Zeppelin’s Starship | Flight Sim From Home | First Flight of 2025
The band that put the pitch’n’yaw in rock’n’roll
The cabin doors will be closing shortly…
Led Zeppelin’s Starship
I keep a Led Zeppelin playing card in my wallet. Helps me channel the spirit of the rock gods I like to believe. It’s been there forever and reminded me to revisit Physical Graffiti the other day.
What the back of the card leaves out is any mention of Led Zeppelin’s tour plane, the Starship.
It was the first Boeing of its kind—a 720 jetliner built in 1959—and a gas-guzzler. After United used it for a while, two guys bought it in 1973 to lease to pop stars. Led Zeppelin. Sinatra. Dylan & the Band. Elton John. Deep Purple. the Allman Brothers. Alice Cooper in 1974. Peter Frampton would be the last in 1976.
Even in black and white, you can see the brass-and-shag ashtray-glass glamor. I’m choking on the air just looking at these.
🤘There was an organ behind the bar.🤘
Which all got me thinking about the stupid(ly fun) five round-trip flights I had last year (with no organ or bar) and how big my stupid carbon footprint must be. As small as I am to the gods that are Zeppelin. I ride a bicycle. I don’t own a car. I recycle and do my part to support our corporate overlords. I’m lucky to fly every time I do when a cross-country ticket remains cost prohibitive for so many.
And I love flying. The environmental damage is the promethean cost of business still, and the Starship was ultimately grounded and dismantled for parts in 1982 because of how expensive it was to fuel and maintain.
Rock’n’roll just isn’t what it was anymore, yet the song remains the same: it costs a lot to fly. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production is in demand and on the rise, but I can’t think of a celebrity today who flies in an aircraft of such renown. We have a different attitude today about pop stars in planes.
Flight Sim From Home
I’m about to take my first flight(s) of the year, a red eye to Chicago. Love the coffee, love the place. Won’t be there long at all. A Sunday return from MSN>DEN>SFO and then I’m not sure when my next flight will be…but that doesn’t matter anymore with this Flight Simulator by Laurel Schwulst. I love it. Consider joining me!
Until I return, here’s a story about the Eyerly Aviation Company, who revolutionized the summer carnival with one of the first flight simulators. Long before Microsoft.
I’ll write you all about it later.
Clear skies,
— GA
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