In the search for a suitably remote quotation about mankind and the quest for flight I bought Vol 4 of Newnes’ Pictorial Knowledge from a local charity shop for almost nothing. This ten volume encyclopaedia for children of the early 1930s covers a wealth of simplified subject matter, with copious vintage pictures. Enid Blyton is listed as Associate Editor: the General Editor is H A Pollock, her husband.

CONQUERING THE AIR, Vol 4, page 1327 (numbering covers the 10 volumes) starts with the above quotation about clumsy humans, and continues . . ‘He may be likened to a flatfish. Such a fish shuffles along the bed of the sea, and man has to crawl along the hard bottom of the ocean of air . . . A bird has freedom in all directions — east, west, north, south, up and down . . It is only natural, then, that from the earliest days mankind should have been greatly interested in the problem of flight.’

I was intrigued by the name of the associate editor, the prodigious and hugely popular author of children’s adventure stories. Wikipedia was interesting. Did you know that Enid Blyton was a promising tennis player as a teenager? Maybe, but did you also know she liked to play nude tennis, preferably in the open air? Sociable doubles, of course. This was not so unusual mid world wars when a privileged generation, shell-shocked by the social devastation of WW1, made the most of their leafy and secluded country homes, while privately anxious about the terrifying possibilities of the future.

But what was it about the stories which so readily captured the imaginations of children? She’d tapped into an empty sponge, eager to soak up intriguing facts, theories and details of possible new childish experiences. Literary criticisms of her work by adults, even woke and politically correct authorities, are meaningless. The dashed-off stories are not intended for critical adults - they reflect the author’s understanding of minds that have not lost the thirst for the exploration of human potential. The possibilities are unlimited: nude tennis, if you like, so long as I doesn’t cause distress; or 3D flying (which officially starts once 60 degrees of attitude has been exceeded).

The Conquering The Air chapter continues with a look at a variety of flying devices, from Montgolfier to a ‘modern’ transport aircraft with steward, and the 12 engined Dornier X flying boat (ship). What a Lake Constance monster! The text tells us that the 12 engines in six pushmepullyou nacelles above the wing were eventually replaced by a mere six pullme larger versions.

The first world war is mentioned briefly as a period of great technical advance, but the required fighter aircraft manoeuvring - comprehensive in its birdlike up and down three-dimensional freedom - does not get a mention in the encyclopaedia. The content enthuses its young readers with various means of getting in the air, and the wonder of air travel. I cannot disagree that the notion of rising 2,000 feet above the hard bottom of our ocean of air, proceeding parallel to it for a distance, and then descending elsewhere is an exciting prospect for a child with no experience of such a thing, but this is 2D flying. It represents the straight and level concepts of most humans who take to the air, including pilots.

2D and 3D flying: what is the difference?

2D flying is what most pilots and passengers do. To them an aircraft is just another means of travel. It differs from surface transport in that altitude control is an additional parameter to be managed, but in typical human estimation it is similar, in concept, to a horizontal surface journey; just higher up. 3D flying includes more than just changing altitude. Addition of the third vertical dimension immediately includes Newton’s masterly analysis of the physics of motion in obvious clarity and simplicity - in all three available directions combined. His three laws of motion are its fundamentals for simple earthlings.

Fish have mass but are generally weightless in the water, where they enjoy impressive manoeuvrability, using their strength to create accelerations as required. Birds evolved from earth-bound creatures and have adapted to three dimensional flight with, to us, remarkable inherited skills. But man remains an earth-bound creature - more at home in the water than the air - so how can he learn to adapt to the game with Newton that he joins when he becomes a pilot, or takes to the air as a pretend one. Tom Cruise has an answer.

TOM CRUISE

I met Tom Cruise when he came aboard our Concorde for a New York/London flight. I do not know him well, hardly at all in fact, but some readers may understand the appeal of a Concorde’s brush with fame and fortune. We exchanged a few words about the first Top Gun and his experiences with the US Naval Air Force.

“What those guys do is dangerous”, he said. I had already spent a couple of days on a Nimitz class carrier, flying on and off. He had stated what can be said of all flying (give or take) which is why these nautical specialists pay attention and are careful not to make mistakes.

I was reminded of the first thing our University of the Air headmaster, AVM Bates, told us 60+ years ago, “Flying is fun but not funny”. This is also true, and the fun (with relative safety) quotient is directly related to one’s level of understanding, awareness and degree of commitment. A cool head and comprehensive training helps, a lot (even when you teach yourself).

My own (and Tom’s) initial naval aviation experiences date from a third of a century ago, though it feels like yesterday. Much water has flowed under the LSO’s net (Landing Signals Officer) since then, and now we have the long-awaited Top Gun sequel: Top Gun - Maverick. Of course it’s a made up story - they’re not going to tell you any secrets. Cynics may well say it’s silly, but they would be wrong. It’s a cinematic masterpiece of entertainment (and education) which makes no attempt to depict a complex literary subject like War and Peace. It should be seen on the big screen: it’s visual and aural - so pay up and go to the cinema. There are no cinema ear defenders supplied, though the real thing at the takeoff end of the deck is quite something. There, you definitely need them.

Tom Cruise’s close association with the first Top Gun film made him a prime mover in the creation of the second. His Maverick experience has matured over the years, but so has his exposure to 3D flying. A few weeks ago I heard him describe the effect: “I discovered what I really want to do, fly. Maverick is who I really am.” I believe him. (Maverick is his character’s Navy nickname - as if you didn’t know. It tends to stick.)

What did Maverick do between Lieutenant (1984) and Captain (2020) Mitchell?

In the 36 years between the releases of the two Top Guns, Tom Cruise has not been idle. Not all his film work has involved action movies - to his credit - but It is well known that he does his own stunts, and gets the right people to help him acquire the considerable skills required. As a real person, thirty years ago, he struck me as focussed, attentive, mentally organised and a good listener. These are excellent qualities for a student who wants to learn the subject in hand, and his trademark captivating boyish grin, available in a nano-second, is reserved for work - very effectively.

After the making of Top Gun Mk1 a kindly, accomplished and sympathetic elder statesman actor/director helped him to get a pilot’s licence. Since then, Tom Cruise has been acquiring experience in any kind of flying device he has purchased, or its owner will let him fly. Bravo, I say. This indicates a real pilot’s motivation. The reader may agree or not, as they wish. Here I mention that the privilege for a human to zoom about the sky with the facility provided by today’s aircraft is a rare gift of inventive evolution. Seize it if you can - the opportunity may not last forever - and step out of the general aviation conservatism that tethers much of civil flying today.

Such enthusiasm is well demonstrated in the YouTube film Tom Cruise terrifies James Corden (presenter of Saturday Night Live). Yes, the Mustang is real and belongs to Tom Cruise. The experience in the back seat of an F-14 Tomcat during the original Top Gun was a start to this enthusiasm for the privilege of a human’s opportunity to join the 3D game with Newton. As a result he was convinced that only real life airborne experience of high energy manoeuvring in the Californian sun could be adequately represented for the sequel, particularly if the actors were to look suitably participant in the back seat of an F-18 doing its film stuff.

In addition to the US Navy’s safety requirements, the Cruise flight familiarisation programme for actors included rides in the Mustang, followed by the delightful L-39 Albatross - a Czech-made jet trainer, used for ab initio training in Russia. It’s not exactly the Top Gun fighter jet imagined, but is excellent for putting over the experience of looping, rolling, wing-overing and so on in a smooth and elegant manner. Why don’t all pilots learn, or at least witness, some of this 3D flying at the very start of their training, before they have been primed with notions of difficulty or fear? If correctly carried out it will make them more receptive to the standard training to follow, and much less subject to mankind’s instinctive fear of the unusual experiences of flight. The first acquaintance with an aeroplane pilot’s seat is critical because the half-empty sponge that is the brand new student or passenger’s brain will soak up the first experience of this novelty very readily, and first impressions tend to stick, sometimes tenaciously.

HOW DO I KNOW?

For some years I was involved with a fully public transport aerobatic joyride business; members of the public with no piloting experience whatsoever pay up and get taken for some aero. Wow! How will they react? The result was far better than I anticipated, and the secret of success is an object lesson in teaching and learning theory. As a starting point I decided to demonstrate and explain the very features of 3D manoeuvring flight that are completely foreign to human experience. They are:

1: Feeling heavier or lighter than normal, and

2: Seeing a changing picture of the outside world that does not agree with these feelings.

These two unusual sensations tend to generate confusion in the human control centre - the brain. A strong sense of insecurity (call it fear/panic) can result, and our animal world tends to deal with this in two ways: - get rid of all personal weight that can be temporarily dispensed with (immediate), and make a note not to repeat the experience (for future reference).

Training is marketing - selling your subject. The human fear reactions mentioned above can be effectively preempted if they are sympathetically explained and demonstrated at the outset of a passenger/student’s flying career - the very start is best. It doesn’t take long. The value of one short revelatory flight can last a lifetime, provided it is sympathetically managed.

I was lucky in my 1959, 30 hour Tiger Moth private pilot’s course as a naive and malleable 17 year old. I hadn’t anticipated aerobatics, but as the 30 hours approached I had an aerobatics lesson - loops (good), stall turns (OK), slow roll (not really - straps too loose). Nobody had mentioned the terrors of this pursuit, let alone sick bags (what are they?). During the remaining 3 or so hours to achieve the required thirty I was sent to practise solo aerobatics, and my loops were even better (flew through my slipstream each time). Did this make me a 3D pilot? A resounding yes, and all novice pilots should be acquainted with the available privileges of 3D flight. It doesn’t cost a lot, so what is required to conveniently achieve this today?

A side-by-side trainer with moderate and agreeable aerobatic capabilities. A suitably secure strapping system is essential, as is an engine which will run seamlessly when changing to inverted flight, and, ideally, the ability to achieve a comfortable loop from sustained level flight.

A mentor pilot who has nothing to prove, has the maturity to interact with a total stranger and is totally at home with the smooth performance of basic looping, rolling and upside down flight while describing the same.

[There is another school of thought which considers that a joy ride passenger seeks the thrill of helpless victimhood. This is sometimes true, but is a quite different and unpredictable product - perhaps suggested by ‘Tom Cruise terrifies James Corden . .’, but show business is never completely real.]

Some readers may consider these requirements demanding, but there are many flying people who are eminently capable of them, sometimes in places the airline pilot may not expect. I did not meet the same examiner twice during my aerobatic AOC periodic inspections and tests, but all were happy to try the controls (informally - after the official items had been covered) and repeat the same style of manoeuvring I had demonstrated as typical of our product). Had any of them have approached me for a job I would have happily said yes - I was the CAP10 examiner after all - but this familiarity with what should ideally be a basic part of any pilot’s learning process spoke volumes for the breadth of piloting experience recognised as normal by the CAA for areas of their responsibility. Why should this be such a rarity in civil aviation?

THE CRUISE FLIGHT FAMILIARISATION COURSE

Military weapons school trainees learn to use their already-familiar aircraft as a weapon and, if my take on the Hollywood system is correct, the Top Gun school refines standard fighting skills into the best of the best. Elitist this sounds, and unashamedly it is, but to be the best of the best is the best political way to avoid a fight (that’s what they told me).

During the making of Top Gun 1, Tom and his fellow actors’ introduction to rides in the F-14 Tomcat back seat while experiencing dogfight manoeuvres would have been quite alarming for anyone who was not used to 3D flying, perhaps even quite challenging for some who were. Research reveals that sick bags and an inability to look like a determined killer were a common acting problem while airborne, in fact it seems that only Maverick and Iceman could meet the required standard for the cameras on the dashboard.

Tom Cruise was adamant that only airborne action footage of the supposed pilot set against the background of real scenery would be acceptable for Top Gun Maverick. Most of the airborne footage, this time, would feature low level ground hugging survival with aggression, not wheeling around against the featureless backdrop of high altitude blueness. So he began his heavier and lighter, strange picture programme of his own, prior to his actors’ exposure to heavy metal jet action with real Top Gun staff in the driving seat. HIs main goal of the programme was to enable these thespians to learn to withstand and accept the high and relentless g force they would experience - even in the careful hands of an invisible middle aged, non-volleyball-playing family man with an ordinary car, (a real naval officer).

The Cruise familiarisation programme started, I believe, with light aircraft flying, rapidly progressing to Mustang then L-39 before handing over to the F-18 filming phase with a real F-18 pilots, possibly not familiar with handling such novices, though I’m sure these professionals did their best, But time in the air is limited with these immensely expensive and thirsty fighting aircraft - there’s a filming job to be done. Light aircraft manoeuvres can provide plenty of g as an introduction to this phenomenon, but their low airspeed means that the required curving flightpath is quickly completed, so the exaggerated weight of every molecule in the body does not last for ever, even if it seems like it. The Mustang is no light aircraft in character, and if flown to its full performance can be an impressive performer of large vertical figures, but the performance of a modern fighter is something else. The high g turn seems relentless, never ending. The human body must work hard in order to remain conscious and alert. The phenomenon is exhausting but necessary. One actor pilot does explain the additional body-building challenge when turning the upper body, shoulders and head round to look behind during industrial grade manoeuvring. Notice the chunky look of the real Top Gun staff, occasionally visible in YouTube extra footage.

The Cruise familiarisation scheme may have started with the softly softly approach I found to work best, but rapidly moved up the laws of motion scale - there’s a film to make. Whatever the actor victims thought of the Cruise ideas of preparation for their airborne roles, the result generally indicated that it had been worthwhile.

Here are three YouTube links:

Tom Cruise on Top Gun: Maverick's Flying Scenes

Tom Cruise Terrifies James in 'Top Gun' Fighter Jet!

An Inside Look at Top Gun: Maverick’s Pilot Training With Tom Cruise

There are other YouTubes in a similar vein, but the interest in this ground-breaking depiction of slipping the surly bonds - thanks to tons of thrust and comprehensive fly-by-wire handling assistance - signals a milestone in presenting the excitement of flight, its superhuman demands met, and the astonishing progress of aviation since 1903. It presents a story of an occasion when standard procedures will not meet the requirements, exceptional tactics become the only answer, and management’s reluctance to sanction such a thing is finally persuaded. The rules are broken and the job gets done - just this once. Sound familiar? It happens in real life: suitable experience encourages the spare capacity which can prevent an avoidable accident or make the mission possible.