The "air drop" sequence was conceived by stunt coordinator, Spiro Razatos, who also supervised on the franchise's two previous installments; Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6.[59][60] Razatos told Business Insider that he wanted to rely more on real stunts rather than CGI because he wanted the whole sequence to "feel real" and fullfill audience's expectations.[59] The stunt took months of prep-solving problems. Cameras needed to be mounted onto cars in a way that they would not be destroyed when the cars landed, and the crew had to figure out a safe way to get the cars out of the plane. They performed a dry run with a single car falling out of a plane[59] and did this six times.[60] Cars were dropped from a Lockheed C-130 Hercules high above the Arizona desert, but close up shots that show the cars landing on a mountain road were filmed in Colorado.[60] There were two airplanes, flying at a height of 12,000 feet, each dropping two cars apiece.[59] BRS parachutes enabled with GPS were secured to each of the cars before dropping off the C-130 plane. At about 5,000 feet, the parachutes deployed.[60] Over 10 cameras were used for the sequence. In addition to cameras on the ground, there were cameras remotely operated inside the plane and another three mounted outside each car. Additional cameras were on a helicopter, where Razatos was stationed watching monitors. Three skydivers used in the shoot wore helmet cameras to help shoot the sequence from multiple angles. Sky divers would either jump out before cars or after them.[59] While all the cars landed on their drop zones, 70% landed perfectly and 30% didn't.[60] For the close-up scenes which shows the actors inside their cars, a giant gimbal with a 360-degree range of movement were attached to each of the cars and was filmed against a green screen to reproduce their tumble through the sky.[61] The last part of the scene, which shows the cars hitting the road was shot separately. To get that right, the team set up a pully system that had cars six to ten feet above the ground. When they were dropped from the cranes, the stuntmen who were sitting in the driver's seats raced their engines at about 35 to 40 miles per hour and slid to the ground at full speed. Those cranes were then later removed from the film with computers.[60][61] Razatos admits that the air drop sequence was "all real" and that it would be "hard to top."[59][60]
The scene featuring Brian jumping off a bus off a cliff was performed by a stuntman and was all done without any computer graphics.[62] The shooting for this particular sequence along with the scene in which Dom and his team are pursuing to rescue Ramsey almost didn't happen due to the absence of tax break in Colorado.[62] The studio originally wanted to shoot the sequence in Georgia which provides tax breaks for film productions, and then they'd add woods in the background later in post production to which Razatos denied saying, "the audience is going to know [it's CGI] and aren't going to feel good about it."[62] Shooting finally took place in Colorado.[62]
A total of 340 cars were used in the film,[61] and more than 230 cars were destroyed in the making of the film including several black Mercedes-Benz, a Ford Crown Victoria and a Mitsubishi Montero.[63] The mountain-highway chase scene on Colorado's Monarch Pass proved to be the most damaging sequence with over 40 vehicles being destroyed.[63][64] Only 10 percent of the action sequences in the film were computer-generated, and even then, much of the CGI was employed simply to erase the wires and other contraptions that were used to film real cars and drivers or to add a background.[61] It took more than 3,500 man-days to complete the various stunts of the film.[61] For safety reasons, stunt coordinator, Joel Kramer said that he doesn't let his drivers go above 50 miles per hour.[65]
