Thousands of visitors fly into Lake Tahoe every year, but very few arrive in a F/A-18E Super Hornet. That was Tom Cruise’s ride in “Top Gun: Maverick,” the blockbuster sequel to the 1986 classic directed by Tony Scott, which shot much of its climax sequence in the South Lake Tahoe area. Filming took place nearly four years ago in December 2018, with pandemic-related delays repeatedly pushing back the movie’s release until May 27. The movie used military bases all over the west coast, including North Island in San Diego, Lemoore in Fresno and Kings counties, China Lake in Ridgecrest, and Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada, where the real life top gun aviation school is located. Each of those locations offered unique qualities, but none were quite right for the film’s climax. To find the perfect site, location manager Mike Fantasia — who also worked on “Memoirs of a Geisha” in Tahoe — scoured the country researching nearly 200 different sites before settling on the Lake Tahoe Airport, partially due to its unique geography. “We needed a mountaintop that overlooked the airport,” Fantasia said. “You don't have mountains close to most airports, but it just so happened there's a couple of knobs of rock sticking up, called Twin Peaks, that are just sitting south and west of the airport.”