You could call it a bit of "Top Gun" over the Big Sky.

"There's always some bragging. Always you know whose better than whom," said Captain Shawn Tapps, a pilot with the Iowa National Guard.

More than 20 pilots from the Montana Air National guard are getting their chance to show their skills in their new F-15 aircraft against their F-16 pilot counterparts from Iowa.

"During the next two weeks they'll be acting as adversary aircraft," said Lt. Col. Mike Buck, a pilot with the Montana Air National Guard. "(They will be) simulating the maneuvers and capabilities of aircraft we might see if we were to go to war in just about any part of the world."

The training is part of the Air Guard's ongoing transition to the F-15 which they began flying in January. During the dogfights over the Big Sky Montana pilots are forced to show they can fend off multiple F-16 enemies at once. The engagements are scored using sensors which tell the pilots when they could have successfully launched a missile at their opponents, who are then forced to leave the fight after they have been hit.

Though they are playing the role of enemy aircraft during the exercises, Iowa pilots say the training is a great learning experience for everyone.

"It adds an element of realism to our training in that we're not fighting one another," said Tapps. "We've got another aircraft with different capabilities and limitations than our own. The opportunity to train against something like that is rare for us in Iowa."

Montana pilots say the transition to their new aircraft is going extremely well and training exercises like this are helping them make sure they are certified as mission ready in 2010.

"I think we're doing very well," said Buck. "We're on our timeline for our conversion. Bu roughly this time next year we'll probably be certified as combat mission ready."