Yes, Tom Cruise is a licensed pilot.
Yes, Tom Cruise can fly and has a license to pilot several aircraft as he obtained his flying license in the year 1994. He flies fighter jets, private planes, and even commercial flights. Cruise even has a license to pilot a helicopter. One of the main reasons that he can fly such aircraft as he primarily does his own stunts in his movies.
In movies like Mission: Impossible series and Top Gun: Maverick, he has shown his exceptional and real flying scenes. He took lessons to fly a helicopter for the sixth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise titled Mission:Impossible: Fallout.
Who is Tom Cruise?
Tom Cruise was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York. His father, Thomas Cruise Mapother III, was an electrical engineer, and his mother, Mary Lee, was a special education teacher. He had a rough childhood as he grew up in poverty, his father beat him, and he suffered from a disease called dyslexia, in which a person can’t read or write anything properly.
Cruise kept changing schools due to this difficulty, so much so that in 14 years, he attended 15 schools. He pursued career interests in priesthood and football but was kicked out of both due to his drinking habits. He later decided that he would pursue acting.
At the beginning of his acting career, he appeared as an extra in a few films; he was cast as a lead in the 1985 film Risky Business which was his breakthrough film. A year later, he starred in Top Gun, which made him a big movie star. He later appeared alongside Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man which received critical acclaim, and both Cruise and Hoffman’s performances were highly praised.
In 1989 Cruise starred in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, where he played a real-life veteran Ron Kovic, his performance was met with significant praise, and he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Cruise later appeared with Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas in the film Interview With The Vampire, based on Anne Rice’s novel of the same name.
Cruise then starred in the reboot of Mission: Impossible as super spy Ethan Hunt which is regarded as one of the most popular and greatest roles of all time. Cruise has played a villain in Micheal Mann’s Collateral opposite Jamie Foxx. Cruise has collaborated with legendary director Steven Spielberg two times in the films like Minority Report (2002) and War of The Worlds (2005).
Cruise also played another action hero Jack Reacher in two films based on Lee Child’s bestselling novels. In 2022 Cruise reprised his role as Maverick, which gained his superstardom in the Top Gun sequel Top Gun: Maverick, which was a commercial hit and the first Tom Cruise film to gross more than $1 billion, making the film his highest-grossing film ever.
What planes were featured in Top Gun: Maverick?
The movie showcased a lot of fighter jets of the American Navy, which are culturally impactful in American Aviation. The first plane that was featured was an F-14 Tomcat; during the training sessions, jets like Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and Sukhoi Su-57 Felon.
A fictional Hypersonic Darkstar was also featured in the film. In the final scene of the film, Tom Cruise’s own North American P-51 Mustang is featured, which has a special legacy of its own.
