You Never Forget Your First Private Jet

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, via Hollywood Reporter

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We’ve been hearing a lot about private jets recently. We’re still talking about Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” Boeing 727, used to transport U.S. Presidents and sex trafficking victims, even though it’s been sold and stripped for parts. There’s the $60 million government jet commandeered by FBI Director Kash Patel, so that he could watch his girlfriend sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a wrestling event in Pennsylvania. And as of yesterday, America’s shutdown has temporarily closed private jet operations at 12 major airport hubs, including New York, L.A., Newark, and Atlanta. Even though the Democrats have now caved, and eventually the economy will rebound, those jets aren’t going anywhere right away. The status symbol of celebrities, tech moguls, and rando billionaires—grounded! Will we soon see George Clooney sitting in coach?

It reminds me of my first private jet. At least the first one I ever encountered. Thanks for reading.

It’s probably 1976, maybe 1977. I’m sound asleep in the basement of my parents’ house in small-town Montana. Trying to get some rest before another week of high school. Around four in the morning my dad comes into the bedroom and shakes me. “The flight service called. A plane needs fuel.”

I get up, put on some clothes and boots, and stumble out to my shitty little Toyota Corona Deluxe. It’s the middle of winter, light snow is falling, the wind is blowing, temperature around zero. I drive through the empty streets, praying for the defroster to warm up. Nobody in their right mind should be out right now. But this is my job. I continue across the Yellowstone River bridge, up the hill to the airport.

Some people wait tables in high school. Work at a store. Bag groceries. Or work at a cattle ranch. For three years, I work at the airport. The common term is a “line boy,” and the paved area around the hangars and office and fuel pumps is called “the line.” I sweep hangars, and fuel small airplanes as they pull up to the pump. I am a monkey with greasy pants and a rag in my pocket.

Oh sure, there are some highlights. I gas up Jacques Cousteau’s aircraft. God knows what he’s doing in Eastern Montana. A farmer taxies his ancient flea-bitten plane up to the fuel area, turns off the propellor, and a large rat crawls out of the engine, makes two circles around a landing wheel, and darts back up inside. A few times a week, Frontier Airlines lands and picks up the occasional passenger. But mostly it’s crop-duster planes, or Cessnas and Pipers owned by locals: a dentist, a rancher, the undertaker from Graves Funeral Home (a business once featured in “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”). I pump gas, clean bugs off the windows, ring up the sales on one of those slider credit card machines. And then I go home.

But tonight I really loathe the universe. I pull off the highway into the cluster of airport buildings. The wind is now howling, carving snowdrifts around the shops and hangars. Ice Station Zebra level of bleakness. I park my car, unlock the offices, and then walk out to the line. Parked at the jet fuel pump, illuminated by a single floodlight, amidst swirls of falling snow, is a sleek gleaming Learjet. They’re waiting for me.

The situation is obvious. The plane was flying over the Plains States, got caught in a snowstorm, ran low on gas and somehow, at 4 am, found my hometown airport, and managed to land safely. And now they want to refuel and get the fuck out, and I don’t blame them. So do I. Let’s get this over with.

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A Learjet model 35 typical of the era

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I pull out the fuel hose and tromp over to the wingtip tank. On a Learjet you have to fill one tank halfway, then fill up the other side, and then go back to the first one. Otherwise the weight of the fuel will tip over the plane. So I stand there in the wind, waiting for instructions. Some guys are particular.

The door to the Learjet opens and the stairs descend, and one uniformed man leads the pack down the stairs, holding two completely full garbage bags clinking with bottles. He has a big grin on his face. He’s followed by a group of guys and a few women in high heels, all joking and laughing heartily. It’s a Party in the Sky! A half-drunk pilot in a captain’s hat walks up, flicks me a credit card and says, “Thanks for coming out. Go ahead and top ‘er off.”

I stand with the hose, filling up the tanks, my young brain spinning with thoughts. Who the hell are these people? They’re not the usual level-headed Midwest business types. Are the women prostitutes? I’m getting my first peek into the shady 1970s world of adults with enough money to fly around the country and party it up in the middle of the night. Are they musicians? Did they rob a bank?

I finish up and walk back into the office, and all the lights are on and it’s noisy, and people are laughing and lighting cigarettes and scarfing candy from the machine. The tipsy pilot signs the credit card slip, fishes out a crisp $100 bill to pay off the sullen teenage line boy, and says, “Something for your trouble.”

The Learjet roars back into the sky, I drive home and go back to bed, with the first $100 bill in my life. This will be my peak experience of Airport World. I will take a few flying lessons, accumulate a whopping 12 hours of flight time, and then abruptly quit, suddenly realizing it never really was my thing.

The remainder of my airplane experience has been just like everyone else: shuffling through the lines, standing in the scanners, having the back of your seat kicked by somebody’s dumb kid. One security guard at SFO recently looked at my I.D. and said, “Looks like you’ve lost some weight.” Yeah, thanks. If someone needs a seat-filler on their private jet, I think I’m ready.