One of Christopher Reeve's hobbies was flying. At the time the movie was made and released, Reeve flew his own six-passenger twin engine Beechcraft plane. Reeve was a qualified pilot with around two thousand hours flying experience and had commercial, instrument, and multi-engine ratings. Reeve once said: "I thought it would be fun to mix acting and airplanes. Flying is something that comes naturally to me; it certainly helped me with Superman." 

Director George Miller once said of the film's aerial sequences: "The special effects on this film were spectacular because we were able to spend a lot of time on the flying sequences." Christopher Reeve has said of them: "My favorite days involved flying, acting, and a little directing as well. A camera would be mounted on the wing, and I would take off with instructions from the Director of Photography to find a suitable location to film myself on the mail run. The director and crew would hang around the airfield until I returned a couple of hours later."