THE REAL TOP GUNS

Follow US pilots as they battle to earn their wings

- 

strapped in and enemies shooting at them. This is the transition. The dream is to go and be in Top Gun, wear the patch, this is how you do it."

With gruelling daily tests, there will be students who despite their best efforts do not make the grade.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Spenser Neel, whose dad was a fighter pilot, says: "I have a tendency to talk too much, I can't help it."

Lt Carissa Meinster, also from a military family, says: "Someone described flight school as taking your driver's test every day... and the grader is brutal."