Excellent, a Must See

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

This is a History Channel program depicting various aerial battles. The time era takes place from the first generation bi-planes to modern aviators during Desert Storm. The Phil Crowley narrations give the program a steady newsreel sensibilities. There are military experts, historians, and sometimes, actual participants in those battles. It has old footage, maps, and most importantly CGI recreations of the aerial combat. The CGI is good for TV of that time period. It is excellent at presenting the combat tactics of these pilots. The show gives the general specifications of these planes and describe their strength and weaknesses. The CGI is able to inject action into the documentary programs. This is a must for aerial combat enthusiasts of any era.

Great documentary series.As the name suggests, a documentary series on aerial dogfights. Includes World War 1, World War 2, Korean War, Vietnam, 6 Day War, Yom Kippur and the two invasions of Iraq. Also has different forms of aerial combat, including naval and night-fighting.Good narration, great CGI and good, relevant stories. Often shows a progression in tactics within the one episode.About the only negative is that it is very US-centric. Most of the dogfights shown involve US pilots. No Red Baron (if I recall) and very little about the myriad of German Aces of WW2.

Over 90% of all episodes are of American victories. The rest are 'our side', whether Israelis, in admittedly the same one-sided accounts, defeating many times their number of foes, or the RAF who are represented as having to use an American rather than British pilot in a British-Canadian Squadron portrayed shooting down more unarmed planes than warplanes. The series seems to forget that the definition of a dogfight is the aerial combat between fighter planes. Seriously, in 3 seasons not a single mention of "The Battle of Britain"(admittedly the most important series of dogfights to western freedom), the Spitfire nor a British even Canadian star. There is not a single episode where an enemy fighter pilot is the star shooting down an American fighter pilot in a dogfight. That's not 'a little biased', that's 'totally biased'. That's not a 'historical documentary', that's 'propaganda'. Even non-Americans have risked and given their lives for the American ideals of 'Truth and Justice for all', but this series has none of that. I've collected such documentary series in book, tape now DVD form for over 40 years. This is the first one I'll refuse to include.

I just watched the entire first season on DVD. This series is excellent for putting you "in the cockpit" to see how some specific dogfights unfolded. You are shown the tactical situations, the options available, the merits of each option, and what was actually tried. The specific dogfights span from Rickenbacker in the First World War to some modern jet dogfights. The commentaries by the pilots and eminent historians are excellent.There are some minor weaknesses. The first is that some viewers might be put off by the heavy emphasis on American pilots. If you are looking for American exploits, you will like these episodes. The second is that there are many small technical errors. For example, when talking about the P-40, they once show some P-51A fighters, which are entirely different aircraft. They describe the German MK 108 cannon as the "Mark 108" cannon, although MK does not stand for "Mark" in that case (a common error). The graphic for the SB2C Helldiver shows it with a six-blade propeller. They refer to "laser-guided" air-to-air missiles when they actually mean "radar-guided". The videos are still wonderful, but some viewers might be annoyed as I was by the many minor errors.