Herc`en 60 - Sjekk videoer

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Trond Sølna i en norsk C-130J - Foto: Per Gram

Story highlights

• The type of plane used for a jaw-dropping stunt in "Furious 7" is 60 years old
• Lockheed's C-130 Hercules is the longest continuously produced military plane in history
• C-130 factory in Georgia celebrates the flight of the first C-130 production model

Marietta, Georgia (CNN)The little-known star of this week's No. 1 car chase movie, "Furious 7" isn't a car. It's an airplane.

Film producers hired a Lockheed C-130 Hercules to fly five cars 12,000 feet high, open a cargo door at the rear of the plane and parachute them out in a spectacular free-fall stunt.

Geronimo!

Happy 60th birthday to the Hercules -- the oldest continuously produced family of military planes in history.

Lockheed has been making these airplanes longer than the legendary B-52 bomber and the famous U2 spy jet. Unlike those planes, the C-130 has never become a household name.

The fact that "Furious 7" producers chose a plane that was designed in the 1950s tells you a little something about the success of the Hercules.

The film makes it appear as if another plane -- a C-17 Globemaster III -- drops the cars. But in real life, it took a Hercules to pull it off.

Shooting the scene posed unique logistical challenges, said stunt coordinator Jack Gill in a featurette video about the mission. "You start throwing all those cars out together -- you've got to figure out spacing. And these things drop very fast," Gill said.

Jeremiah Beaudin of International Air Response co-piloted the stunt. "We have to be very precise in our headings and our altitudes," he says in the video.