Top Gun: Maverick star Tom Cruise has been captured on camera while training to fly a helicopter for the long-awaited action adventure sequel. At age 55, Cruise is showing no signs of slowing down, pushing his professional limits in every film he stars in. Oftentimes, he does stunts involve some sort of flying aircraft,  like hanging off the side of a cargo plane in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, or doing 64 takes for his zero gravity plane crash scene in The Mummy.

Also, in his upcoming crime thriller American Made, Cruise - in what director Doug Liman describes as a "hair-raising" sequence - abandons the controls of the plane he's flying for real to throw "bales of cocaine" out of the aircraft.

Not surprisingly, Cruise is taking to the great blue yonder again in Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to the blockbuster hit Top Gun from 1986. And while it's yet to be seen whether Cruise will climb back into the cockpit of an F-14 fighter jet when he reprises his legendary role as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, he's apparently training a different sort of aircraft to pilot in the film.

In a new series of photos featured in the London Daily Mail (see below), Cruise is shown co-piloting a chopper along with someone is presumably a trainer. The photos were taken at an unidentifed location.

Reserve my seat! #Maverick
Tom Cruise pilots a helicopter as he trains for Top Gun 2 https://t.co/6ZHqcK9evk via @DailyMailCeleb— L. SYDNEY FISHER (@LSydneyFisher) August 1, 2017

Since the release date of the film isn't until July of 2019, details are scant about Top Gun: Maverick, other than Cruise's Oblivion director Joseph Kisinski has been hired to take the helm. In more vague terms, Cruise has previously said that the sequel will have the original Top Gun's tone, and that there are going to be "very fast jets," an aircraft carrier or two, a motorcycle and maybe even a volleyball scene - alluding to the testosterone-drenched sequence in the first film.

As for his co-stars, Val Kilmer has expressed interest in returning as Marverick's rival-turned-ally Tom "Iceman" Kazansky in the Top Gun sequel. However, there hasn't been any word about Kelly McGillis' possible return as Cruise's advisor-turned-love interest Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood.

No matter how Top Gun: Maverick pans out, it's exciting to see how Cruise is taking the action of the film to new heights, quite literally, by doing some helicopter training, signaling that he's up for a different sort of air sequence for the film. Whatever he's cooking up, fans will sure be waiting with intense anticipation to see exactly what sort of stunt Cruise performs with the chopper.

NEXT: Dangerous Movie Stunts Tom Cruise Actually Performed

Source: London Daily Mail

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