Enjoy the movie. I suspect it will be exciting. Just be sure to realize that very little of it is realistic. The airborne filming in TG1 was very good, but completely staged for the screen. In real life, air combat maneuvering (ACM) involves you looking at an airplane which is more often than not a tiny dot. That's not good for movie making. Even when you're in Sidewinder range, the other guy is pretty small. Chances are you can identify the aircraft type, but plenty of friendly aircraft got shot down by their own squadron mates in Viet Nam because of mis-identification. The ultra close flying in TG1 looked great on the screen, but it's nothing you would intentionally do in real life.
One of my fellow F-8 pilots was an artist and he sold quite a few paintings depicting a dog fight. His artwork typically consisted of a 3'x4' canvas with nothing but water or landscape in the background and a single aircraft painted in great detail, but only about 1/2" long. His market consisted exclusively of sales to other fighter pilots because nobody else understood it.
The flight deck shots in TG1 were also good and they were perhaps the only realistic parts of the movie. A carrier flight deck is one of the most exciting, dangerous, and most closely choreographed places on earth. No need to dress it up for a movie screen. It's absolutely spectacular in real life.
Then there is the attitude of the punk played by Tom Cruise. A man like that wouldn't last 10 minutes in pre-flight training. If he made it to the fleet, any one of the many stunts he got away with would have had his wings jerked in the real Navy and he would be sent to be the public relations officer in some place like Yuma, Arizona. And that so-called female MiG expert civilian bracing a Navy Fighter Pilot up against the bulkhead is a joke. A civilian would have to be SecNav or above (i.e. Secretary of Defense or the President) to have chewed my ass when I was an active duty Fighter Pilot.
A pilot like Maverick is simply unacceptable. When you go into combat your wing-man or leader MUST be a man who is 100% reliable and trustworthy. The same goes for situations like flying instrument approaches in low ceiling and visibility when the wing-man is looking at nothing but his leaders wingtip light a few feet away, relying absolutely on the reliability of the other guy to guide him to a safe landing. Goof Balls like Maverick need not apply. Nobody in the real Navy would fly with such an undisciplined, unprofessional pilot.
Having said that, a Fighter Pilot, at least back in my day, was the polar opposite from a nerd. Unfortunately, almost nobody involved in writing, directing, and filming TG1 had any military experience. The idea of a colorful fighter pilot not afraid of anything except making an embarrassing mistake relating to his flying skills is something completely foreign to Hollywood. They think that lack of discipline and lack of professionalism is cool and heroic when the exact opposite is the case.
so sad. hopefully the corona virus will have lessened a lot so it wont be delayed again!
