Rockstars, Filmstars Etc. And Their Historic Aircraft

James May (Top Gear) has an aircraft of reasonable vintage.
Martin Shaw does have a Stearman
Bruce Dickinson does not own anything remotely classic, but has driven Southend’s Vulcan
Tom Cruise at one time owned a twin Mustang project, but I don’t know what he flies now.

Ahem…. Bruce Dickinson has owned a share in Jungmann G-BUCK for years.

American TV producer E. Duke Vincent (partner with Aaron Spelling) owned T-33 N333DV in the late 80s. I believe the plane then came to the UK and is on static display somewhere.

T J

Did Nicolas Lyndhurst not have something? RODDERS from only fools n horses

Cliff Robertson had 3 Tigers Moths, Stampe and Norrd 1002 based at Santa Paula

dh83

I thought the same when I first saw it, but think you’ll find it was ‘Ian Drury’ on the nose!!

This after having a little look on the net is G-AMSN which was then registered and still may be N3455.

Best wishes,

Martin

Love your signature by the way, very apt for this thread!!

Sorry to drag up an old thread, I missed it.
This was not the singer but a company owner from Havering Atte Bower, easy to spot the water tower on take off from North Wealds 20.
They had tipper lorry fleet in black with a gold star on it. He inherited the company from his parents in the 70s.

Theres some good pictures of the derelict Viscounts in Tucson
in the Osprey publication “Skytruck USA”.

Come to think of it, it was Ray Charles not Sammy Davis Jr.
who flew in one of these Viscounts.:o

Sammy Davis Jr. leased or owned a Martin 404 then a Vickers Viscount.

There was a charter outfit out of Tucson that had a fleet of Viscounts (probably ex-United Air Lines) that specialized in leasing them for rock/pop star tours.
I believe one is in some film about a fictional rock star (perhaps A Star is Born with Babs Striesand or maybe The Rose).

Ray Charles always used one and there is a story he’d sit up front and tell guests he was flying.

I saw them years ago at Tucson International…I believe they’re all gone now.

Actor Cliff Robertson (of 633 Squadron fame), owned a Tiger Moth
which he leased to Fox Studios for the 1976 film Silver Streak.
Thats it flying round with Gene Wilder in the front seat.

Sammy Davis Jr. leased or owned a Martin 404 then a Vickers Viscount.

Yes, that is Mr Gilmour with the late Norman Lees in the cockpit and Intrepid Aviation Manager Brendan Walsh standing at the wingtip.

Martin

And here’s a couple of illustrations. First is Gary Numan in his Harvard at North Weald in 1985, and then a rather blurred David Gilmour (I’m pretty sure it’s him) with his P-51 at North Weald in 1991.

Love your signature by the way, very apt for this thread!!

Well spotted!

(It’s one of David Gilmour’s lyrics, for anyone who doesn’t know)

I once saw a DC-3 at North Weald with the name “Ian Dury” on the nose, but I don’t know if it was owned by him or named after him.

I thought the same when I first saw it, but think you’ll find it was ‘Ian Drury’ on the nose!!

This after having a little look on the net is G-AMSN which was then registered and still may be N3455.

Best wishes,

Martin

Love your signature by the way, very apt for this thread!!

I once saw a DC-3 at North Weald with the name “Ian Dury” on the nose, but I don’t know if it was owned by him or named after him.

Years ago I saw a magazine article about Michael Dorn (who played the Klingon Worf in Star Trek) owning and flying an F-86 Sabre.

Up next for Worf (see quotation below)?

Michael Dorn acquired his F-86 Sabre from the South African Air Force. He had it for about four years and flew it across the country a few times before selling it in 1998.

Shortly after getting his license (in a Cessna 172), Dorn purchased an Aerospatiale-Socata Trinidad TB-20.

“It has retractable gear, so I went from a 172 to a ‘complex’ airplane,” he said. “After that, I progressed rather quickly.”

From the Trinidad, Dorn upgraded to a Cessna 310 and then to a Cessna 340. An encounter with the Blue Angels forever changed the way he looked at flying.

“The Blue Angels had contacted Woody Harrelson from ‘Cheers’ to go down and do one of their media flights, and he bailed at the last minute,” he said. “Somebody told them I flew, and they called me.”

Dorn flew to El Centro, Calif., in his 340. His ride with the Blue Angels was magnificent, but the knowledge he gained was even better.

“Flying with them ruined me,” he said. “It was over, because I love jets. Then I realized that someone could own an ex-military jet. That started me down a different road.”

The first military jet Dorn bought was a CASA jet.

“It was a tiny, twin-engine jet, but it got me acclimated to jet operations—how jets work and the speed and thinking way ahead,” he said. “With the 340, you start coming down 15 or 20 miles away. With the jet, you have to be thinking 30 and 40 miles out, ‘OK, I’ve got to start coming down.'”

With his knowledge about military aircraft, Dorn decided he wanted to go through the jet process Air Force cadets had undergone.

“In the old days, they went from T-28s to T-33s, and then on into F-86s or something else,” he said. “I wanted to have that experience. All my instructors were ex-Air Force, and that’s what they flew on.”

Dorn moved up to a T-33 Shooting Star.

“It was a good experience, because the T-33 is built like a tank,” he said. “You can bounce it off the runway, and make hard landings. It’s also an old airplane, so the response on the jet engine is very slow. You come in for a landing, and if you’re slow and have to give it full power to go around, it’s going to take probably five or six seconds. That’s time you don’t want to waste. That gave me a real sense of what these old jets were about.”

Dorn had his T-33 for three years. He also tried his hand at a Mitsubishi MU-2, before acquiring an F-86 Sabre.

“It was a dream to fly,” he said. “You really have to work at screwing up.”

Dorn laughs and says his jets were fairly benign, and that the most “excitement he’s had” was with a nose-gear problem with a twin-engine Cessna.

“I had to land on the nose,” he said.

As he did with his past aircraft, Dorn based his F-86 at Van Nuys Airport and flew it across the country a few times in the four years he had it, before selling it in 1998 and acquiring a North American Sabreliner.

“I thought I was done with military flying,” he said. “It’s kind of complicated, and you have to email the FAA to tell them where you’re going to go. It’s a little bit of a hassle, just because of the nature of the beast. I just wanted to be able to jump into my airplane and fly.”

As it turned out, the Sabreliner didn’t make that happen.

“It was a bad choice, because with those corporate jets, you need a copilot,” he said. “Then, you’re at the mercy of your copilots.”

Dorn said the Sabreliner was “a fantastic plane,” but didn’t offer much excitement.

“I was bored out of my skull,” he said. “You take off, and you have your arms crossed for two hours.”

He also said that it’s cheaper to fly a military jet than a corporate jet.

“The corporate jets are current, flying airplanes,” he said. “A screw, even though it’s just a metal screw, is 10 times the price of a regular screw. With military jets, it’s so different. I remember we found two engines in Florida for the F-86. My mechanic went out there, and he was drooling over them, they were in such good shape. They were $25,000 for both of them. A Sabreliner engine is upwards of $300,000. We found brake parts—this guy had enough brake parts for several sets of brakes for us, which we got for $200, because they were just sitting in his garage.”

Dorn eventually sold the Sabreliner and again began searching for a military jet. As time went on, and he didn’t find exactly what he was searching for, he opted to keep “his head in the air” by acquiring a Beech Baron E55 prop from a friend. The plane, however, isn’t satisfying his need for speed.

“It’s a fairly slow airplane, and it doesn’t go very high,” he said. “It will basically go to 10,000 feet, but it’s a 9,000-foot airplane.”

He’s also had the chance to fly other aircraft he didn’t own. In the mid-1990s, he went up with the Thunderbirds for a flight he said was “even better” than his previous one with the Blue Angels.

“We were up in Northern California,” he explained. “We took off out of Travis and went out towards the coast. We were doing all the maneuvers and then we started flying around the San Francisco Bay at 2,500 feet. It was one of those beautiful days, and we’re in a Thunderbird jet, flying low over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was spectacular.”

Of his 1,600 hours total time, Dorn has almost 10 hours in F-16s and eight hours in F-18s.

“I went on an aircraft carrier in the back of an F-18,” he said. “We did air operations. I think we did four traps and three cat shots. I did dogfighting in F-16s with the ‘Okies’ (465 Fighter Squadron, Tinker AFB, Okla.) and with the Fresno Air National Guard.”

He also has about six hours in the B-17 and has flown left seat in the B-1 Lancer. One airplane Dorn missed actually flying was the P-51, although he came close to flying one for “Red Tail Reborn,” the story of the Tuskegee Airmen.

“About 10 years ago, I was contacted because they were looking for pilots to fly the P-51,” he recalled. “We started to make the contacts and they were arranging for me to get training, but it fell through.”

The involvement of one of Dorn’s friends, Brad Lang, in the project, led to Dorn narrating the 2007 PBS documentary film.

Over the last few years, Dorn has considered acquiring a T-38, F-5 or F-8 Crusader. Although the T-38 is “affordable right now,” and has two engines, which he says is “always a good thing,” at the time he’s most interested in the Crusader. He’d like to “resurrect one” to participate in Heritage Flights.

There are several airplanes out there, but I’m being patient this time and trying to find the correct one,” he said.

I am depressed to learn that Jimmy Buffett (singer) retired his Hemisphere Dancer in 2003.

Jimmy’s most famous airplane is his 1956 Grumman HU-16 Albatross, dubbed the Hemisphere Dancer. In their early years, the twin-engine amphibious flying boats were used primarily as search-and-rescue aircraft for the Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard.

In 1996, the Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican authorities as it taxied in the water near Negril. The Jamaicans had mistaken it for a drug-runner’s plane, though Jimmy had “only come for chicken”, he was not “the ganja plane.” U2’s Bono was also on board the plane, but neither him nor Buffett were hurt. Like the great songwriter he is, Buffett penned a tune about the incident: Jamaica Mistaica appeared on the album Banana Wind.

In 2003, Jimmy retired the Hemisphere Dancer and put it on display at the Lone Palm Airport outside of his Margaritaville Cafe in Orlando, Florida. It sits there to this day, and visitors can walk right up to the Albatross at the Universal Studios CityWalk attraction.

To be accurate, the “Hemisphere Dancer” had been carrying Buffett, U2’s Bono, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, but they were not onboard at the time.

He also owns (and still flies) N43320 – a Boeing E75 Stearman (basic trainer for the United States Army Air Force in the 1930’s and 40’s).

Additionally, he has N208JB – a Cessna 208 Caravan (with floats, of course).

Not to mention N908JB – his Dassault Falcon 900B (replaced N502JB, his Falcon 50).

And the Lake Renegade amphibian he learned to fly in… and the Grumman Widgeon he crashed on take-off (caught a wave with one wingtip).

Years ago I saw a magazine article about Michael Dorn (who played the Klingon Worf in Star Trek) owning and flying an F-86 Sabre.

I saw him on TV flying a Sabreliner 40 or 60. I believe he also had a T-33 at some point.

Nah Flying Flea!;)

…and using it to spread the `Scientology` message in Haiti 😉

You know you are doing pretty well when you can afford to run a 707, you know you are doing realy well when you can park it out side your house.

I wonder if he has a windscreen sticker saying my other aircraft is a Gulfstream?

Years ago I saw a magazine article about Michael Dorn (who played the Klingon Worf in Star Trek) owning and flying an F-86 Sabre.