Hoogvliegers

Good Cast, good TV series. I like it. The Story is not the best but overall really good ideas.

With a long time professional career in aviation this show annoyed me from the first episode. It's written by people without an understanding of the air force. It's one big imaginative version of the air force. The military trains their personnel on a high level and in this show it shows the complete opposite. It portrays them as reckless individuals with no respect and a cocky attitude. Besides the tons and tons of mistakes how aircraft are flown and in what discipline the rest of the script is just lousy. The characters are messy and annoying at points. Somewhere they tried to throw in some love stuff and emotions but it's more annoying than believable. I could make a massive list of all the mistakes made in this show involving aviation but that would take too much of my time. This is a show you will enjoy if you have a very low standard of entertainment. If you are looking for a believable and catching show: avoid this. If you want to watch this show because you enjoy aviation as much as I do: avoid this show, it will only annoy you.

I'm Dutch, have flown professionally for over thirty years myself. I heard about this show from one the Dutch Air-force pilots that works in Arizona where parts were filmed. Thought it was a show about a group of student pilots getting their training. Had hoped it would show more about the actual flight training. I was wrong. It's basically a soap opera. It takes about two years to train an F16 pilot and there's no room for the shenanigans, hotdogging and busting regulations that they do in the show. Taking an aircraft without it being signed out by a crew chief or without orders would never happen. If it did, you'd be fired faster than you can say "pull up". The first episode disappointed me a bit because of the lack of flying and unrealistic military depiction. The producers took some creative liberties here. Once I accepted the fact that I was looking at a soap opera instead of a documentary I suspended all expectation of reality. That helped making the show enjoyable. It watches like reading an old time adventure book for kids. Everything is very predictable with a mostly happy ending. Watch it with an open mind. If you enjoy aviation and can accept the glaring mis representation of military life, discipline and procedures, you'll enjoy the show. The air to air footage is beautifully filmed. My acquaintance has a few extra parts and there was a closeup of his F16 a few times. He enjoyed working as an advisor and flew with the actors in the F16 for close cockpit shots. It's not Top Gun but in the end I was pleasantly surprised.

I had high expectations, but was disappointed. It's not a realistic representation of military training and discipline, let alone in aviation. There are many beautiful shots of landscapes and aircraft in flight and that's the only thing to help digest the silly, shoddy and childish story, the many mistakes, the annoying dialogue and the lack of respect towards military pilots who aren't flying F16's.

Great character building, directing, acting and viideography. Good storyline with a balanced mix fiction / non-fiction. Build up to speed could be a bit faster. All in one, definitely worth watching. Pity it's not available to a larger audience (eg. Netflix)