https://qz.com/quartzy/1202487/miss...xpert-helicopter-pilot-for-the-action-sequel/
Cruise, 55, earned his pilot's license in 1994 and has since turned into one of Hollywood's biggest flying enthusiasts—a hobby he has demonstrated on screen in films like
American Made. The star, whose breakthrough role was as a pilot in 1986's
Top Gun, flies planes so often that the US environmental lobby nicknamed him "
Emissions Impossible." Cruise owns a number of expensive private jets, one of which he was rumored to use to
pick up groceries for his then wife, actress Katie Holmes. (Cruise has never publicly denied the rumor.)
But he didn't have as much experience with helicopters—until
Mission: Impossible – Fallout came along. The sixth installment in the popular action spy series required that Cruise not only learn how to fly a helicopter, but also become something of an expert helicopter pilot so that he could perform an extremely dangerous stunt on his own.
It's unclear if the script necessitated that Cruise become a master pilot, or if the actor simply wanted to be one and then decided to use his new skills in the film. In this age of CGI technology and stunt doubles, we're assuming the latter.
"Flying a helicopter takes a lot of skill," said Marc Wolff, aerial coordinator for the film. "To put someone like Tom into a situation like this is almost
impossible to imagine." (The italicized emphasis is our own—you see what he did there?)
According to Randy Hepner, an aerial assistant on
Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Cruise accrued 2,000 flying hours in a very short period of time to get up to speed. Normally, pilots would need to train eight hours per day for at least three months just to become a novice pilot. But Cruise needed to be more than a novice pilot: He needed to perform a 360-degree downward spiral maneuver in mountainous terrain.
