorial on:
how to land (gameplay from level 1)
how to refuel (gameplay from level 3)

The difficulty for landing and refueling does not increase with the level, though enemies definitely do.

The game is not QUITE as bad as people say it is, and the concepts turn out to be pretty good. Landing and refueling - once you figure out what it is you're actually trying to do - is actually well done and gives you a sense of accomplishment when you do it. The problem is with the graphics, unclear and confusing instructions, and overall gameplay.

When I was younger and played this game, I hated it. But once you learn what the goal is, you can actually see a nice balance between monitoring your speed, altitude, visual distance from the runway, and direction - as I imagine you'd be constantly monitoring in a real plane - IF the real plane was a crappy, 8-bit hunk of junk with boat-like control. But I do like the game a bit better than I used to..

That being said, the game still sucks. The game was very confusing to a lot of people and was not very clear on its instructions.

They SHOULD have let you monitor your altitude & speed by yourself, and done away with the directions of "Up", "Down", "Speed up", and "Speed down" for landing, keeping only "Left" and "Right" on the radar. It ended up just confusing and annoying people (they also should only have displayed the words "Left" and "Right" ONE time instead of two, which confused people even further).

Also, its not clear that you're supposed to actively SEEK OUT the targets in the levels in order to beat them. For example, in level 2 I found out through sheer luck you must stay low to get to the target (aircraft carrier). I was merely trying to avoid air battles and fight the aircraft carriers when I found out.

Also:
-The beginning has a LOT of downtime
-Enemies all take one hit from your machine gun (except for the main targets and certain ground units)
-This game takes sprite popping to a new level (AND sprite disappearing!)
-Missiles and bullets sometimes appear too close and disappear for no reason
-The graphics are awful and obviously NO time was put into making them
-You really DO feel like you're in purgatory (as the AVGN said!) due to the lack of detail in the levels

The missions increase in enemies as you move on. I see what the developers were trying to do. Any single enemy is not more difficult than any other one in the game, but there's simply more of them as you get further in the game. Once you reach the targets of missions 2, 3, & 4 the targets get harder to destroy just because there's more and more enemies. Mission 4 is ridiculous with how many they throw at you. So now, I DO appreciate what the developers had in mind.

Some of the game's flaws are a little forgivable since it was released in 1987. But this game takes a LOT of patience to master.

This was played on an emulator, but without the use of slow-downs (frame-by-frame editing). I used save states only for visual quality purposes, but was able to land and refuel all but one attempt I think. I was considering making a TAS of this game, but that would be the most incredibly boring thing to make AND watch. But one day I may make a walkthrough, RTS (real-time speedrun) or a partly tool-assisted run (TAS using savestates only). But who knows..
*EDIT Well, I decided to do a full TAS. Here it is!:
   • TAS Top Gun NES In 26:33 By TrenchAce...  

The last scene is from the end of the game, after mission 4 (blow up an enemy space shuttle).

I used music because the stupid game has barely any music. Extra points for anyone who guesses where it's from...

Rate, comment, enjoy!