JOHN TRAVOLTA'S BOEING 707 AIRCRAFT - N707JT

Steve Creedy - The Australian - November 12, 2010

 

The Boeing airliner comes in for a textbook landing at Sydney Airport.

The captain's voice comes over the intercom system with the kind of welcome you could hear on any jet touching down at Australia's busiest airport. But this isn't any plane and it isn't any captain.

Captain "John" is superstar John Travolta and the plane is a Boeing 707-138B, a relic of a bygone era and unique to Qantas.

Hush-kitted to stage three noise requirements, with upgraded avionics including GPS and and a collision-avoidance system, the plane that was once VH-EBM has become N707JT, the last of its kind in service.

Its luxurious interior, inhabited on Tuesday by Qantas 90th birthday competition winners still coming to terms with their incredible luck, features wide leather seats, sofas and rich wood panelling. It owes its continued existence to Travolta's long-held fascination with the flying kangaroo and a love of aviation that has led to endorsements on 10 aircraft types and seen him famously build a runway next to his house.

But it was serendipity that brought the actor and the 707 together. "I was promoting a film called Get Shorty at the time and in the promotion of that movie, they wanted me to go to Berlin for just the weekend," he said as he settled in to a seat at the rear of the jet.

"I said: 'I'm not going to be able to go to Berlin for the weekend and be ready for work on Monday if I don't have a plane that at least has a bedroom.'

"So they found one - they found this plane. That was the deal, so they rented it for me. I fell in love with it, because on departure I went into the bedroom, I fell asleep and arrived in Berlin so rested it was as though I had never travelled at all."

Travolta knew he wanted the plane but it was too expensive at the time. He was forced to wait three years until it hit the right price, in 1998.

"I was told to put a certain kind of offer in and I would get the plane if I did and they were right on," he said. "I did and I never looked back."

The movie star knew he had bought a unique piece of history. Qantas had wanted a plane that had better range than the standard 707-100 flown by Pan American and American Airlines and Boeing had come up with a plane that was 10 feet (3.3 metres) shorter, but delivered the goods.

One of only 13 made, VH-EBM was delivered to the airline in 1964 and flew with it until it was sold to Braniff International Airways in 1969. It was converted to a VIP jet in 1973 and had a number of owners, including singer Frank Sinatra and billionaire Kirk Kirkorian.

Travolta paid for maintenance for the first four years, before striking a deal with then Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon to paint the plane in Qantas colours and come on board as the airline's ambassador, a job he clearly relishes. The quid pro quo was that Qantas took over the aircraft's expensive maintenance. "Any plane this size is too pricey," Travolta admitted. "I did it for four years on my own and it was much easier to do a barter system and promote the airline.

"But more importantly, I really wanted to be part of this airline. So it was gorgeous, because I couldn't have dreamed of a better fit - owning a big plane like this without it looking like an airline seems odd to me."

The actor said his love of aviation went back to childhood when he lived under the flight path of New York's LaGuardia Airport.

"By the time planes were about 2000ft after departure, they were over my house," he recalled. "Constellations, DC-6s, DC-7s - I fell in love. I watched them all day long.

"Then I started collecting books on aviation and that's where I learnt about Qantas and how they had a distinct personality with long-distance, over-water flights, their safety record - they were just kind of untouchable - and I always kept my eye on them, just to see what they were up to."

When Travolta was about six, his show-business sisters started to travel and the family would take them to airport. The close-up views of the aircraft further fanned the young John's enthusiasm and at eight he took his first flight - a 30-minute trip from Newark Airport to Philadelphia. He still remembers that the outbound leg was on National Airlines DC-6 and the return trip on a United Airlines Caravelle.

Every six months from then he was allowed to fly somewhere to visit his sisters.

"So twice a year I got to fly in an airliner and, finally, at 15, I start studying aviation," he said. "At 16, I start taking lessons and then at 19 I got my solo. At 23 I got my licence and at 25 I got my jet licence."

So was he tempted to become a pilot? "I was at some point, but I realised that the routing for that would have taken a level of scholarships and finances that we didn't have in our upbringing," he said.

"It just would have been too expensive and the military wouldn't have even supported you, because I wouldn't have the college behind me to be a pilot. So I really had no choice but to self-finance being a pilot. And I did it through theatre and television earlier, and then through movies. So my whole aviation career has been financed by my other profession."

His first plane was an Aircoupe, a single seater that he says flew like a car and was advertised for doctors and lawyers, which he bought for $2500 instead of a car.

"I had a little motorcycle and I had the plane," he said. "That's all I needed. So I had a plane before I had a car."

An ambitious jump saw him buy a legendary DC-3 before moving into a range of high-performance and jet aircraft as well as another legendary airliner, the four-engine Lockheed Constellation.

He has six aircraft, with the 707 taking pride of place. The other planes are a Gulfstream II, an Eclipse, a Yugoslavian Soko fighter and two ultralights. He said each have their own aspects.

"This is majestic," he said of the 707. "And when I grew up I was dreaming about flying, so this is kind of a dream come true.

"The Gulfstream II is kind of a sexy, high-end jet. The Eclipse is a miracle: it's economic, it flies fast, quietly and the green footprint on it is amazing. So you've got a kind of futuristic thing. The Soko jet is just a classic fighter jet, so it's fun, and then (there's) the sport thing with the ultralights."

Travolta's endorsements include the 747-400. He said the training for this at Qantas was the most rigorous he had done. The airline's margins for error were low and not as wide as other airlines and there were times he worried he would get through.

"You have to nail every emergency and you'll have emergencies in the cockpit like two engines out, hydraulic problems, electric problems, pressurisation problems - they give you, like, five or eight emergencies and you have to handle them all," he said.

"You have to handle them with precision, so it's a very high standard."

Commenting on the airline's recent string of engine failures, he noted that engine outs were the most practised emergency at the airline and that planes could fly with just one engine remaining.

"I don't mean to give it less gravity, but it's not as big a deal for a pilot as it is for the press," he said.

"We expect things and we're looking for them. If they don't happen, we're thrilled and if they do, big deal. So it's a different mindset."

The actor also did not expect last week's A380 engine failure to affect the Qantas brand because of its 90-year history and its safety record.

"Many airlines have it - every day you read about it," he said. "It's just because of (Qantas's) record that they get more attention," he said, adding that he was surprised by the level of coverage the engine failure received in Australia.