The blockbuster success of the 1986 film Top Gun—chronicling the paths of young naval aviators as they go through the grueling US Navy's Fighter Weapons School (aka the titular Top Gun)—spawned more than just a successful multimedia franchise. It has also been credited with inspiring future generations of fighter pilots. National Geographic takes viewers behind the scenes to see the process play out for real, with its new documentary series, Top Guns: The Next Generation.
Each episode focuses on a specific aspect of the training, following a handful of students from the Navy and Marines through the highs and lows of their training. That includes practicing dive bombs at break-neck speeds; successfully landing on an aircraft carrier by "catching the wire"; learning the most effective offensive and defensive maneuvers in dogfighting; and, finally, engaging in a freestyle dogfight against a seasoned instructor to complete the program and (hopefully) earn their golden wings. NatGeo was granted unprecedented access, even using in-cockpit cameras to capture the pulse-pounding action of being in the air, as well as capturing behind-the-scenes candid moments.
How does reality stack up against its famous Hollywood depiction? "I think there is a lot of similarity," Capt. Juston "Poker" Kuch, who oversees all training and operations at NAS Meridian, told Ars. "The execution portion of the mission gets focused in the movie so it is all about the flight and the dogfighting and dropping the bombs. What they don't see is the countless hours of preparation that go into the mission, all the years and years of training that it took to get there. You see the battle scenes in Top Gun and you're inspired, but there's a lot of time and effort that goes in to get an individual to that point. It doesn't make for good movies, I guess."