As Maverick in “Top Gun,” Tom Cruise blazes the skies with abandon, risking his neck in pursuit of action-flick machismo. In real life, he flies much more cautiously.
So says Patrick Swayze, one of many actors who embrace the role of aviator.
“Tom’s a good pilot,” Swayze says. “Every celebrity pilot I know is a good pilot.”
Swayze, whose wife, Lisa, is an acrobatics pilot, credits Cruise’s aircraft skills with indirectly saving his life. While flying to Australia in 2002 with Cruise, Swayze was impressed by the concentration Cruise displayed at the helm of a Russian Sukhoi military plane. Swayze later emulated that focus while landing in Burbank, Calif.
“The vortex of a 757 flipped me upside-down, and I didn’t even blink an eye,” Swayze says from his New Mexico ranch. “Then I got on the ground, and my knees melted. If I hadn’t been flying to Australia with Cruise … “
Hollywood’s elite — from Angelina Jolie to Harrison Ford to Edward Norton — now enjoy the wild blue yonder as much as the silver screen.
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If they gave Oscars to rabid thespian aviators, the envelope might go to John Travolta. With a 707 and a Gulfstream jet parked in his back yard, mere feet from his kitchen, his Florida estate looks as surreal as anything in “Battlefield Earth.” At Jumbolair, an Ocala fly-in community, he accesses the nation’s largest paved, private airfield.
Aviation is Travolta’s obsession. His dining room is modeled after a 1930s airport terminal. He takes his young daughter on midnight ultralight rides. He recently became the first civilian to pilot the superjumbo Airbus. And his son’s name is Jett. (Which may explain his joke to David Letterman that he and Kelly Preston joined “the 7-Mile High Club. Me and the Mrs. get it on!”)
Besides the lack of paparazzi at 50,000 feet, what’s aviation’s appeal?
“Number one, it’s a tremendous thrill,” says Dr. Phil McGraw, Oprah Winfrey’s cohort, himself a pilot since 1967. “If you’re in a P-51 Mustang, the power is a testosterone rush. I also don’t know a more peaceful place to be than the cockpit of an airplane on a moonlit night.”
“My first airplane was a real rocket ship,” the psychologist says sarcastically. “They called it the Flying Milkstool. It was yield-sign yellow. It gave you a bad case of ramp envy.”
BIG-NAME FLIERS IF YOU’RE COUNTING STARS IN THE SKY, OTHER NOTABLES INCLUDE:
Morgan Freeman
The ex-Air Force mechanic, who first took lessons in 2002, enjoys taking his Cessna Citation to the Virgin Islands.
Harrison Ford
A pilot since 1996, he was named a chairman with the Experimental Aircraft Association in 2004.
Angelina Jolie
Raised eyebrows after buying a Cirrus SR-22, the fastest plane in its class. As one aviator reportedly observed, “Letting a novice pilot like Jolie fly it is like giving a Ferrari to a 16-year-old boy.”
Edward Norton
Of the cockpit disorientation pilots learn to overcome, he says, “You’re looking at something, and it’s like an Escher painting … it’s not what you think it is.”
Dennis Quaid
Learned to fly as prep for his astronaut role in “The Right Stuff.”
Kurt Russell
Inspired by his grandfather, a 1920s pilot, Russell has flown since 1988.
Jimmy Buffett
Few stars fly seaplanes, but Buffett does. His Grumman Albatross was mistakenly shot at by Jamaican police in 1996, inspiring his song “Jamaica Mistaka.”