cthelder

Watched it by myself. If my wife had been with me it would've been turned off within 5 minutes.

I play a lot of combat flight simulator games like Il2 and DCS. The CGI in the movie looked a lot similar to the graphics in those games. Because of that the low quality cgi in the flying scenes didn't bother me too much. I liked the flashbacks in black and white. Looked better. The cockpit mock-up should've been a bit more expansive. Looking back while the aircraft is on the ground I should've seen parts of the empennage and the quarter front shots should've shown parts of the wing.

It was crystal clear they shot a cockpit module without anything else attached.

So, we've established it's low budget on the flying scenes. In the movie Devyatayev they used War Thunder for the CGI flying and combat scenes and that looked a lot more realistic and seamless.

The writing could've been done better also. Fighter pilots don't have discussions about strategy in the cockpit. That's for on the ground. Pilots going on a photo recon flight don't hang out with straggler B17's and tell them where they're going, over enemy territory. They're at 40,000ft trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

The mixing of the two time periods was nicely done. Photo recon flight are by design very boring. Fly from A to B, take pictures and return to A. Personally I would've just paid more attention to the practical task of navigating to the target and back. Photo recon is a very under-lighted part of ww2 aviation and this would've been a nice opportunity to go a bit deeper on the peculiarities of taking photographs over enemy territory.

All in all I look at it as if a bunch of hobbyists and ww2 aviation enthousiasts put something together on a shoestring budget. A work of love, not something to make money with. As a pilot, flight simmer and WW2 aviation enthousiast I have to applaud the effort.

If you like the subject of ww2 aviation and flightsim enthousiast and can overlook some of the flaws you'll enjoy the movie on tv. Just don't go in expecting Top Gun. I gave it 8/10 for effort.

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.