Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds

The Thunderbirds are the demonstration squadron of the US Air Force. The documentary follows one training season from start to finish. New pilots arrive, all of them experienced on fighters, and what they do here is a different job. In formation the aircraft fly less than a metre apart; there is no margin, and at that distance the trust rests on individual people. They work through the winter in the desert, watch the tapes again and again, and fly the same manoeuvre hundreds of times. None of them counts as ready until the season opens. Matt Wilcox directs; ninety-one minutes. The camera is inside the cockpit. What is shown is not the display but the preparation: how much of this work is nerve and how much is repetition.