Hey there. Orianna here from Fortune.

As a child, Jonathan Spano had one dream: to be a military pilot, like Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun. It was swiftly shattered when he learned the U.S. Navy required near-perfect eyesight to fly—a standard he could never meet.

“I learned that you had to have better than perfect eyesight, really—20/20 is kind of the minimum standard,” Spano told me. “I didn’t meet that criteria, so that took that off the table for me…My eyesight was just not that good. I wore glasses as a kid.”

So Spano launched his own business instead. Growing up in a “very blue-collar” family in California, he and his brother started doing traffic control work as teenagers—setting out cones and barricades for a crane company their father worked for.

And over time, what began as a way to make some extra cash grew into Traffic Management Inc.—the largest privately held traffic control company in the United States, making over $1 million a day in revenue.

It’s done so well that, decades later, he’s been able to splash out millions on flying lessons and his own aircraft to fulfill his childhood dream. He never got to be the Navy’s Maverick. Instead, he became the pilot flying the actual jets behind some of Top Gun: Maverick’s most acclaimed aerial sequences.

It all started when his finance chief suggested picking up a small plane as a tax write-off and to help Spano save time visiting the company’s many offices across the country. So Spano got a Cessna, learned to fly, and kept going—bigger plane, faster plane, eventually a $2 million helicopter and a private jet, a few hundred thousand dollars deeper each time.

He’d spend his evenings studying aviation until 11 p.m. while his family slept, and be back up for work the following day at 6 a.m. Meanwhile, the helicopter led him to Fred North, a Hollywood aerial coordinator he partnered with to mount camera rigs for film and commercial shoots.

It was North who floated the idea that changed everything: modify the jet to carry the same cameras, and Spano could fly it in the next Top Gun movie. So he spent another 18 months—and well into seven figures—doing just that.

“We pulled it off in time to have the jet work on production and fly in the Top Gun: Maverick film,” Spano said. Paramount has since greenlit a third Top Gun film, with production expected to begin in 2027—and Spano is already in talks with the director.

“It’s funny, the business I originally started just to make ends meet has ended up funding and giving me the opportunity to live the dream that I had as a child,” he added. “I’m living proof that anything is possible…Though these things don’t happen on their own, and you have to make your dreams reality.”

—Orianna Rosa Royle
Success Associate Editor, Fortune

Got a career tip or dilemma? Get in touch: orianna.royle@fortune.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, TikTok, X, and Instagram.