Some airplane stunts are so bold they barely look real. The craziest airplane stunts ever performed sit right at the edge of what a wing, an engine and a very calm pilot can do: weaving between moving targets, threading through gaps with inches to spare, standing a jet on its tail. Here are five that still make pilots wince and grin at the same time.

Most of these are display stunts, flown by professionals with years behind them and a lot of margin planned in. You will not be trying them yourself. But they are a wonderful window into what an aircraft can do in the right hands.

1. Weaving through a line of hot air balloons

Picture a row of hot air balloons hanging in still morning air, and a fast aerobatic aircraft threading a slalom between them.

The catch is that balloons drift. They rise, sink and shuffle sideways on the lightest breeze, so the pilot is aiming at a target that keeps moving. There is no second attempt on a pass like this. It is precision flying dressed up as showmanship, and the smallest misjudgement ends the trick badly.

2. Threading through a tunnel

Flying an aircraft through a road tunnel is exactly as mad as it sounds. Some pilots have done it through two in a single run.

Everything shrinks to inches. Wingtip clearance, the line into the mouth of the tunnel, the light change as you go from open sky to enclosed concrete and back: all of it has to be judged perfectly and fast. That anyone has attempted it at all tells you plenty about the confidence and skill involved.

3. Standing a passenger jet on its tail

You expect small, light aeroplanes to throw shapes. You do not expect an airliner to.

Yet display pilots have taken jets like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and pulled them into steep, near-vertical climbs shortly after takeoff at airshows. Seeing something the size of a commercial aircraft point its nose at the sky rearranges your sense of what these machines can do. It takes deep familiarity with the airframe and complete control to fly a big jet that far outside its everyday routine.

4. Two aircraft through a hangar

This is the one that drops jaws in the crowd: two aeroplanes flying through a hangar, side by side, with clearance measured on each wing.

The margin for error is almost nothing. The pilots have to hold perfect formation with each other and with the width of the walls, while accounting for wind and matching their speeds exactly. Fly into a space that tight and there is no room to be even slightly wrong, which is what makes it one of the craziest airplane stunts ever done.

5. Fireworks from the wingtips

In recent years, aircraft pyrotechnics have become a favourite finale at night airshows. Pilots fit pyrotechnic devices to their aeroplanes and light up the dark while rolling and looping overhead.

Done well, it is pure theatre: trails of sparks drawing the shape of every manoeuvre against a black sky. The flying underneath the fireworks still has to be precise; the light show just makes the precision visible.

What do the craziest stunts have in common?

Strip away the spectacle and the same short list shows up every time:

A tiny margin for error, planned for and flown with discipline
A moving or unforgiving target: balloons, tunnel walls, a wingman
An aircraft flown far from its everyday routine
A pilot who has done the boring work for years to earn the spectacular

That is the honest bit. What looks reckless from the fence line is usually the opposite: hours of preparation, a machine flown well inside what it can survive, and a plan for everything.

Are stunts like these real, or movie magic?

Fair question. A lot of what people picture as “crazy flying” comes from films rather than airshows. Some of it is real, some is camera trickery, and the line between them is genuinely interesting. We pulled it apart in are Top Gun stunts real?.

The good news: you do not need a hangar, a tunnel or a fireworks licence to feel the real thing. Loops, rolls, hammerheads and inverted flight are all on the menu in an Extra 300, a two-seat aerobatic aircraft with a symmetrical wing that flies as happily upside down as the right way up. Your pilot builds the sequence to your comfort and dials the intensity up only as you ask. If you are curious what that actually feels like, start with the aerobatic manoeuvres every first-timer should try.

The craziest airplane stunts are best watched from the ground. But real aerobatics, flown with you in the seat, is closer than you think.

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The 5 Craziest Airplane Stunts Ever Performed