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.
“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.