Top Gun: The Next Generation is ready for takeoff at National Geographic

The students of the U.S. Navy's elite fighter pilot program, featured in Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick, are getting the documentary treatment.

National Geographic has greenlit a new docuseries focused on the Navy's Advanced Flight Training Program, under the tentative title Top Gun: The Next Generation. The announcement promises unprecedented access to the program, as it follows student pilots competing to earn their seat on an F-35C Strike Fighter.

The program, produced by Nat Geo with Rex, part of Zinc Media Group, follows student officers in the classroom, in their homes, and in the cockpit, with space for intimate emotional moments and adrenaline-fueled aerial footage.

Like Tom Cruise before them, the officers featured in the docuseries will be put through the paces, challenged with tasks like landing a jet on an aircraft carrier at sea in hopes of earning the right to fly the most advanced jets in the world, the F-35C Lightning II.

The series was created by Karen Edwards, who will serve as the showrunner, working with Zinc Television's Managing Director and series Executive Producer Tanya Shaw. "The intimate access we have gained to the characters and the emotional character-led story arcs that run through the series will paint a vivid, compelling narrative around the young men and women embarking on this highly stressful process," said Shaw. "That narrative will elevate the series beyond the noise and spectacle of fighter jets to tell the tense, nuanced, and poignant human stories behind the public-facing bravado."

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