TOPGUN conducts three Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor (SFTI) classes a year. Each class lasts nine weeks and consists of nine Navy and Marine Corps strike fighter aircraft—a mix of single-seat F/A-18Cs and Es, and two-seat F/A-18Ds and Fs, as well as F-35C. The TOPGUN course is designed to train already experienced Navy and Marine Corps aircrews at the graduate level (although it is currently not a regionally or nationally accredited educational program) in all aspects of strike-fighter aircraft employment, which includes tactics, hardware, techniques and the current world threat for air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. The course includes eighty hours of lectures and twenty-five sorties that pit students against TOPGUN instructors. When a pilot or WSO completes the TOPGUN course he/she will return as a Training Officer carrying the latest tactical doctrine back to their operational squadron or go directly to an FRS squadron to teach new aircrews. SFTIs can also become instructors themselves at TOPGUN later in their career. Each year, a small number of aircrews do not meet TOPGUN's standards and are dropped from the course.