Washington, August 3 (ANI): Tom Cruise played Top Gun for real when he took control of a double-decker plane recently.

The Hollywood star and amateur pilot took the controls of a 1941 Boeing Stearman on the German location of Cruise’s new movie Valkyrie.

The Mission Impossible star’s exceptional handling of the double-decker plane earned him outstanding marks and praises from co-pilot Thomas Schuttoff, director of the Berlin-based pilot training school, Tempelhof Aviators.

“There are pilots who can fly a plane. But Tom Cruise has the soul of flyer. I saw that right from the start,” People quoted Schuttoff, as telling Germany’s Bild newspaper.

Schuttoff said that Cruise offered to shell out for the fuel he used, but Schuttoff didn’t let him pay.

Cruise met Schuttoff at Tempelhof Airport, the oldest airfield in the world, where Cruise has been a well-known figure since starting production on his new movie Valkyrie, wherein he plays the real-life attempted assassin of Hitler, Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg. (ANI) (sawf.org

AZCentral adds:

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.