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They were jet planes, I'm sure about that. I think I remember the enemies being middle eastern, so the jets were prob soviet style jets, perhaps migs? The movie or show was in color and felt current when I saw it as a kid, so it was either made in the 80's or perhaps early 90's.
Edited by chainchumpI'm still chipping away at this but by any chance did the fighting look like it was from top gun? I ask because it occurs to me that rather than this being a movie it could be a corny plot in an episode of JAG, and they love recycling top gun and other jet footage. Also, I stumbled on a page talking about "one hand on the throttle, and one hand on the ejection handle" asking where that was from and a responder said they thought it was from either Iron Eagle 2 or Iron Eagle 3. From what I remember, the korean war was the first with jet fighters and American involvement. Vietnam. Israel vs. Egypt on several occasions to mention some older battles with jets which may have been a backdrop for your story. Soviets in Afghanistan.

I'm pretty sure this was a movie but may have been an episode of a TV show.
There's an american fighter jet pilot who is supposed to be really good but is shot down by an enemy pilot who is even better. He is captured and meets the enemy pilot who turns out to also be an american. He explains that he flies for the enemy b/c it has always been his passion to fly fighter jets but the US wouldn't let him b/c he doesn't have 20/20 vision and wears glasses. He claims he is the best b/c he doesn't fly with "one hand on the ejector handle" or something to that effect, meaning he's not afraid to die. During the climax, they have another dogfight and the guy with the glasses keeps talking over the radio to the hero about how he's going to lose b/c he's the type to fly with "one hand on the ejector handle". Then, of course, the hero narrowly wins and the guy dies w/o ever ejecting.
Anyone know what I'm talking about? I've scoured the internet and cannot find any mention of this film or episode if it was from a show.