Original subtitles

This programme contains strong language from the start

BIRDSONG

GEESE HONK

CLOCK TICKS

TELEPHONE RINGS

ALARMS BLARE

Go, go, go!

ALARMS CONTINUE TO BLARE

JET ENGINES FIRE

I'm in a country that borders Russia now.

We are as close to the enemy as you could be.

Looking out the window we can see these two straight

lines of cloud coming our way.

You don't know what's going on, but there's something there.

I'm looking at it, trying to figure out what it is.

Oh, my God.

That's a Russian fighter.

Here they come.

Gust-wise, for the next flight it's all looking quite light.

Today's a light northerly to north-westerly flow so there

shouldn't really be any significant gusts to be worrying about.

It's a straightforward day, just got the risk of

some white clouds this morning but it's comfortably up to blue now.

Say, "Bye, Dad!" Goodbye, Dad. I won't see you for ages.

Ooo-ahhh... Boo!

HE KISSES BABY

Nyoom!

What kind of aeroplane are you, Ollie-bob?

Uh, your boss aeroplane. The boss aeroplane.

I mean, that's just, let's just pretend that's the Typhoon, shall we?

It's like, yeah. The boss aeroplane.

Do you remember where Daddy's going tomorrow?

Estonia. Estonia. That's it.

I've been flying the Typhoon fighter jet for five years.

I remember I was probably nine or ten years old.

My best mate had a really good dream of being a fighter pilot

and I thought, "That sounds great."

So I stole it and stuck with it, and he didn't.

What did your mate become?

Uh, he works in car insurance.

I will be gone by the time you wake up.

So Daddy's going away for lots of sleepovers.

Is he gonna go for 100?

Not that many. A bit less.

Mr Magnolia has only one boot.

That's like you half the time. HE CHUCKLES

He has an old trumpet that goes...

I guess the Russian stuff happening at the moment is making

it all a bit more real. But...

..I try to push it to one side and just look at it like a job, really.

Love you, buddy. HE KISSES BOY

The world at the moment is not in the best of places

with the ongoing Russian conflict.

That's certainly in the back of all of our minds going out to Estonia.

It's the front line with Russia.

This is definitely high stakes.

WAVES CRASH, SEAGULLS CRY

Ukrainian authorities have said that fierce fighting is under way

in the east and north-east of the country.

11 civilians were killed and scores of people were injured during a wave

of strikes yesterday.

Opening doors on a Monday morning. Just what I want to be doing.

Alfie!

This is embarrassing. He's locked the fucking thing.

He's locked inside!

HE KNOCKS

Alfie, can you do this, please, mate?

150 miles north of Edinburgh...

RADIO CHATTER

..RAF Lossiemouth is the UK's busiest operational airbase.

140, 14 knots. Crossing one six on the left.

It's home to around 50 warplanes.

Left, right, left!

And around 3,000 servicemen and women on high alert.

Halt!

Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the RAF

has stepped up its preparations in case the war escalates.

We're off to the weekly squadron brief.

My job is to set the standard. Set the intent.

On my squadron I've got 18 pilots.

I need to know that every pilot

can engage with the most capable

pilot of any enemy air force

that we could encounter.

I think one of the big takeaways for us to

think about is that there is a state-on-state war

going on on the conflict of Europe, in which thousands of people

have lost their lives.

Now, part of the reason why that conflict hasn't extended

in the way that we feared is because Russia knows

that there are people like you that would inflict a huge

amount of damage on them should they cross that line.

But if that conflict extends and the UK were to get involved,

the individuals in this room would be the first people to go

and deliver the combat effect that's required of us.

And that's why we have to be ready.

Today, Kev's taking a closer look at a 28-year-old junior pilot

fresh out of training and currently on trial with 2 Squadron.

I'm the newest guy on the squadron at the moment.

I got here just over two weeks ago.

It seems like a big step up from what I've been doing before.

As a kid, I always wanted to be a rally driver or

something stupid like that. Anything that would make

my mum worry, I was well into it.

And then I kind of got this idea

of being a pilot and I just never

grew up really and kind of wanted to chase that dream down.

To test Harry's combat skills, he's being challenged to a dogfight.

Right, we all sorted?

A one-on-one contest against Kev.

Right. Our philosophy today is we're going to kill with a gun when able.

And it's aggressive, but it's an important skill because we

need to learn how to kill in the hardest of circumstances

using the aircraft at the edge of its capabilities.

I like to think of my stick and my throttle hands

have a relationship.

The best way I've heard to describe that is the mittens that babies

have with, you know, that bit of cotton that goes up around there

so they can't lose them? If the stick is not fully back

in Typhoon, because the engines are monsters, you will end up in

an uncontrollable dive that will scare the bejesus out of you.

We need you to be ready to hold your own against

a very experienced Russian pilot.

Dogfighting is a major test of your skills as a pilot.

You're trying to manoeuvre the jet as aggressively as you can to get

behind them and kill the other aircraft as quickly as possible.

It's pretty much like a fist-fight in the sky.

There's a little bit of nervousness.

It's important to put a good show on for the boss, especially as one

of your first flights on the squadron.

So, yeah, there's a little bit of pressure there to,

you know, show him what you can do.

ENGINES WARM UP

I remember the first time I ever took off in Typhoon.

I remember just giggling to myself all the way down the runway.

ENGINES FIRE

It's just got more power than you could

ever know what to do with. It's an absolute beast.

It's ridiculous because the jet weighs like 20 tonnes

and it just shifts like it weighs nothing.

Harry must try to get his weapons to lock on to Kev's jet,

simulating a kill shot.

The only rules are for safety. The jets must stay at least 1,000 feet

apart and not go below base height - a simulated ground level.

If you go through base, that's you effectively flying into the ground.

HARRY GRUNTS

HARRY PANTS

Trying to get that missile locked, it's an assault

on the senses and the body.

HE GROANS

I'm probably the most competitive person I know.

It's like when we go to the curry house,

it's all about who has the hottest curry.

But ultimately, my job is to put them in a situation

where they can beat me, as much as I don't want them to.

Kev offers Harry a shooting opportunity by heading straight

down towards the sea...

..and base height.

AUTOMATED VOICE: Pull up, pull up.

As Kev levels out,

Harry overshoots,

going below base.

I followed him down too aggressively.

Probably a bit too much eagerness from myself to try and get the kill.

Going through base, it's really frustrating to have done that.

It's not unusual to see guys make mistakes,

but there are fewer fighter pilots in the UK

than there are Premier League footballers,

so it's a very high bar.

How's that? Yeah, it's good.

Sound.

Pressure's on!

Oh! Oh, no! LAUGHTER

Can't teach that, like. Great technique.

Following an error in a training dogfight,

junior pilot Harry's performance must be analysed

by squadron boss Kev.

OK, right.

So, I thought your 3K offensive was really great for the first 80%

and then you lost control of it at the end.

OK, so I kind of forced us down to base height,

but it seemed to create you some closure problems.

So you had me absolutely bang to rights, and I was hoping

that you would just saddle up and absolutely destroy me.

But I think you flew through base by about 150ft.

So we'll look at how you could have dealt with that better.

Yeah. Yeah? Good.

You've got to be able to make accurate decisions

with the blood draining away from our head,

pulling a huge amount of G.

Ultimately, if he doesn't make the grade,

he'll be removed from the job.

GUNSHOT

PHONE RINGS

WOMAN'S VOICE: Hello!

Hey, are you OK? Yeah, good, thanks.

How's your day been?

It's been pretty long.

I just thought I'd show you around the room up here.

Yeah, that'd be really good.

Standard-issue bed and then... Do you manage to sleep OK?

Yeah, it's fine.

What about the noise from the jets?

Yeah, it's still annoying.

Yeah, I like flying them, don't like the noise of them.

Yeah, so what about...?

Harry's recent posting to RAF Lossiemouth is the furthest

he's had from family back in Cardiff.

A bit different, it's a bit quieter than...

Mum pretty much gave up all her weekends to

drive me to gliding school, drop me off, pick me up.

She was always supporting me.

Isn't just about enough storage.

It sounds bizarre, but I could fly before I could drive.

Have you got your own bathroom?

Yeah, a little en suite.

Nothing much, but it's nice to have the privacy. Yeah.

Yeah, so I'll speak to you tomorrow.

All right, OK. All right, bye. See you.

I thought getting into the Air Force was the biggest hurdle

but flying training brings its own challenges.

The learning curve is absolutely endless because you think

you're making progress and then

you realise there are 101 more things that you don't know.

You've got to just cram as much as you can into every hour

to learn as much as you can to get through it.

And it's not uncommon to see 50% of a course fail.

Think I'm getting it.

How's it looking, Callum, all good?

Amazing. Amazing? Excellent.

Spanning two square miles,

RAF Lossiemouth is the size of a small town,

equipped with its own fire station...

..police station...

..and shops.

All right, cheers. Thank you, have a nice day. Cheers.

See you in a bit.

I've just came back from Falklands.

Personnel are stationed here, on average,

for three years at a time.

It's cold there, was it all right?

It's all right, but it's just cold.

You all right, mate?

Right, have a nice day.

All right, all right, all right!

Lovely colour on them mushrooms there, chef.

This is where it's at, really.

Traying out the bacon, MasterChef and professionals can keep it.

This is where the real chefs hang out.

Yes! We are cooked.

If it's brown, it's cooked. If it's black, it's...

You know what I'm going to say, don't you?

My role is to provide food for the masses, for the troops.

An army marches on its stomach, and even though we're flying,

we still need everybody ready.

Every day, Phil and his team feed up to 1,000 people across the base.

Customer! Any eggs, sir?

Poached egg, please. One? Two.

Two poached eggs, here we go.

Two poached eggs, please!

Hash browns are...cooked through. Lovely.

Not keeping on top of your due diligence in the kitchen

can be catastrophic.

So imagine if I poisoned everyone, that's it!

Because the last thing you want is the shits in a Typhoon.

Think about it... Brown windscreen. HE LAUGHS

Lovely!

We live in turbulent times.

The RAF, it's the constant state of readiness.

I'm fully aware that at any moment I could be getting shipped

off to Ukraine or a neighbouring country.

That's the harsh reality of it.

Beautiful! Yes!

NEWSREADER: While the world watches events in Ukraine, NATO is watching

the skies above the Baltic states, worried this could be the next

target of Russian aggression.

NEWSREADER: This is NATO's frontline with Russia.

REPORTER: As tensions with Russia continue...

Lossiemouth's 9 Squadron has been deployed to

Amari Air Base in Eastern Europe.

Working with the German Air Force on NATO's frontline,

200 miles from the Russian border.

HE BLOWS INTO HIS HANDS

I have never felt cold like it.

I'm like, "Oh, my God!" HE LAUGHS

It is a shock to the system, like. Jesus!

I am from Scotland, not far from Lossiemouth.

From a young age, I remember seeing the Tornado fly by my school

and I thought to myself, "I want a bit of that."

And instead of thinking I want to fly them,

I went more realistic and I thought, "I want to fix them."

Hello, MTV, and welcome to my crib.

He's not spared any expense. Nope.

I've got somewhere to sleep,

I've got somewhere to sit and I've got somewhere to shit.

It's all I need. LAUGHTER

For the last month, mechanic Mitch has been living and working

in a hangar alongside Typhoon jets.

We're all here for a purpose.

My job's to get the aircraft in the air.

It's literally eat, sleep, rinse, repeat.

And I enjoy it.

Severely enjoy it.

The skies along the front line with Russia are constantly monitored

for any of Putin's military.

ALARM BLARES

Go, go, get the door!

A suspected Russian plane is closing on NATO airspace.

Mitch has just minutes to get a Typhoon airborne.

Very happy with that.

I'm not going to lie to you,

it's the busiest I've seen it since being here, that's for sure.

Typhoon pilot Jake has arrived in Estonia at a time when the number

of Russian warplanes being detected is increasing.

Landing in Estonia,

suddenly it kind of strikes home like, you know,

this is the front line.

I'm in a country that borders Russia now.

We are as close to the enemy as you could be.

He must now work 24-hour shifts, ready to scramble at any moment.

Just warming the jet up.

Just getting her on state.

All good.

Looking good so far.

Before I go flying, I'll kind of put my hand on the aeroplane

and I kind of say a couple of words to it, and I just kind of feel

like that kind of bond with it in a weird way.

Like, you know, it is a machine

but, you know, at the end of the day,

she's kind of ultimately in charge

because if she doesn't want to go up, she ain't goin'.

HE SIGHS

Yep. Yep. Still a plane.

Still attached. All good.

Don't know what I'm looking at.

I'm going to pretend I do.

Yep, something made a clicking noise.

I'll ignore it. HE LAUGHS

That's not going in the film. RAF will say,

"Nope. He's not taking the piss out of one of our pilots."

HE LAUGHS They pretend to know

what they're looking at on the jet...

..when we guide them to the right solution.

That's why we're the SMEs.

Subject matter experts.

We have to be ready 24/7 at a moment's notice.

But before the alarm goes off, it's pretty chill.

We would have a lot of grey-haired people

if we constantly lived in the environment of,

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God! A jet's going to go any minute now.

"What do I do?"

Oh, my stamina, my stamina!

Get away! Get away!

Will you move, you...prick? LAUGHTER

What's going on, y'all? Hey!

Anything going on?

Every single fighter pilot should be sat there just praying

that the buzzer goes off because I want to be the one

to do the job.

Right now, what we're hoping for is for the buzzer to go

and me to go flying.

We'll do one first, then two. All right?

Catch! LAUGHTER

I won't fall over this time. HE LAUGHS

DOGS BARK

The dogs, they protect, they look after everyone while they're asleep.

Want to swap?

I made the wrong choice. SHE LAUGHS

Never work with animals or children.

And here I am working with both.

I've been working in here for 17 years.

We're kind of part of the furniture.

So there was a guy who handed his jacket in.

I found...a thong.

And I was like, "You've left something in your pocket."

Oh, my God! The look on his face.

THEY LAUGH

Big, massive snowboard bag.

HE HUMS

Moving house.

As you can see.

After three years at RAF Lossiemouth,

Phil has received fresh orders.

He's being reposted to a different base 600 miles away.

Been posted down to RAF Odiham

and we're going to make a new life down there.

I'm quite sad to leave, to be honest, yeah.

It's been... It's been brilliant.

But, um, time to move on.

It's weird.

Really weird.

Getting posted, the upheaval is quite significant.

You need an understanding wife. HE LAUGHS

He takes everything in his stride, Phil, he's very cool,

nothing's a bother, it'll all be fine.

And it usually is.

But it's just me in the background going, "Argh!"

Right, wicked.

Although, like, the military gives you a certain amount of money

to relocate somewhere, that can all disappear.

There's like a move-in standard and move-out standard.

The garden must be cultivated

or the borders must be weeded and stuff like that.

Curtains must be washed, ironed and hung back up.

So, if you leave your house in a shit tip,

you're going to get charged a load of money for it.

Oh, yes, see we're clean, we're clean.

Clean and tidy people, aren't we?

But before Phil heads south,

he has one final duty to undertake.

Chippy, chippy, chippies!

Chips on another level, if I do say so myself.

Good chip. That's a good chip.

So I only had to cut 450 of those.

That was boring.

Right, let's get them in the oven.

Tonight, some of Lossiemouth's senior figures are being given

a formal dinner in the mess.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

So they're sitting down now, are they? Yeah.

So I need to crack on.

Nothing's certain. Nothing's forever.

It's not unusual for me to just get told last minute

that you've got to go somewhere and do this, do that.

50 degrees.

That's the filet de boeuf.

That is what being in the military is all about.

You've got to be ready.

This is the time now where it's like, if you've got

your timing's right, everything's going to be all right.

If they stop for like... have ten minutes of speeches

or something like that,

your fillets of beef, they're going to continue cooking,

you know, then they're going to be over.

And then it's all, you know, who looks like a dick?

Me, not them.

OVEN BUZZER Oh!

This is the tray I want out first.

Just want to execute it, get it right, you know what I mean?

Good.

It's professional pride, isn't it?

Do it your best. Put some love into the food.

Right, lovely.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Taste sensation, this.

LAUGHTER Can't fasten my button anyways.

LAUGHTER

Hoo! Right. Job done.

Woo!

Station commander, gents. Raise a glass.

The culinary team.

APPLAUSE

Oh! Right, yeah, that's it. I'm out.

Peace and love!

HE LAUGHS

Cheers!

Junior pilot Harry is approaching the deadline

to pass as combat ready.

The squadron training him will soon be deploying overseas.

This is all I've wanted to do for almost as long as I can remember.

So it is important not just for myself, but also for my family

that I stay on the right line so that all the support

they've given me isn't wasted.

Once again, he's facing a crucial dogfight

against 2 Squadron's commanding officer, Kev.

I think it's all about just performing as best as I can

and trying to learn something new as well.

There's pressure to perform, but this is the hour to do it.

I joined up eight years ago

and I'm tantalisingly close now to go out on ops.

This is the last little hurdle now.

I want to get through it and start doing the job.

This time, Harry's defensive skills are being put to the test.

He must evade missile lock for at least five minutes.

There's nothing I love more in this job than proper air combat,

gloves off and winning.

It's kind of like if you'd been caught speeding

and you had the police chasing you down a motorway.

It's like trying to shake the police off your tail.

When you're defensive, you're looking over your shoulder

and pulling G at the same time.

It's just a horrible experience.

HE GRUNTS AND PANTS

Absolutely don't want to get shot because in real life,

the consequences of that are pretty tragic.

A minute into the flight, Kev's closing in for the kill.

But Harry climbs aggressively to safety.

Every manoeuvre you do and you look back over your shoulder

and they're still there.

And it's really frustrating to have someone with

that much experience behind you.

AUTOMATED VOICE: Speed low, recover.

Speed low, recover. Speed low, recover.

Harry's successfully kept Kev out of range

for more than six minutes...

..but can't fully shake him off.

OK, Right.

We've got absolutely no worries

about your general development.

You're absolutely on course to deploy with us.

And you're exactly where you need to be on that trajectory, right now.

So, well done. Sweet, thanks.

It means that we trust him to go into a war zone.

And when we deploy, I fully expect Harry to be coming with us.

Oh! Have we bought knock off beers or something?

LAUGHTER

I've always thought Typhoon pilots were elite pilots.

So, to be in that company, it's a great sense of achievement.

Cheers, boys!

But equally, this is where things get real now.

The next jet you see might not be a friendly one,

so consequences are real.

PHONE RINGS

ALARM BLARES

Go, go, go!

Seven hours into Jake's shift, a suspected Russian aircraft

is spotted approaching NATO airspace.

Get the door!

ALARM CONTINUES

When the alarm goes, you know, the heart rate starts

going up and you kind of have a half second where certain parts

of your body tense up quite a lot.

It's almost like the Matrix, you know?

"I know Kung Fu." Boof! In it goes, you're like,

"Right, sweet, we're off to go and do a pilot thing now."

He went into FRS... Yeah.

..but then he just went down power.

So they put power back in, went out on the FRS...

..and just sat waiting. I don't know what...

We think the pilot's had an issue.

They're preparing the second jet just in case.

Hopefully it's nothing major

because we have only got two jets that can fly.

Looking like they're taking the spare.

I don't know what the issue is,

but it's definitely bad enough that we can't fly with it.

Something's happening.

There we go.

We've got action.

Runway 06 queuing into 1032. Correct.

HE LAUGHS

Jake's orders are to work with a German pilot to intercept

the suspected Russian plane over the Baltic Sea,

where it was last spotted just 30 miles from NATO airspace.

I'm just looking into this deep, dark blue, searching desperately

for this aeroplane.

It's like, "Ah! I can see something.

"I don't know what it is, but there's something there,

"and it's where I expect it to be."

The plane flying towards Estonia is a Russian military passenger jet.

It's effectively a VIP jet.

Now you have those other questions of like, you know, who's on board?

Is it someone important on there?

Jake's ordered to follow the plane closely, ensuring it doesn't cross

into NATO airspace.

Looking out the window and we can see these two

straight lines of cloud coming our way.

You don't know what's going on, but there's something there.

Here they come.

You're just there like, "Oh, my God! That's a Russian fighter."

Ooh! It's starting to get real now.

You sit up in your seat.

It's that uncertainty of, like, what's going on?

What are they thinking?

What are they going to do?

RAF pilot Jake is tracking a Russian military passenger jet

close to NATO airspace.

He's just been joined by two Russian fighters.

Flying alongside Russian fighter aircraft.

I can see they've got missiles underneath.

Time kind of slows down.

Your vision narrows.

You're thinking about what is it they're trying to do?

The fighters roll out ahead of us to escort the little business jet.

It raises obvious questions in your head of who's on board that's

so important that you need to send these fighters to escort it.

The Russian planes are flying

just 12 miles out from NATO airspace.

Jake must ensure they don't stray into it.

If you fly within someone's sovereign airspace,

that is a big deal. That is a huge deal.

We're here to show a united front.

If you come into this country, there are going to be consequences.

There is going to be a reaction.

Very quickly, these two fighters start to pitch down.

It's that uncertainty of what's going through his mind?

What's his task? What's he willing to do to achieve it?

I lose sight of them.

I can't see them under the aeroplane.

Now I'm starting to worry.

They'll just slow down for no reason,

sometimes they'll speed up for no reason.

It's very difficult to determine where those acts are coming from.

You know, is it coming directly down from Putin himself?

Is this guy just trying to endanger my aeroplane

because that's what his mindset is? I don't know.

There is a degree of, you know, playing mind games.

But if I make an error, the result can be pretty catastrophic.

If I get caught up in the moment and accidentally collide with one

of these aircraft, it could lead to an escalation into World War III.

Where your heart is going a million beats per minute

because you've got all those things in the back of your head.

But I know I just need to not antagonise and try and keep

on task.

With Jake holding the line,

the Russian planes have started to return to Russian airspace.

It becomes apparent that there's no longer a threat.

And at that point, it's kind of like,

right, sweet. Good effort, guys. Job done.

Right, so we'll look through them first and I want to do

a consumables check.

At Amari Air Base, the jet that failed to start up in the scramble

is being examined by Mitch and his team.

We need to get this jet back online by the time the next jet comes down.

If not, we're just going to be chasing our own arses

because that jet needs to be turned around and put back

on state as well.

So, wait and see what happens when the power goes on.

The Typhoon's a flying computer.

If it said, "I am broken," generally the first reaction is turn it off,

turn it back on. Hard reset.

Nothing in there. Nothing in there.

That's it, innit?

So, it looks like the error hasn't come back,

so it was confirmed to be spurious.

So, we have a confirmed serviceable jet on state, ready to go.

So a lot of stress, a lot of panic over something

that the jet's just thrown at us.

All good, sir? All good. Perfect.

To go and pull these fighter jets around the sky

and intercept Russians is awesome.

You could do a whole career and never get that opportunity.

I would say that I don't outwardly enjoy flying very often whilst

I'm doing it.

There and then in the moment I tend to just be focused on the job.

Once you land, you can kind of reflect on it and go,

"Actually, that was pretty cool."

I'd say it's a, you know, certainly mission accomplished.

I think we did a good job.

It sounds like a busy scramble.

How was it? Yeah, it was pretty good.

We got up pretty quickly, routed north and effectively vectored

onto the first group coming from Saint Petersburg,

which is pretty cool.

We managed to get alongside and then kind of sit with them

for kind of the transit back north before hauling off home, so...

..pretty busy. Yeah, it sounds like a busy sortie.

Yeah, it was. A good day out.

INDISTINCT CHATTER, LAUGHTER

The Estonian people,

they're probably thinking, "Well, if Putin is going to invade Ukraine,

"what's to stop him coming into our country next?"

So the mission is really important.

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