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'Valkyrie' news: Tom Cruise flys 1941 Boeing Stearman plane
Aug 4, 2007, 7:00 GMT
Tom Cruise (L) and German army officer Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg (R). Cruise will definitively play von Stauffenberg, leading figure in the failed assassination of Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944, in the film \'Valkyrie\' EPA/Martin Schutt
Tom Cruise couldn't contain his excitement after he co-piloted a massive 1941 Boeing Stearman plane.
The 'Top Gun' star took the controls of the historic double-decker aircraft on the German set of his new World War II movie 'Valkyrie'.
Tom exclaimed, "Wow, wow, what a machine this is", but instead of pressing the button to speak to his co-pilot he pressed the button to transmit to the control tower, meaning the tower and all other flyers heard his delight.
However, that was the only in-air mistake he made, according to his co-pilot Thomas Schuttoff, 43.
Schuttoff - the director of the Berlin-based pilot training school Tempelhof Aviators - said: "There are pilots who can fly a plane. But Tom Cruise has the soul of flyer, I saw that right from the start.
"He was so nice. Afterwards, he offered to pay for the fuel he had used but I told him I wouldn't hear of it."
The enormous plane was used by the US Air Force to train airmen during WWII.
In 'Valkyrie', Cruise - who has been shooting the film in Berlin - plays German officer Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg who hatched a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler towards the end of the conflict.
(C) BANG Media International
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Lockheed Martin Happy RetireeAug 4th, 2007 - 07:48:39
I worked for LM for 25 years, lived on an airport for 10 of those and belong to an aviation family. I do not know a pilot who wouldn't LOVE to have Stearman time in his logbook. There are other vintage planes people love, but Stearman is always at or near the top three...Hot Stuff!
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