Mission: Impossible 7's Speed Wing Scene Was Leagues More Dangerous Than Skydiving

Much has been made over Tom Cruise's incredible motorcycle jump off a cliff in the latest installment of the "Mission Impossible" franchise. The stunts that Cruise achieves in camera require thousands of man hours and meticulous preparation to ensure that the biggest movie star on planet Earth is virtually guaranteed to make it safely back on the ground. 

Nearly every frame of "Dead Reckoning – Part One," the seventh entry in the action series, puts Cruise in danger in some, way, shape or form, usually at the actor's request. The trick is to be able to make those calculated risks as predictable and reproducible as humanly possible. There's also the question of whether or not it's going to be a thrilling sequence to the audience, or more of a notch in Cruise's belt, now that he's mastered another stunt. 

For example, take the parachuting sequence towards the end of "Dead Reckoning – Part One," which actually showcases an aerial sport called Speed Flying, one that Cruise has spent years learning how to do. In a recent making-of featurette for the film, Skydive/BASE/Speed Flying Coordinator Jon Devore points out that Cruise is "doing a sport very few people on this planet do." It also happens to be one of the most dangerous sports in the world, due to its close proximity to the ground at incredibly high speeds. 

Admittedly, when I first watched "Dead Reckoning – Part One" and saw Cruise expertly land right next to his fellow IMF agent Benji (Simon Pegg) with the cruciform key in hand, I thought he was just piloting a cool, tiny parachute made just for spies. As it turns out, what Cruise was actually doing is a relatively new extreme air sport first invented by the French. 

Speed Flying was born out of Skydiving and BASE jumping, yet it requires a much deeper level of skill and training. The standard definition requires the athlete to launch themselves by their feet down snow-free slopes without touching the ground again until landing. That's precisely what Cruise does in "Mission: Impossible."

The sport was officially invented in the early 2000s, when a French pilot named François Bon designed the first speed wing, named the Gin Nano. Bon quickly became a legend in the fast-growing sport after successfully completing a harrowing 3,000 meter descent in under five minutes from the top of Aconcagua, South America's tallest mountain. 

Pilots who have mastered the basics in paragliding, meteorology and what is referred to as aerology — or how air flows over the ground — can graduate to Speed Flying to seek out their next death defying thrill. 

Cross Country magazine explains how Cruise took years to learn paragliding in the French Alps before transitioning to flying on a speed wing. Then, the team behind "Dead Reckoning – Part 1" had to figure out how to film it. 

Speed Flying may be the biggest example yet of Cruise using his very own franchise to learn new skills to add to his already impressive resumé of stunt work. But after seeing the finished film, is Speed Flying really all that cinematic? Honestly, not especially. Knowing how director Christopher McQuarrie figured out a way to film Cruise in mid-air, on the other hand, is incredibly compelling and inspiring for filmmakers looking to do something that's never been done before. 

With Cruise doing spirals while piloting the parachute, he was landing at a high speed of over 80 kilometers an hour. "We've been training for a few years now, and we're always looking for what's the most dynamic way to shoot this," Cruise explained. "You can't get close to this with a helicopter or a drone." 

Later in the featurette, McQuarrie breaks down how they were able to put a camera in the right place to show that Cruise was actually operating the speed wing without actually endangering him. "We had to develop a gimbal system flying along with Tom. You had cameras hanging off of both sides being operated in a helicopter."

The entire stunt could have been scrapped in favor of something safer or more dramatic, but then it wouldn't be a "Mission Impossible" movie, would it? In any case, it's going to get to the point where people are just as concerned about the cast and crew's well-being as they're forced to bear witness to Cruise's continued efforts to push the envelope for the sake of uncompromising realism. McQuarrie put the whole experience of directing Tom in one of these pictures quite succinctly: 

Behind the scenes, we were all in absolute terror. Landing Tom had to be flying towards the camera vehicle. That meant that Tom had to hit the exact mark or it can end in disaster."

"Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" is playing in theaters now.