WASHINGTON — It will be tough to go into the big battle against drones without the irrepressible Goose.

And Tom Cruise, now 51, will no longer be playing a snot-nosed jockey with a need for speed on the highway to the danger zone. Three decades later, the mature Maverick will be a seasoned pilot with the chops to prove, as John Henry did against the steam-powered hammer, that man can beat machine. He won’t be going up against Russians in the Cold War, but robots in the Drone War. Instead of Cruise as a loose cannon, it will be Cruise fighting loose drones.

It was a sequel idea proposed by Tony Scott, who directed the blockbuster “Top Gun,” before he committed suicide in 2012.

Jerry Bruckheimer, who co-produced the 1986 movie, which he once described as “ ‘Star Wars’ on earth,” recently revealed to The Huffington Post that he and Cruise are getting “closer and closer” to a deal to make “Top Gun 2.”