Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
HOW TO SEND TOM CRUISE INTO A CORKSCREW DIVE
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT
THE PLOT
Ethan Hunt has to save the world. This time, it’s from the threat of nuclear terrorism.
THE SCENE
The bad guy (Henry Cavill) chases the good guy (Tom Cruise) in helicopters through a narrow canyon. To escape, Cruise dives his chopper over the edge of a cliff in a tight, nearly vertical, spiral.
TOM STARTED TRAINING to fly helicopters years ago. In several of the films I’ve worked with him on, he’d always be going to location and flying as much as he could. For this movie, though, we needed to give him very specific flight training. I taught him close-formation flying, and then we had Airbus’s chief helicopter instructor work with him. To practise flying through the narrow canyon, where his blades would be five to six metres from the canyon walls, he flew around a racetrack. He could weave and play around, and if he got it wrong, he’d just stray off track. We gave him distractions – emergencies and mechanical problems – so he could build up the responses he’d need in a live situation. When we flew in formation, we would purposefully put him in turbulence so that he could feel what it was like to lose control of the aircraft.
When you do a big dive like this in a helicopter, the risk is that the rotor speed goes too high. A governor automatically keeps the blade speed within 30 to 40 rpm of the 390-rpm average. In a dive, it gets confused. It feels the airspeed increase, and instructs the blades to move more quickly, even though they don’t need to. That could damage the blades and the devices that control them, or throw a blade. The other danger is an engine stall, when the blades spin on their own until they lose momentum. It’s called freewheeling. We had Tom practise landing with freewheeling blades. Then we had him practise the dive in free airspace with an instructor pilot. Once we all agreed that the margins were safe, the instructor got out and Tom went for it.
During filming, there were three helicopters in the canyon, including Tom’s. The command and control helicopters – with the director and other crew – were above that, and another was even higher. Protocol requires each helicopter to be one rotor disc apart, or about 12 metres. The rotor disc is the saucer shape the blades make when they spin. One disc’s distance gives you leeway if you get too close or the lead aircraft changes its speed unexpectedly or you get into some turbulence.
That was what we were dealing with. Tom, however, also had to act. And direct: Most of the cameras for the scene are fixed to his helicopter in different positions. He has to imagine the background those cameras are seeing. So he’s flying, communicating with the crew, acting, as well as operating the camera.