Hopes To Outdo Rival Tom Cruise As A Real-Life Top Gun

When you're a Hollywood star, a qualified pilot with more than 5000 flight hours logged, and you own your own customized  Boeing 707 that you park by your own private runway (actually, he owns five planes, including three Gulfstream jets and a Lear)... when you talk aviation, people listen. Large European planemakers do, too.

So when John Travolta said at the Paris Air Show he found it easy to fly Airbus' A380 superjumbo, people listened. And, when he added that he hoped to outdo rival Tom Cruise as a real-live Top Gun, Hollywood fans everywhere must have let out a collective gasp.

But let's be real here. It's all about aviation. Let E! and People Magazine hype the Travolta-Cruise rivalry, if there is one. As it turns out, Travolta flew the A380 as its first non-test pilot in Australia back in November.

"I did fly that A380 you know," he told Reuters about flying the world's largest airliner as a co-pilot. "I was the first non-test pilot to fly that and I'm telling you it's a very easy plane to fly but technically complicated."

"… It was a privilege to be able to be the first (non-test) pilot to fly it," Travolta added.

Delays to Airbus' A380 caused a slump in the 2006 profits of parent company EADS, although the company has since seen a series of high-profile orders at the Paris event.

Travolta, looking relaxed and wearing sunglasses and trainers, said he hoped to be able to fly Boeing's F/A-18 fighter jet at the show at Le Bourget near Paris.

"I've been invited to fly an F-18 on Saturday. I'm hoping I'll be able to do that but I don't know if time permits."

Asked whether he would buy any planes at the show, Travolta replied: "Oh, no, no, no."

Hollywood's love affair with aviation peaked with the 1986 movie "Top Gun" about the training of a naval flying ace starring Travolta's friend Cruise.

"Top Gun" was also chosen as the most popular aviation movie of all time in a recent EAA poll.

FMI: www.travolta.com, www.airventure.org/2007/news/070503_movie.html