![]() ![]() ![]() "Lears fly like scalded eagles." Bill Lear's first test pilot, Hank Beaird, agrees with Serling, noting, "They accelerated better than a fully loaded military F-104. Indeed, the Lear sensation at takeoff is "the closest an average Joe comes to experiencing jet-fighter performance," says Bob Serling, a retired United Press International aviation editor and the author of a dozen books on the airline industry, whose more famous brother Rod was the host of TV's "Twilight Zone" series. "The feeling was like a rocket-or what I'd imagine riding on top of a Polaris missile to feel like." You feel like you're vertical-it's so fast." Roger McGuinn, the lead singer of the Byrds, remembers experiencing a similar sensation. ![]() "The force pushing you against your seat. "My chest would pound and I'd feel my heart in my throat, because it all happens so fast," recalls Trini Lopez, a singer and Sinatra protégé who had an eight-year contract with Sinatra's Reprise record label and appeared in the 1965 comedy Marriage on the Rocks with both Sinatra and Dean Martin. Think six passengers tucked into a nest of leather seats their pilot receives takeoff clearance and-ka-boom!Ī near-vertical climb pulling two to three Gs. The little executive jet, the brainchild of the legendary Bill Lear, was the airborne equivalent of Caroll Shelby's 427 Cobra-short on manners, heavy on mind-crushing acceleration. ![]() Ever since Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack made the Learjet 24 their aircraft of choice in the mid-1960s, the sleek executive plane with the signature T-tail and stiletto-nose design has been the ultimate jet-set indulgence-as long as you could handle the takeoff. ![]()
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