Top Guns: The Next Generation | Preview (National Geographic)

In National Geographic’s new six-part series Top Guns: The Next Generation, cameras follow a class of Navy and Marine Corps student pilots as they enter the final and most unforgiving phase of elite strike fighter training. It’s six months of high-stakes aerial training, brutal physical demands, and emotional reckoning – where only the top performers earn the chance to fly the most coveted aircrafts.

The series goes beyond the cockpit, following ambitious young Navy and Marine students both in the air and off-base, capturing candid moments with family and friends and revealing the personal stakes, sacrifices and motivations that brought them here.

Filmed with unprecedented access, it immerses audiences in a world of intense pressure and soaring expectations, where dreams of earning wings of gold collide with the harsh reality of the gruelling training.

From bombing drills to close-range dogfights and nail-biting carrier approaches, each episode captures the intense demands of a programme that challenges their abilities, endurance and resolve at every turn.

While the emotional stakes fuel the story, it’s in the skies where the drama hits full throttle. Outfitted with in-cockpit cameras, the series delivers a breathtaking front-row experience to capture moments of precision, panic and hard-fought triumph as they happen.

Filmed by some of the creative talent behind the blockbuster film “Top Gun: Maverick,” the aerial sequences are cinematic and pulse-pounding, pushing the limits of what these student aviators – and their aircraft – can do.

Top Guns: The Next Generation premieres Sunday 21^st September at 9pm on National Geographic.