Rumours, legends and things people swear are true
Every private-jet story you have heard at a dinner party — the gold-plated 747, the $3,000 biscuits, the jet that outclimbs a fighter — checked, and labelled honestly.
“The original Learjet could outclimb a fighter jet.”
A true-in-1964 boast that became a myth by repetition. The Learjet 23 climbed at nearly 7,000 ft/min and could reach 40,000 ft in about seven minutes — genuinely quicker than several 1950s fighters, including the F-86 Sabre that Bill Lear's publicity liked to mention. Against a contemporary F-4 Phantom it was hopeless, and against anything since it isn't a contest. The story survives because the Learjet was built from a fighter design and behaved like one.
“The Learjet was originally a Swiss fighter jet.”
Essentially true. The Learjet 23's wing, main landing gear and fuel-tank layout were taken directly from the FFA P-16, a Swiss ground-attack fighter that the Swiss Air Force cancelled in 1958 after two prototypes crashed. Bill Lear bought the design work, formed the Swiss American Aircraft Corporation, added a new fuselage and two engines, then moved everything to Wichita. The first business jet to bear his name is a fighter's wing with an office bolted on.
“Elvis Presley's jet had gold-plated seat belts.”
True, and still on display at Graceland. Elvis bought a 1958 Convair 880 from Delta in 1975, named it *Lisa Marie* after his daughter, and spent more than $800,000 refitting it with a bedroom, conference room, lounge, gold-flecked bathroom sinks, suede chairs and 24-karat gold-plated seat-belt buckles — including one on the bed, because regulations required a restraint. It was the most extravagant private airliner of its day.
“Hugh Hefner's jet had a round bed and its own disco.”
True. The *Big Bunny*, a black-painted McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 delivered to Playboy in 1969 for about $5.5 million, had an oval bed with silk sheets and a fur bedspread in Hefner's rear suite, a living room, a galley, a cinema and video system, and a dance floor with lighting that the company called a discotheque. It was crewed by 'Jet Bunnies' trained by Continental Airlines. Playboy sold it in 1975.
“Frank Sinatra's Learjet was the first celebrity private jet.”
Sinatra took delivery of a Learjet 23 in 1965 — serial number 31, named *Christina II* after his daughter — making him one of the first entertainers to own a business jet, and the first to make one part of his image. But Bing Crosby, Arthur Godfrey and Danny Kaye flew their own aircraft earlier, corporate JetStars were carrying the rich from 1961, and his wasn't even the first Learjet sold to a private individual. Best described as the first *famous* celebrity jet.