Tom Cruise plays Top Gun for real

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.