Tom Cruise in Top Gun
The naval carrier used in Tom Cruise classic Top Gun is to be scraped Paramount

Top Gun fans could soon be in mourning after the a last ditch effort to save the USS Ranger used in the iconic 1980s Tom Cruise flick failed.

The Ranger faces being put on the scrap heap unless a Californian organisation can persuade the US Navy to spare it in the next few weeks.

Top Gun Super Carrier of Long Beach wanted to acquire the ship, which was decommissioned in 1993 after 35 years of service, and convert it into a floating museum at Long Beach harbour.

It reportedly had pledges of approximately $14m (£9.3m) to help save the Ranger, but after that bid failed, the vessel was sold to International Shipbreaking last year, reported USA Today.

Its final voyage looks set to take it to Brownsville, Texas, where it will be dismantled either at the end of January or in February.

"Unfortunately, we are not able to keep ships in storage forever, and so we had no choice but to move forward with this contract [to scrap the ship]," said Chris Johnson, a spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command.

"Though we would have preferred for the ship to be converted into a museum or memorial, during the eight years it was available, no group was able to pull together the necessary funding to make that happen."