Top Gun was on the other morning, and I was still feeling the beer from playing cards (500) with the guys the previous night. I heard the old "Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full" line and went down the internet rabbit hole trying to figure that out. His call sign is Maverick. Should they have called him Maverick? I also noticed that in the first scene at the Top Gun academy, when Tom Skerritt is giving his speech, the term Ghost Rider is written on the blackboard/whiteboard in the background with pilot/rio tandems listed below.
Apparently Ghost Rider was the name of the flight group. So technically there would have been a Ghost Rider 1, Ghost Rider 2, Ghost Rider 3, etc. The tower was referring to Maverick/Goose as being part of the Ghost Rider group.
I also learned about what a "4G negative pushover" is, and how that's not really what the maneuver is called in real flight. It's technically a "negative 4G" (so 4 times the force of gravity going to your head) dive, which is sometimes called a pushover.
...okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming...