Diane Sawyer Hails Tom Cruise's Pilot Skills  4/21/06

Talk show host Diane Sawyer has publicly endorsed new dad Tom Cruise's pilot skills after letting him fly her for her US TV show Primetime.

The show aired last Friday (14APR06) but didn't include footage of the stunts the two experienced in Cruise's vintage fighter plane.

The Top Gun star explained during the interview he was previously denied a pilot's license because of his dyslexia, but overcame the learning disability after studying Scientology.

And the actor took Sawyer up in his plane, Kiss Me Kate, to demonstrate his new-found flying ability.

Sawyer explains, "We didn't just go up - we did loop-to-loop's and were upside down in the clouds, we dived, we came back up.

"He was in a plane which is a very complicated plane to fly. I knew instinctively, 'This is a man who does not do anything without focus.'

"'This is a man who does not do anything he doesn't think through.'

"Someone there (at the airport) told me he had come out during the week to make sure he knew exactly what he was going to do. I knew I'd be safe."