One is always slightly worried about giving the French credit for anything..............however:
The best modern day flying sequences I have ever seen in a released film were in Les Chevaliers du Ciel (English title Skyfighters, literal translation The Knights of the sky).
Crappy plot in which a Mirage is stolen from the Farnborough Air Show. However, the flying sequences are spectacular, truly. Apparantly, the standard safety rules applied, but eventually the minimum allowed altitude was reduced to 3 m (10 ft) and the minimum distance between aircraft was reduced to 1 m (3 ft). The filming of these flight sequences seen in the movie were mainly done from the air, as opposed to Top Gun where most of the filming was done from the ground.
Not sure if it was released in the UK but the French trailer is here:
http://www.leschevaliers-lefilm.com/jeux/bahd.swf
The official website:
http://www.leschevaliers-lefilm.com/site/intro.html