The HALO skydiving sequence (distance of 7 km / 25000 feet, traveling speed of 265 - 320 km/h) was the last sequence filmed during production, but it was the first stunt designed and required a full year of planning out. The crew had only a limited time window of three minutes a day during sunset to film a jump. Because of strict air aviation regulations in France, it could only be shot in the Emirates. It took
Tom Cruise,
Henry Cavill, the skydiving camera operator
Craig O'Brien (who was instructed to keep a distance of three feet from Cruise while filming) and others involved a total of 106 jumps to get three possible takes. However, to rehearse the sequence, the crew built a custom oxygen helmet with RAF assistance that can be lit up to see a face, and then also built one of the world's largest wind tunnels for practice. The practice doesn't end there - Cruise and the other persons involved did five skydives a day with one in the morning, three in the afternoon, and one at dusk. Some of the other cast members turned up to visit, with
Simon Pegg saying that he and his co-stars thought multiple times that Cruise was seriously about to die: "It is a daily stress going to work with him, because you don't know if you are going to see him tomorrow."
