Video
Mission Impossible and Top Gun star Tom Cruise spotted flying at Duxford
Tom Cruise in a Boeing Stearman biplane at Duxford Airfield. - Credit: High Flight
Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise has been spotted flying at Duxford's historic airfield.
The Top Gun and Mission: Impossible actor – who feels "the need for speed" – was seen in the cockpit of an American 1943 Boeing Stearman Model 75 in the skies above the IWM site in Cambridgeshire.
The fixed-wing single engine aircraft was equipped with two camera rigs mounted on its wing struts, in a video posted on YouTube by High Flight last month.
One was on the red biplane's outer port (left side) wing struts and the other on the inner starboard (right side) wing struts.
Cruise, a keen pilot, reportedly flew into Duxford earlier in the day by helicopter.
An IWM Duxford spokesperson was unable to comment on Tom Cruise's visit.
The Stearman, US registered as N65691, is owned by Los Angeles-based Paramount Overseas Productions Inc, according to the US Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration registry.
The two-seater biplane was primarily used as a military trainer aircraft in America during the 1940s.
Most Read
- 1 Conservative MP David Amess dies after being stabbed in Essex constituency
- 2 Nursery school faces 'imminent closure' without cash boost
- 3 Tributes pour in after death of Essex MP Sir David Amess
- 4 Minute silence at council meeting for 'kind-hearted' Uttlesford officer
- 5 No Time To Die is 'a bloated but entertaining slice of spy action'
- 6 Mission Impossible and Top Gun star Tom Cruise spotted flying at Duxford
- 7 Universal Credit: Help is still out there, says Essex County Council
- 8 Guitar once owned by Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett to be sold at Cambridge auction
- 9 More Extra Care and retirement homes set for Radwinter Road
- 10 County council commits to better deal for care workers
It has a cruising speed of around 93mph, whereas the supersonic F-14 Tomcat from Cruise's first Top Gun movie had a maximum speed of over 1,500mph (2,485 km/h).
Cruise has been filming Mission: Impossible 7 in the UK this year, with shoot locations including Birmingham and the Buttermere area of the Lake District.
Actor Tom Cruise (right) posing for a photo with British Transport Police (BTP) officers at Birmingham New Street station, where he was filming scenes for the latest instalment in the Mission: Impossible movie series. - Credit: PA
He is known for performing his own stunts in the action blockbusters and is now preparing for Mission: Impossible 8.
Cruise spent a year training for one major Mission: Impossible 7 stunt in which he rides a motorcycle off of a cliff and base jump parachutes to safety.
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, Mission Impossible 7 also stars Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and Rebecca Ferguson.
On an earlier visit to Duxford last month, Cruise was spotted looking around the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s Lancaster bomber, which was being serviced there at the time.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. - Credit: Paramount Pictures
Cruise played pilot Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell in 1986 movie classic Top Gun.
That film's long-awaited and much-delayed sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, is now due for release next year.
Studio Paramount has pushed back the Top Gun follow-up until May 2022 because of the pandemic.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. - Credit: © 2019 Paramount Pictures Corporation
Mission: Impossible 7 has also been switched from its scheduled May 2022 release slot to September 2022 due to multiple production delays.
The seventh instalment in the Mission: Impossible franchise will once again see Tom Cruise as special agent Ethan Hunt. Simon Pegg also returns as Benji Dunn.
Cruise isn't the first Hollywood star to have visited Duxford.
Star Wars icon Harrison Ford, who is shooting the fifth Indiana Jones adventure in the UK, was spotted at IWM Duxford – Europe's largest aviation museum – earlier this summer during a break in filming while he recovers from a shoulder injury.
IWM Duxford was also a filming location for Wonder Woman 1984, with Gal Gadot, aka Wonder Woman, and Chris Pine filmed in the American Air Museum 'stealing' an aircraft in the movie.
Chris Pine as Steve Trevor and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in a scene from Wonder Woman 1984 filmed at IWM Duxford. - Credit: Clay Enos/ ™ & © DC Comics / © 2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
