Celebrities in FBOs

[EastCoastLR35]

Have Flown:

Mary Tylor Morre
Danica Patrick
Buddy Rice
Dan Patrick
Dr. O. Wayne Isom

 

[pilotmiketx]

Have Flown:

Danica Patrick

She gives me morning wood in the late afternoon.

You are a living god. (or at least one lucky bastard)

 

[ORDRJDrivr]

There's a famous story about Oprah Winfrey in 1st class, who decided that the white #1 wasn't good enough to serve her, and demanded the African-American FA in coach trade places with the #1. Since I wasn't there, I can't vouch for the truth of it, but apparently Oprah is one of the most demanding, irritating passengers ever to grace a commercial flight.

First time here and first post ... but couldn't let this one slide...

Not only is it a true story, my sister was the #1 FA on that flight. American Airlines Super 80 from ORD to LAX. Oprah was in the window seat and her "assistant" was to her right shoulder. My sister, the white blonde FA works the #1 position usually and there just happened to be a black female FA working in the main cabin. My sister stops by to offer Oprah and her assistant a pre-departure drink and Oprah states, "I want the black flight attendant to serve me." My sister calmly informs Oprah that flight attendants bid for their position on the aircraft and that she would be the First Class FA for the trip to LAX. Oprah then gets all huffy and states to her assistant, "Well you just tell the white girl that I want a diet coke..." And that's the way the entire flight went. Oprah never talked to my sister again. All communication was through the assistant.

Evidently, Oprah placed her very large black feet on the cabin bulkhead and that upset my sister so at one point, she asked Oprah to please remove her feet from the bulkhead.

The story is much more funny to hear my sister tell it ... but nevertheless, it is a true story. She even saved a copy of the passenger manifest showing her name on it.

As I understand it, she is a real bi**h to deal with. One morning back in my charter days, I was sitting around MDW waiting for my passengers and Oprah's GIV (N540W) was sitting out front. Oprah arrives to the airplane in her black limo and there was some issue that the aircrafts china had not been brought on board yet. Oprah comes flying down the stairs and into the FBO yelling that the dishes were not on board and that she was in a hurry and was leaving NOW. Back out to the airplane she goes and some line servant goes running out there with the case of dishes for her plane. The door closes and off they go.

 

[Publishers]

We have a bunch of them all the time but one of my favorites was Bill Murray. We have a day a month when we cook hot dogs and hamburgers for whoever is around, the airport people, fire, police, tenants, etc...
He sees the food and asked about it. He went over and ate the hot dogs and talked with everyone who approached him.

 

[citabriapilot]

At 55J (Fernandina Beach Municipal), just northeast of Jacksonville, FL. The Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island is 2 miles away, so lots of celebs make there way to Fernandina, and dont' forget Superbowl... Travolta comes in a lot, but spent a lot of time there when filming "Basic". He flew his Gulfstream back and forth to Cecil Field everyday. Must be nice. Here are some that I've seen, to name a few:


John Travolta
Jeff Gordon
Bobby Bowden
Most of the owners of the Superbowl teams
Owners of lots of other football teams
Patty Wagstaff (used to base out of 55J before SGJ)
Robin Williams
Former Homeland Sec. guy
Chris Rock
Adam Sandler
Rob Schneider
Burt Reynolds
Bill Clinton
John Grisham
Sec. Treasury

Can't remember all of them. Anytime you get to northeast FL check out 55J and stop in to McGill Aviation.

 

[lowlycfi]

Have had as pax (as a F/A at SWA):
Chuck Yeager
LL Cool J
KC and the Sunshine Band
Kenney Chesney
Ralph Fiennes
Linda Evans
Barry Sanders
Tony Dorsett
Debbie Reynolds
Steven Baldwin
Tommy Lee Jones
Scott Weiland
Mickey Gilley
Laura Bush
Ron Jeremy
Nina Hartley

Seen at the FBO:
Metallica (came in on a Gulfstream I)
George Strait (see him all of the time....keeps his Lear 45 at the same FBO where I instruct)

 

[flydrummer]

Have had as pax (as a F/A at SWA):
Chuck Yeager
LL Cool J
KC and the Sunshine Band
Kenney Chesney
Ralph Fiennes
Linda Evans
Barry Sanders
Tony Dorsett
Debbie Reynolds
Steven Baldwin
Tommy Lee Jones
Scott Weiland
Mickey Gilley
Laura Bush
Ron Jeremy
Nina Hartley

Seen at the FBO:
Metallica (came in on a Gulfstream I)
George Strait (see him all of the time....keeps his Lear 45 at the same FBO where I instruct)

How cool to have Chuck Yeager on your plane!

 

[sydeseet]

Flew a VIP (HINT: he was once married to Elizabeth Taylor) into Frankfurt. About a half-hour out, “someone” on the flight deck cut some cheese that could’ve chased a maggot off a corpse. Everyone on the crew denied being the creative force behind this malodorous masterpiece and we soon troubleshot/isolated the cause to a defective VIP since he was the only one who didn’t deny it; but then, he couldn’t have denied it since he didn’t have a headset, right? We were yucking it up with the usual feigned-watering-eyes routines and the “open-a-window” and “let’s-get-on-oxygen” jokes. I turned around to discover that our brilliant engineer had taken it upon himself to issue the VIP a loaner headset (surprise!), but he appeared to be sleeping so maybe he didn’t hear us or he’d at least keep pretending like he didn’t hear us. When we got on the deck, he thanked us all and paid us some nice compliments and off he went with some general officers. We told our ops officer about the flight and the uber-flatus and all, and our ops officer says, “Well, now we know why Liz left him.”

Used to fly him a ton. One of my all time favorite passengers, just behind John Glenn.

 

[lowlycfi]

How cool to have Chuck Yeager on your plane!

He was a hell of a nice guy. I only had a private pilot certificate at the time but he talked airplanes with me like I was a P-51 driver! I neglected the rest of the passengers for the whole flight. The captain offered him the jumpseat in the cockpit (this was way before 9-11) but he politely refused. Funny, but not many of the other passengers recognized him. Now when I had Ron Jeremy on the plane EVERYONE knew who he was. Go figure.

 

[EastCoastLR35]

Ive flown: (also)
Dave Chappelle

 

[Publishers]

Another favorite was a country and western star who we would fly to concerts. He would drink so much going to the destination that he could not make it to the concert and we would fly him back.

We finally, at his managers request, were watering down the booze and keeping the quantities low so he might make it.

We also flew the the announcers back from the Memorial Tournament in Columbus and they would empty the aircraft of anything drinkable in the hour and a half flight.