pilots flying, plus another two pilots for the way back (with the
first set of pilots flying back commercial), and one or two flight
attendants. How the princess was listed on the flight manifest
was a matter of some debate since there are criminal penal-
ties for lying on FAA records. “There was a huge fight about
what was actually signed for,” says someone familiar with what
transpired. “And ultimately, we got to Diane Spencer, hand-
written. It could be some cleaning lady.”
The pilots and crew on these planes get to travel widely
and see how the other half lives, of course. But it’s not a pic-
nic. You are always on call. You’d better get along with the
other pilots and the flight attendants, because they are almost
always the same people. You’re never quite sure where you
are going and when and for how long. “You’re going to fly 30,
40 hours a month,” Dowd tells me, “but you do a lot of sitting.
You fly to Aspen and sit there for two, three, four days. You
fly to Palm Beach and sit there for two, three, four days....
You could be in some great places, but you’re not with who
you want to be with.”
J
ets are deeply tied to their owners’ status, their ego,
their very being. The writer Rich Cohen once traveled
on Jann Wenner’s Gulfstream II jet to follow the
Rolling Stones tour. He recalled leaving Teterboro, New Jersey,
with another Rolling Stone editor to fly to East Hampton to pick
up Wenner, then the owner of the magazine, for the flight to
Toronto to see the band perform that night. “We were sitting
on the runway,” Cohen recalls, “and, like, a G Four taxied next
to us and Jann went crazy about how, ‘Now, my plane looks like
a piece of shit.’ He was being half sarcastic, but there was just
an element of seriousness about it that was very funny.” Other
business executives complain about how pathetic they feel
when they lose a job where they had regular access to a private
jet and then don’t. “The plane is the game changer,” Cohen
says. “Basically, there are people with the plane and people
without the plane, and those are the only two classes that mat-
ter. Once you have a plane, that’s it. And if you have a plane, to
go to a job where you don’t have a plane, you almost can’t do it.”
A couple of years before Wenner sold his company, he had
to sell his jet.
Forstmann was one of the first to realize that a whole new
class of über-wealthy Wall Street deal guys, like him, had
emerged and would not be able to resist owning a private
jet, not only for its efficiency and the freedom it provided
but also as the ultimate status symbol that virtually screams:
Fuck you. Ironically, he was also scared to death of flying. His
regular seat on the jet had indentation marks from where he
gripped it so tightly in fear. “The reason that he was so inter-
ested in Gulfstream was because it was the only way he could
do his business,” says someone who knew him well. “Because
otherwise, he couldn’t. It sounds crazy but he couldn’t get on
a commercial flight.”
When Forstmann first bought Gulfstream, he remembered
asking the head of sales at the company how he went about
making a pitch.
“When you are selling a plane, how do you do it?” Forstmann
asked him.
“What do you mean?” the guy responded.
“He’s the head of sales,” Forstmann reminded me. “I said, ‘I
mean, how do you do it? Who do you call?’ ”
He said, “I don’t understand the question.”
“You’re trying to make a sale,” Forstmann persisted. “You’re
going to call somebody. Whom do you call? Do you call the
CEO, the CFO? Who do you call?”
“Oh, I get what you’re saying,” he replied, finally. “We’re
Gulfstream. We don’t make calls. We take orders.”
“He was a great guy, a really nice guy, but he was gone in a
week,” Forstmann told me.
And for those people who can’t afford their own private jet, a
Moscow-based company, Private Jet Studio, lets them pretend
that they can by allowing anyone to pose next to and inside
a Gulfstream jet while it remains firmly on the ground the entire
time. For around $200 for a two-hour session, a photographer
will take pictures of you and your fabulous pretend private jet,
all of which, of course, can be immediately posted on Instagram
for wider circulation and general fabulousness. The private-jet
tarmac can also be a place for private meetings. For instance, in
June 2016, toward the end of the 2016 CONTINUED ON PAGE 120- Gulfstream
chairman Ted
Forstmann and a
Gulfstream V in
Los Angeles, 1997. - The main
lounge of a
twin-aisle VIP
aircraft. - Elton John on
a private Boeing,
complete with
piano bar, 1974.
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