Indeed, the "Holding the line" flying looks better than "Fly Boys", but a great deal of the "Fly Boys" flying WAS real flying, and risky at that! Some shots were CG and a bit...."not quite right"!
The pilots responsible for flying the aerial sequences were some of the best in the world. They were as international as the flyers of the WWI Allies themselves. Among the British pilots, Nigel Lamb, chief pilot, was eight-time British Unlimited Aerobatic Champion. Alister Kay is eight-time UK Gliding Champion and an airshow aerobatic pilot. Ray Hanna, the aerial coordinator (who died shortly after shooting FLYBOYS) was the most experienced film pilot in the UK and flew Spitfires, Mustangs and other warbirds for decades at airshows. John Day, who flew one of the Nieuport 17’s, built it himself. Another “flyboy” would have shocked any WWI airman: Anna Walker, a professional test pilot and WWII warbird pilot. Two American pilots were on the aerial unit: Andrew King, one of the foremost WWI-era pilots in the world, and Ken Kellett, an expert on early aircraft and the only pilot in the world to have flown a replica of the Wright Flyer - the world’s first airplane. Finally, Fred North (his name notwithstanding, a Frenchman from Paris) flew the helicopter camera-ship…often within mere feet of the dog-fighting airplanes. Special care was used, and special equipment invented, to make the aerial sequences utterly real. “You can’t fool pilots,” says Tony Bill, “and I didn’t want anyone who flies to be aware of any of our techniques. I wanted every one of them to walk away trying to figure out how we did it. And, so far, no one has. Even I can’t tell the real airplanes from the CGI ones in some of our shots.”
Here is a link to the New Longer trailer for "crossing the line"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpTHFVBl ... re=related