Longtime Star Wars fans know that Harrison Ford is Han Solo, but even the galaxy’s coolest smuggler had to figure out the controls of the Millennium Falcon at some point. And according to Ford himself, that moment didn’t go quite as you’d expect.
“You Just Fly It” — Harrison Ford’s First Day Inside the Falcon
In the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition – Behind the Scenes (1997), Harrison Ford shared a story that perfectly captures the early chaos and charm of making the original film. It was his very first day shooting inside the Millennium Falcon—the ship that would become an icon for generations. But back then? Nobody had a clue how any of this was supposed to work.
“The thing I remember most clearly was my first day in the Millennium Falcon. We went to shoot, and it was a situation where we were under enormous tension, as is usually the case in a film.
I said to him, ‘Okay… how do you fly this? How do you fly it, George?’
And George said, ‘Well… you—you know, you just fly it.’”
There were no flight diagrams or button guides—just a set full of blinking lights and a fictional cockpit that didn’t do anything. Yet Ford still had to sell the illusion that the Falcon could fly through hyperspace with the flick of a switch. Ford had to rely on body language, timing, and confidence to make every flip of a switch or yank of a lever seem like second nature. Lucas’s vague direction, “you just fly it,” left the rest to Ford’s instincts. And instead of asking more questions, he rolled with it, creating the cool, capable pilot we now associate with Han Solo.
So Ford made it up on the spot. He treated the Falcon’s controls like real instruments, flipping switches and pulling levers with purpose, even though nothing functioned. His movements had to sell the illusion that this junky freighter could jump to lightspeed or dodge TIE Fighters. The set had blinking lights and sound cues, but the believability came entirely from Ford’s performance.
And that wasn’t the only time Harrison Ford had to improvise his way through space. Decades later, when The Force Awakens was in production, Oscar Isaac, cast as the Resistance’s ace pilot Poe Dameron, decided to ask Ford for advice. After all, who better to learn from than the guy who made flying the Millennium Falcon look effortless?
Ford’s answer? Exactly what you’d expect from the man who once asked, “How do you fly it?” and was told, “You just fly it.”
“I said, ‘Just make shit up!’” Ford told Entertainment Weekly’s Anthony Breznican in a 2015 interview. “I mean, it’s a movie, man. It’s space. You don’t fly in space the way you do in an atmosphere.”
From Millennium Falcon to Real-Life Rescue Pilot
Ford’s advice to Oscar Isaac might’ve sounded like classic Han Solo sarcasm, “just make shit up”, but the man wasn’t bluffing. Long before he stepped onto the Falcon set, Harrison Ford was already fascinated by aviation. He started flying lessons back in the 1960s and over the years, earned both airplane and helicopter licenses.
And we’re not talking casual flying. Ford has actually carried out real rescue missions in his own helicopter. He helped save a stranded Boy Scout in Wyoming and rescued an injured hiker who’d gotten lost in the forest.
In 2000, Ford helped evacuate a 20-year-old hiker named Sarah George from the top of Table Mountain in Wyoming after she collapsed from exhaustion and altitude sickness. She didn’t even realize it was that Harrison Ford flying the helicopter at first; he showed up wearing a T-shirt and a cowboy hat. During the flight, she got sick from the altitude and later joked to reporters that the one thing she couldn’t believe was throwing up in Harrison Ford’s helicopter.
Just a year later, in 2001, Ford returned to the skies again to find a lost 13-year-old Boy Scout named Cody Clawson who’d gotten separated from his group near Yellowstone. When Ford found him, he reportedly greeted him with a dry, very Han-Solo-style line about earning a merit badge. Clawson didn’t even care about an autograph—he said getting a hug and handshake from Han Solo himself was better.