I didn't find the CGI that bad. Sure beats using optical effects to multiply the number of aircraft ("633 Squadron"), setting up flat silhouettes of B-17s for the ground shots (1990's "Memphis Belle"), or painting ME-109s in British colors to pad the ranks of the Hurricanes in "Battle of Britain" (What, you DIDN'T notice!!!???).
Face it, ladies and gents, there barely enough B-17s left in the world to display a full bomb group, even on the ground. There's not enough flyable B-17s in the world to fly a single squadron. The times when enough get together to form even a single element is rare enough. And we expect movie producers to snap their fingers and scarf up all the flyable B-17s in the world?
If they do try it, look in the background...you'll probably see some OD-painted Electras, DC-7s, and any other four-engined prop transport they can find to make up a "real" squadron.
Otherwise, the moviemakers are left with trying to do it with models. I'm sure no one would be complaining if they had....
CGI allows them to reproduce real-world scenarios that we'd never see again. I'm sorry about the wrong rudder motion or the speed of the Greenland go-around. But it did give us those great "drone" shots showing the line of Forts taxiing down between the hardstands, and the squadrons struggling to join up coming through the clouds. And the skies filled with those majestic Boeing airplanes with all their doors in place....
It reminded me a lot of the filmed version of "The Shepherd." Again, mostly CGI, but of hard-to-find planes flying on a moonlit night. Looked cool.
Being a movie buff, I have my own peeves about shows like this. Salutes, for me, are a big one. Many actors and directors don't know what a salute is supposed to look like. The "Monarch" series on Apple+ is a very bad example of this. Only seen one or two salutes in "Masters of the Air," but the ones I noticed looked right. Referred to an RAF officer as "Captain"; the RAF doesn't HAVE captains. Group Captains, yes, but that's the equivalent of a full colonel. Not likely to find one bar-hopping or getting into a fist fight with Yanks.
I think the sets and the equipment looks dead-on. REAL impressed they found enough B-3 flying coats (the fleece ones) to equip so many actors. And you'll notice if they AREN'T going to be flying, they're wearing A-2 jackets. Exactly the way it should be, original A-2s were a windbreaker only, with no insulation. The trucks and Jeeps have the usual Hollywood mistake (they're too clean...NOBODY in wartime washes a utility vehicle) but at least the Jeeps are wartime models (there might be some CJ-2As, -3As, or -5s in there, but I haven't spotted them yet.)
There are deviances from the standard equipment. I saw men wearing goggles that I thought were WWII Navy goggles, but googling goggles revealed the AN6530 were worn by both services. Spotted one gunner wearing RAF Mk 7 goggles, and one of the lead characters has an obvious non-standard fleece flying jacket. But these things do happen in wartime; the individuals could have picked up these pieces informally.
Otherwise... well, I'm not too impressed with the story lines so far, but we'll see if they pick up. I have always been willing to extend the Suspension of Disbelief that accompanies all fiction. Heck, I enjoy the movie "Gravity" despite 40 years in the space business.....
Ron Wanttaja