Jet Boy
November 7, 2003 1:23 AM   Subscribe

Get the plane out of the garage for me would you dear? Not only is John Travolta a qualified pilot (to commercial level) he has his own Boeing 707. And what does any self respecting jetliner owner do? Buy a house with a 1.4 mile runway attached and taxi on up to the door of course...

Oh, and if you hear "Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter" blaring out from the cockpit next time you fly, don't worry it's probably just Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson at the controls.
posted by jontyjago (29 comments total)
 
See, Scientology does work.
posted by dpkm at 1:36 AM on November 7, 2003


Yeah, if you're rich when you join.
posted by spazzm at 2:09 AM on November 7, 2003


He'll need the plane when Xenu comes after him. Gotta move fast to beat that Xenu!

Xenu Xenu Xenu!... because there can never be enough links!
posted by shepd at 2:41 AM on November 7, 2003


He has good taste. The 707 was the first commercially successful jet airliner and still is one of the prettiest.
posted by planetkyoto at 2:43 AM on November 7, 2003


I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want all that jet fuel parked so close to my home.
posted by Cool Alex at 3:31 AM on November 7, 2003


Don't forget Steve Morse, the most talented entertainer/pilot of all and who has actually flown commercial passengers.
posted by mischief at 4:51 AM on November 7, 2003


seems this pilot lark is catching, dave rowntree from blur has been piloting himself around europe for the last ten years.
posted by triv at 5:34 AM on November 7, 2003


Also Gary Numan. 80's pop icon (Cars) and very respected aerobatics pilot.
posted by biscotti at 5:46 AM on November 7, 2003


biscotti: Just as I was reading your comment XMMS started playing Cars... *spooked*
posted by PenDevil at 5:47 AM on November 7, 2003


Can you imagine how loud this would be?
posted by orange swan at 6:12 AM on November 7, 2003


Does this mean he'll have to leave home in order to clip his toenails?
posted by bcwinters at 6:20 AM on November 7, 2003


triv - I can't believe I forgot about Dave Rowntree. I think fellow blur-ite Alex James has also started flying...
posted by jontyjago at 6:29 AM on November 7, 2003


Oh, and if you hear "Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter" blaring out from the cockpit next time you fly, don't worry it's probably just Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson at the controls.

Wouldn't "Aces High" be more appropriate?
posted by jonmc at 6:35 AM on November 7, 2003


I hear Cat Stevens has his pilot's license, but he can't find a carrier willing to hire him.
posted by bunnytricks at 6:50 AM on November 7, 2003


Here's the site for the exclusive fly-in community where Travolta built his house. Every homesite has a street in front and a taxiway in the rear. Plus, you get to join their exclusive country club!
posted by SealWyf at 7:36 AM on November 7, 2003


jonmc - or "Tailgunner" :-)
posted by starvingartist at 7:51 AM on November 7, 2003


And when they say it's "In" Anthony, FL, they're not kidding, houses just as close as any large city airport. Honey, the Travolta's are home! Let's drop by with a Bundt Cake.
posted by m@ at 8:48 AM on November 7, 2003


See, Scientology does work.

Travolta is so cool (with the exception of Lou Reed, no living white guy is cooler than Travolta) that he can afford some serious weird stuff like this obsession with planes, not to mention Scientology
As Anthony Lane pointed out in The New Yorker,
If anyone holds this movie together, it isn't Tarantino - it's John Travolta. He strolls through without a wink of vanity, having long since relinquished the oily posing of "Saturday Night Fever" in favor of the first law of cool: Don't try to be cool. The very title, "Pulp Fiction," sounds like a description of his face - luscious but squashy, easily bruised, the look of a former pretty boy who can inspire tall tales. While Tarantino clamors for our attention, Travolta knows that he has it and isn't going to lose it in a hurry. He can afford to rumple and fatten his character, turning Vince into a slob and a patsy, driving the picture beyond the regulation hipness of "Reservoir Dogs" into a shabbier territory, where a man is known not just by his suit or his ruthlessness but by his hits of bliss and his flashes of panic, the big mistakes he can make as he tries to correct the little ones. What stays with you after "Pulp Fiction" (and amazingly little does stay with you) is the closeup of Vince's slow, drugged smile as he drives through the darkness to meet Mia, or the rather endearing shots of him sitting on the toilet reading "Modesty Blaise." Travolta has the nerve, in the midst of what feels like an action movie, to remind us of the pleasures of inactivity, the deep need to hang out.
posted by matteo at 9:00 AM on November 7, 2003


Does this mean he'll have to leave home in order to clip his toenails?

That's actually a good question. Are there any regulations concerning such larger private aircraft? In terms of commercial flying, I get the feeling they are trying to secure against highjacking, not to protect the lives of passengers, but to protect the lives of those on the ground. Wouldn't owning, or kidnapping someone who owns a jumbojet be an end run around airport security? It make me nervous to know used-up cult-members living on a thin line of kitsch are flying around in massive airplanes.
posted by elwoodwiles at 9:24 AM on November 7, 2003


john denver was quite the pilot i hear.
posted by quonsar at 10:37 AM on November 7, 2003


Just as I was reading your comment XMMS started playing Cars...

Heh. I know. Boo. *makes scary finger-waggling gesture*
posted by biscotti at 10:42 AM on November 7, 2003


Is there a point to posting about John Travolta's pilothood? Seems like this should be something for CelebFilter or some gossip columns. Who cares?
posted by fenriq at 11:59 AM on November 7, 2003


"Is there a point to posting about John Travolta's pilothood? Seems like this should be something for CelebFilter or some gossip columns. Who cares?"

Who's the cranky boy, hmmm? Whoosacrankyboy?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:00 PM on November 7, 2003


There's actually a subdivision about 20 minutes south on the expressway from where I live that's set up specifically for people who own small planes. The houses have garages large enough for a small plane attached to them, and there's a grass runway as part of the subdivision. Personally I keep wondering where they find enough people to fill the subdivision (although I'm not sure there's that many houses at this point), because the area just doesn't seem to fit right for small plane owners.
posted by piper28 at 12:55 PM on November 7, 2003


Driving a SUV is a crime against nature. Flying a 707 is a statistic.
posted by stbalbach at 1:07 PM on November 7, 2003


I'm not cranky, dammit! Well maybe a little bit but that's another thread.
I'm just curious about the signifigance of knowing that Vinnie Barbarino can fly a plane?

And Stbalbach, I'm right there with you. SUVs are the bane of all other drivers. Or maybe its SUVs don't kill people, its the gnat-hung idiots behind the wheel talking on their cellphones and swerving across four lanes of highway while the eat a burger and change the CD (for the fifth time in two minutes). But that would be alot harder to fit on a bumper sticker.
posted by fenriq at 4:56 PM on November 7, 2003


john denver was quite the pilot i hear.

He was, q. It wasn't bad piloting that led to the crash -- it was bad design. (The NTSB view has a different spin, though.)

Are there any regulations concerning such larger private aircraft? ... Wouldn't owning, or kidnapping someone who owns a jumbojet be an end run around airport security?

elwoodwiles, my reaction has always been that raising the security level of commercial air travel would make it a hardened target, thus less vulnerable -- while shifting the threat to softer targets. But to answer your question, jets are for sale all over the world, pretty much to anyone who can afford the fuel. You can't carry cargo or passengers without appropriate certificates, and you must always have a licensed and certified pilot at the controls, but there's no restriction on ownership per se. One may be comforted by the likelihood that someone able to afford the operating costs will have some measure of security -- and that a plane taking off from a private runway might not go disguised as a "normal hijacking" for so long.
posted by dhartung at 12:15 AM on November 8, 2003


I was just noticing the other day that Travolta is going to be master of ceremonies for the 100th anniversary Wright Brothers celebration in North Carolina next month.
posted by LeLiLo at 5:03 AM on November 8, 2003


I always thought that hijacked passenger planes are an issue because it puts us in a dilemma where we have to choose between the lives of the passengers in the plane and the lives of people on the ground.

If a terrorist just steals John Travolta's plane off his backyard, I don't think the air force will have any second thoughts about shooting it down.
posted by VeGiTo at 12:02 AM on November 9, 2003


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