Real Top Guns

The first episode of Real Top Guns feature a 24 year-old F/A-18 Hornet pilot Beau Pitcher who patrols the skies above the Commonwealth Games, fully armed and on alert for terrorist aircraft attack. An unidentified light plane in the no-fly zone and a mid-air refueling drama at night tests all Beau’s skills in the cockpit. Across the country, 22 year-old Hornet pilot Kartik Maharaj deploys to Malaysia for international war games. Ahead lies an action-packed week of high stakes battle against international air forces.

Female fighter navigator Zalie Munro-Rustean leads a bombing mission over Queensland in the awesome high-speed, low-level bomber, the F-111. Two other pilots tell of their dramatic flight in a stricken F-111 which lost a wheel on take-off. Ejection is ruled out and the crew must find a way to get themselves back to the ground alive. At fighter pilot school the rookies are learning how to drop bombs. One student suffers a crushing blow to his dream to be a combat pilot and is ‘scrubbed’ from the course. The other five graduate and for the first time can be called fighter pilots.

One of the hottest flyers in the Air Force, Jason Easthope, goes dog fighting at Mach 2. A father of four who watched his mate and commanding officer crash to his death beside him in a training drill gone wrong, “Easty” has seen it all in the air. He’s preparing for war games against the most ambitious young flyers in the Air Force, the FCI’s; elite pilots training to be Fighter Combat Instructors. Led by one of the most valued and experienced fighter pilots in the country, Matt Hall, the FCI’s are getting ready to take on the rest of the Air Force, outnumbered four-to-one in a giant aerial punch-up called Aces North

Combat-ready fighter pilots from across Australia descend on the Northern Territory for an exercise called Aces North. On the blue team are 6 pilots in training to become Fighter Combat Instructors. On the red team are 35 pilots including Kartik Maharaj and Jason Easthope. Blue team’s mission is to evacuate a platoon of trapped infantry from a secret airstrip deep in the Australian desert but they’ll be vastly outnumbered by swarms of attacking Hornets and F-111’s. For the first time ever, cameras are allowed into the inner circle of Australia’s elite fighter pilot squadrons.

At fighter pilot school, six rookies want to become combat pilots, but first they must survive their instructors. It costs seven million dollars to train a fighter pilot and the Air Force wants all students to pass, but the course is so tough, not everyone will make it. In Malaysia, Kartik Maharaj touches down after a long flight from Australia and the entire squadron of combat pilots prepares for war games. They soon realize; planning a mission in a foreign country is fraught with difficulty.

At fighter pilot school, dogfight training puts all students under intense pressure and two rookies are in trouble. 19 year-old Seano is on a do-or-die flight; a fail will see the end of his dream to be a real top gun. Chetts, the course leader, misses class and is playing catch-up. Meanwhile, Kartik Maharaj and seven other top gun Hornet pilots launch a practice attack on ships in the South China Sea. After a frenzied battle campaign the squadron retires to Singapore to honour fallen military men and women in the Anzac Day Dawn Service.