As was the case with the Piper Cub becoming a generic for “small plane,” so too did the Learjet gain fame as the universal brand name for any private jet, especially one carrying the rich and/or famous. It’s even mentioned in a song, You’re So Vain, by Carly Simon, which is one of the most popular pop songs ever. One of the lines describes how the unnamed subject, “!flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia, to see the total eclipse of the sun,” the idea being that the person she’s singing the song to—Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and David Cassidy have all been mentioned as possible subjects, though Simon refuses to say—is too rich. The year the song was written and recorded, 1971, is also the year that Learjet introduced its Model 25, later known as the Model 35. But the plane that spawned the legend was the original Lear 23, which we see as the first true personal jet. Fast and sleek—it was, after all, modeled after a Swiss fighter jet—the Lear exuded wealth and privilege. Frank Sinatra was a big supporter of the brand, though sadly, his mother was killed in the crash of a Lear 24 into the side of a mountain near Palm Springs, California, in snowy and icy weather. The safety record of early Learjets was terrible, but it’s likely that that the crashes, and the headlines they generated, were part of the allure.
Learjet
