You Might Need a Private Jet

I've always loved comedian Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck if . . ." bits where he recites a hilarious laundry list of stereotypical attributes. So, with full credit to Jeff Foxworthy, I'd like to offer a business jet pilot's thoughts on who might need a private jet.

You might need a private jet if:

1. You're so famous that complete strangers try to mob you like the Beatles coming ashore in 1964.
2. You're the President of the United States and the Secret Service teeters on en masse heart attacks when you insist that you should be flying coach on Delta.
3. You're one of the wealthiest men in a beastly hot, oil-bearing country and you've never even heard of Delta. Moreover, you've never heard of anyone you know flying on a common air carrier.
4. You're the CEO of a small-to-medium-sized company--private, not public--and you have meetings in three cities the same day--cities like Stuttgart, Arkansas, Pellston, Michigan, or Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which are not known for their regular airline service.
5. You're the CEO of a humongous company to which the label "Fortune 500" could be applied and you're so busy you need to have meetings with your senior executives while you fly. You might need that private jet/flying conference room instead of adjacent airline seats if you happen to know that the words "industrial espionage" don't refer to the hottest new Xbox game.
6. You're trying to carry a living heart or kidney in a beer cooler from Cleveland to Boston.
7. You're someone whose good deed for the year is donating a free flight to Boston to the recipient of that heart or kidney.   
8. You're someone whose good deed for the year is a free flight for some awesome Special Olympians to the Games.
9. You're someone whose good deed for the year is moving several homeless dogs from their overcrowded shelter in Texas to waiting adoptive families in upstate New York.
10. You're an American businessperson traveling to countries where ransoming American businesspeople for many units of foreign currency is a national sport.
11. You might need a private jet if you're fabulously wealthy and you "just want to be stylish," as Col. Jeff Cooper once reported to flight instructor extraordinaire Chas Harral. Oh, wait, I think that was a piston-engine airplane and the Colonel probably wasn't wealthy. Ah, same principle.
12. You just don't like arriving at the airport four hours prior to your departure time, taking off your shoes and belt in front of strangers, leaving your makeup in inaccessible luggage, having your pet left on the luggage cart as your airliner taxis away without it, paying to carry your purse on board, eating bad catering, getting "bumped" because you arrived at the gate too close to departure time, running a course longer than the Kentucky Derby through garishy lit terminal buildings to reach your connecting gate in time, etc., etc., etc.

          Here's our Jude Hayes quote for the day from Remover of Obstacles:

“Sorry to interrupt, Gayle,” Bethie sang out mischievously, “but we brought something for your seminar and it wasn’t ready until tonight.” The guys set the box down close to Sensei and Bethie enthusiastically flung the top off.

“Hey, you two are already doing way too much!”

“Oh, these are only partly from us.” She began to unwrap framed photographs, placing them on the mats. There were an even dozen and they were gorgeous. Each and every one was a picture of O’Sensei. Most I had never seen before though I’d perused several illustrated biographies of the Founder.

Sensei’s jaw dropped and she reached down to touch one of the expensive wood frames. “Do you have any idea how rare these pictures are? I saw a few of them when I trained in Hombu. Where did they come from?”

“Let’s just say that one of your secret admirers sent them.”

Sensei looked at each photo until she came to the last and gave a little gasp, “This can’t be—an original—can it, Gisela?”

“Absolutely. I framed them all myself—except this one—I had to go to the airport to pick it up. It came in by private jet and it was in some kind of very high-tech crate.” I had a sneaking suspicion that I might know to whom that private jet belonged, but I had no intention of spilling the beans.