Becoming a fighter pilot is no daunder in the park.
There are years of arduous training, and the qualifying bar is set extremely high. If you make a mistake the penalty hardly bears thinking about. You might even start a Third World War.
No wonder there are fewer fighter pilots in the UK than Premier League footballers. That was one of several takeaways from a new five-part documentary series, Top Guns: Inside the RAF (Channel 4, Monday, 9pm).
There are other trades covered in this behind-the-scenes look at RAF Lossiemouth. Mitch Bremner, who grew up near the base, recalls watching the jets as a child. Instead of thinking “I want to fly one of those,” he set his hopes on fixing them, and he is now a lead mechanic.
Inevitably it’s the “glamour” end of the work at the base that attracts the most attention. There are no Tom Cruise lookalikes in evidence at RAF Lossiemouth, at least not in the first episode. Nor do the pilots go by nicknames such as Maverick, Ice, or Viper.
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Not that life lacks excitement in Moray. The series opens with a pilot scrambling into action. Suspected Russian jets are approaching Nato airspace, and someone has to go up and find out what is going on. Suddenly, we’re not in Kansas anymore; it is quite a distance from Lossiemouth too. This is Estonia, 200 miles from the Russian border, where personnel from RAF Lossiemouth have been stationed for a while. Back on the ground at RAF Lossiemouth, the routines of service life go on. The base is the home to 3000 servicemen and women on high alert, one of whom, Harry Brooks, is still in training.
The cameras follow Brooks as he takes part in a dogfight training exercise with his tutor. The cockpit scenes are amazing, like watching an old war movie except these planes can go at the speed of sound. The sheer physical effort required comes as a surprise. Pilots have to twist and turn to see around them at the same time as controlling these mega-powerful flying machines.
Though no figures are given, I bet fighter pilots’ pay does not match that of the Premier League footballers who outnumber them. In professional football, as in flying fighter jets, there are more applicants than there are vacancies, and not everyone can get in and stay there.
Boot Dreams: Now or Never (BBC3, Sunday, 9pm) featured some of the many who thought they had made it, only to find out otherwise.
The cameras follow 16 hopefuls as they attend a training camp run by former Watford and Stoke striker Gifton Noel-Williams. The plan is to give the youngsters another chance of signing a pro-contact by coaching them on and off the pitch, tackling some of the problems that may have led to failure the first time around.
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The presenter is Roman Kemp, once a wannabe footballer himself. Behind the usual zippy BBC3 editing and poptastic soundtrack there is some solid career and life advice here, even if football is not your game.
Another club that’s notoriously difficult to get into goes by the name of “British sitcoms that are successful in America”. Some shows adapt and survive; a few were better than the original (All in the Family v Till Death Us Do Part). Most fell on their backside (Fawlty Towers). Then came The Office to show what a difference a strong cast and the right writers could make.
Whether Ghosts US (BBC3, Monday, 8pm) proves to be an Office or a Fawlty Towers you can judge for yourself. The British show, going through something of a golden period lately, is a tough act to follow. Half the fun in watching the American version is trying to match the characters with their British counterparts. Not every character made it through translation, but you will be pleased to know there is a part in the cast for a certain trouserless gent.
It only seems two minutes since Sex and the City was rebooted and suited and now the second series of And Just Like That (Sky Showcase, Thursday, 9pm) is coming to a close. Nothing was ever going to match the first season’s shock beginning, and sure enough this run has been a more thoughtful affair. Some of the new characters are starting to bed in nicely, others less so, and even the main cast have had to find their groove again (I’m looking at you, Miranda).
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There was the return of a much-loved character in Aidan, so cruelly treated by Carrie in her selfish youth. All these years on he is now a father, a farm owner, and he’s rich too.
Aidan turning up will be mere chicken feed if the rumours swirling round the series finale are true. I cannot say more because no previews are being made available. Imagine not trusting a bunch of hacks with a secret?
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