Google Founders Buy Fighter Jet… to Help NASA
Written by Ian O'Neill
A Dornier Alpha Jet, similar to the one bought by Brin and Page (Adrian Pingstone)
Not just anyone can land their private jet at Moffett Field. Located right next to Silicon Valley, it has had a lot of interest from the hi-tech billionaires to get permission to fly in and out of there. But there's a problem, Moffett Field isn't an ordinary airstrip, it is owned by NASA. NASA is a government department and with that comes certain rules. Unless the aircraft has a direct relationship with the NASA research being carried out, or a military flight, you'll have to find somewhere else to land. So whether you're Bill Gates or Queen Elizabeth — unless you need to land in an emergency — you cannot use the airstrip, unless you're carrying out NASA business.
But, in an agreement that was described as a "win-win" situation for NASA, on July 31st, 2007 Ken Ambrose, Vice President of H211, signed a lease contract to park four aircraft at Moffett Field. These passenger aircraft included a Boeing 757, Boeing 767 and two Gulfstream Vs, regularly used by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to conduct business for H211 and Google (although both companies are separate entities). So how did they do this?
In exchange for use of the NASA site, H211 agreed that NASA could use its aircraft for scientific research (thereby helping NASA out with certain experiments in the fields of atmospheric chemistry, ozone depletion and wildfire monitoring), plus the cool sum of $1.3 million/year in rent.
But there was a problem, in order for NASA to use the fleet of four aircraft, it has to modify them. Each modification would require new certifications from the Federal Aviation Administration as the aircraft are passenger planes. This has been the main stumbling block, possibly causing Page and Brin to lose their aircraft parking spot.
So, H211 has bought a military aircraft to get around the FAA problem and still deliver on its promise for NASA to use its aircraft. The 26 year-old German-built light attack Dornier Alpha Jet can be modified by NASA, so it is currently being made ready for civilian use in Seattle before experiments can be carried out.
"The Alpha Jet they are bringing on board is considered an experimental aircraft, so we don’t have the same issues as with a passenger plane," said Steve Zornetzer, associate director of the NASA Ames Research Center.
The Google executives flights account for less than 1% of the annual air traffic at Moffett Field. 88 flights out of approximately 19,000 of the last year's flights were for Google business.
Or alternatively, Google is planning a (very) hostile takeover of Microsoft…
Sources: NY Times, SF Chronicle
Filed under: NASA
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October 25th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Where did they bring these aircraft ? One error (bRought instead of bought ) can be excused, but when this error is repeated it must be ignorance of your partent language or inept proofreading, in either case this is inexcusable. Your comments could help to clarify this state of affairs
October 25th, 2008 at 12:33 am
please read parent in lieu of partent. ( blushing in a state of embarressment )
October 25th, 2008 at 1:33 am
It must be the ignorance of my partent language then. Oh yes, and my inept proof reading. Take this laptop away from me before I do any more damage!
Meh.
Corrections are now made, are you my English Literature teacher coming to haunt me?
October 25th, 2008 at 3:44 am
Ian, you taking the Micky are!
October 25th, 2008 at 6:24 am
@Allan.
Can you spell "pedantic twat" too?
October 25th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Google is truly the wackiest multi-billion dollar corporation out there. They have so much experimental stuff with no guarantee for return on their original investments. I like it.
October 25th, 2008 at 11:39 am
@ Allan
You spelt embarrassment wrong!
October 26th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
HA!
Let me get this straight – Ian writes a story with hundreds of words and messes up a couple. Not to mention that he writes these articles on a regular basis and doesn't tend to stuff up very often. Allan writes a total of about fifty words and stuffs up twice – one in a pedantic rant about spelling mistakes in the original article and then again in an apology for stuffing up in the original pedantic rant! And all of this written in an auto-spell checking comment box!!
Nice one Allan – may I suggest that you at least change your user name if you post again… People may not take comments posted under 'Allan' too seriously for a while…
P.S – You've made my day. That was great…
October 27th, 2008 at 5:17 am
Please review the use of colons and semicolons.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
What the next to buy super jet?
October 30th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
can use it holiday to bali ?
balihotels-budget.com
November 5th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
To help NASA…do you really believe that? If they really wanted to help NASA, why not just give a few million dollars to NASA, or perhaps their usual tactic of donating a million in AdWords credits. I am not impressed–though I wish I had my own fighter jet.
November 6th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
tp://www.smacznie.org.pl
November 7th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Amazing Deals. What would you do you if had billions. Buy fighter jets.
November 10th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
And GOOGLE layith the smack down on Microsoft!!!
November 21st, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Its very interesting I like that .
November 21st, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I am an elderly Australian with a great love of things American,particularly Google….GO GOOGLE and good onya.
November 29th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
papa ese avion es argentino!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
fue fabricado y diseñado en argentina!!!!!!!!!!!!!
que grandes…saludos
November 29th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
ia62 "pampa" se llama ese avion.,…es de entrenamiento para pilotos de conbate
December 20th, 2008 at 2:34 am
good post
December 20th, 2008 at 7:06 am
iI went to be amember national geographic society.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:28 pm
This Fighter Jet was awesome founded by Google for Nasa ….
December 24th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Clever roundabout way…AMAZIN what ' surfaces'
December 25th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Susan E. Early
601 Clay Street, Apt. G4
Ashland, Oregon 97520
24 December 2008
To The Citizens Of The World:
Google founders and executives are among the millions of savage despots, including U.S. congressmen, former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, FBI agents, CIA agents, U.S. military officers, doctors, and bank and corporate executives and their savage agents, e.g., police and sheriffs nationwide, who savagely gang raped me by filming me engaging in sexual intercourse and by distributing hundreds of millions of copies of the sex videos worldwide — to every city in the world — and by putting them in the Internet for billions of people to see, motive being to discredit me and, thereby, eliminate me, a Founding Father Family member, as competition to their deadly, depraved, deranged, psychiatric, one-world-government police state that they are forming.
Google executives and the other savage despots see that I have no intentions of abandoning my nonstop efforts of the past twenty years to obtain justice, that I have no intentions of abandoning my lawsuit against them, and, consequently, they plan to flee to Iraq as fugitives from the law.
Vice President Dick Cheney has been supervising for years the building and furnishing of housing in Iraq for the deadly fugitives who have stolen and hidden over one trillion dollars of the world's money for their use as fugitives in Iraq for the rest of their lives.
The deadly U.S. despots also have stolen all of the most powerful weapons from the U.S. arsenal and taken them to Iraq so that Americans cannot defend themselves against the deadly U.S. despots after the deadly U.S. despots have fled to Iraq and so that once in Iraq, they (the despots) can frighten Americans and people worldwide who want to go to Iraq, arrest them, and punish them for their atrocities against me and against humanity.
Former President George Herbert Walker Bush and his son, President George W. Bush, obtain great relief from their terror of facing justice by terrorizing people who want to make them accountable, e.g., by threatening to melt them down if they take action to make the George Bushes accountable to the laws.
The deadly, depraved, deranged U.S. despots are guilty, terrified, desperate, and trapped. Their atrocious, world-renowned cover-up has broadcast their guilt and their atrocious, world-renowned rape of me to the entire world and backfired and landed them into the clutches of justice. They believe that they have a better chance of avoiding detection and detention and that they have a better chance of successfully escaping to Iraq on a military jet than on a commercial jet. That is why Google founders and a vast number of other savage despots who savagely raped me via sex video have plans to flee on military jets — jets both purchased and stolen from American taxpayers.
There is no time to lose in arresting and imprisoning the savage U.S. despots. During the past twenty years in which I have been seeking justice, the savage U.S. despots have murdered hundreds of millions of people nationwide and worldwide; they have murdered good people who have criticized them and who have wanted to punish them for brutally raping me and for their crimes against people worldwide, and they have murdered their evil agents because those evil agents have turned against them or because they need to take the bribes away from them to give to others. There is not enough money to pay the billions of people worldwide to whom the despots are promising bribes for assisting them in evading justice. The despots murder bribe recipients because bribe recipients become irate and threaten the despots when the despots take the bribes away from them.
It is much easier and much safer to arrest and punish the deadly despots while they are in the United States than after they have fled to Iraq. May the world's people act immediately to save themselves and the world from the deadliest terrorists and the deadliest tyrants that ever lived.
Susan E. Early
541 488-1773
December 27th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Nagyon jo dolog ide irni, remelem majd kapok valami kulon jtalmat azert amir ide irok, mert nagyon szeretnek, biztos, hogy ezt mindeki furcsanak talalna, peidig nem az csak irogatok…Meg mnden
January 1st, 2009 at 9:10 am
So Google now has fighter jets among billions of cash and other things. I'm afraid!
January 1st, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Wow, never thought that a company like Google will buy a fighter jet.
Guess they're ready for war with Yahoo! and Microsoft. Lol!
January 1st, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Susan,
How have you been? Last time I heard from you, you were going on about Clinton and his "Diesel Fitter" hat.
It's refreshing to see that you are still a nut case … some days it's knowing that I am not as bad off as you that keeps me going.
So, carry on and don't forget to pull your pantyhose all the way up.
January 2nd, 2009 at 8:04 am
To that I say, "Ride on, time is money and who wants to fly in those stinky commercial planes anyway!"
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Been trying to get more attention from these guys. Guess I need to shoot them down from my 5-18 http://www.realdemocracyinamerica.com
January 5th, 2009 at 9:26 am
The mayor of New York said that "New York would act exactly the same as Israel", when speaking about the Gaza situation. I didnot know that NYC had a strong military and weapons.
Are these Google guys friends with the Mayor?
January 9th, 2009 at 3:40 am
Convert your Lotus Notes .NSF file to MS Outlook .PST file with SysTools Notes to Outlook program without having the loss of data.
January 15th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
They could be ready for the internet Big Bang!!!
and this is a Contengency plan for that.
it's about time for the internet to fall once at least to correct what need to be corrected and demolish what's needed and so on, also to acquire and monopoly banks……..etc……
so, my little advice to all human "think about it Defensively and seriously to protect your self and the love ones.
i'm sorry, i have to think this way but the USA not in any shape at all thus they will do whatever it takes to get out of this sequence under any price even if it will start the 3rd WW i hope not.
and by the way did we forget lots of things? yes
too bad the history doesn't !!!. check the history… you will figure it in and out…
i hope i'm wrong…..
January 16th, 2009 at 1:56 am
a new innovative..
January 27th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
best toy's leader just upped the ante……(did you mean sound barrier)
February 1st, 2009 at 6:24 am
muhamet tahiraj ju pershendet te tonve mpuq klm nga meti dhe goni
February 7th, 2009 at 3:27 am
mayor of New York said that "New York would act exactly the same as Israel", when speaking about the Gaza situation. I didnot know that NYC had a strong military and weapons.
Are these Google g
February 7th, 2009 at 3:28 am
here is little structure to the events, apart from a brief hello from the organisers and a few words from the sponsors (approximately 5 minutes.) The events are dedicated to networking socially, doing business and enjoying yourself at the same time.
February 7th, 2009 at 3:29 am
So, H211 has bought a military aircraft to get around the FAA problem and still deliver on its promise for NASA to use its aircraft. The 26 year-old German-built light attack Dornier Alpha Jet can be modified by NASA, so it is currently being made ready for civilian use in Seattle before experiments can be carried out.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Good information
February 17th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
awesome , Fighter Jet …….
February 18th, 2009 at 10:35 am
This is so awesome… I wish I had come up with the idea of a search engine!!
I think I'm just going to have to make do with a flight in one – http://www.ultimate-competitions.com/Fly-A-Jet
(I hope I WIN!!)
February 20th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Very cool. I used to own and fly a TS-11 Iskra and a British Jet provost.
February 21st, 2009 at 12:18 am
Thanks for this, it is just what I was looking for. I'll be coming back here and reading what else ya have to say.
February 21st, 2009 at 12:19 am
Hey, this was a great post. Really informative. I bookmarked it, and will definitely be coming back.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:08 am
tanks
update
February 24th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Fighter jet? What we really need are flying monkeys
March 1st, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Thanks for this, it is just what I was looking for. I'll be coming back here and reading what else ya have to say.
March 1st, 2009 at 1:18 pm
It’s a little confusing because the description and price is listed below the picture, not above.
March 7th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Wait, they are about to use a fighter jet to monitor wild fires?
And does NASA not have access to old USAF planes?
March 7th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
thanks for this information
March 7th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I agree this is good stuff.
March 10th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Such men have too much money. What a total waste, but doubtless other men think this is a good idea. Big Boys' toys. They must lack in other areas…
March 10th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Wot nonsense…more money than sense, as always. Why not give dough to charity? But then again, that's not show-off enough! Poor little men..
March 16th, 2009 at 4:43 am
It may be that get the attention of Republicans……..
March 20th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Cool – I'd love to own one. Instead, I think I'll just book a ride with http://www.flyfighterjet.com
March 24th, 2009 at 1:46 am
If you wish just send me one mail.
So that i can be sure that you have receive my mail.
March 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am
And what crap do these other billionaires do while half the world livess below a poverty line and a quarter starve i wonder , hmm bugger all i geuss cos its always left to the working class who donate more to charities than anyone else …..
March 25th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
halo halo halo………..
March 26th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Wow, I flew over 100 hours in this sort of aircraft.
When I went through pilot training in 1988, no one in the US knew anything about "The AlphaJet".
Amazing
March 27th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Plenty of stuff in the boneyard of the USA to
fly. They would look a little more typical to
NASA civilians and retired military.
Something in a nice F-14 or Crusader.
Perhaps a Phantom USAF style with a back
seat stick.
More economical could be an F/16 trainer
from Houston TX reserve squadron now
waiting for a Predator.
Dollars stay in the USA that way.
Google is a happening place but now immune to layoffs.
FLAT is the new UP in corporate life.
This sounds more like UP CHUCK !
dbs.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:34 pm
This only Tells me one thing,
if i was in his shoes, and if i had any insight to the worlds events, in the near future,
or in the future period,
i would buy myself a jet as well, ,
in the case that the USA gets bombed by a nuke or something along those lines,
i'd hop on Motorbike , go to my Jet, and off i go ,
April 1st, 2009 at 3:46 am
This device can travel for 1,750 miles at 620mph.
Potentially being removed for civilian service:
27 mm Mauser BK-27 cannon
Matra rocket pods with 18× SNEB 68 mm rockets
CRV7 rocket pods with 19× 70 mm rockets
AIM-9 Sidewinders
Matra Magic IIs
AGM-65 Maverick
Hunting BL755 cluster bombs
April 9th, 2009 at 12:22 am
The headline is misleading. The Alpha is no "fighter" jet. It is a light attack aircraft and nothing more.
It couldn't dogfight its way out of a wet paper bag.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Even though there always seemed to be no way to make something happen, smart and wealthy people always find a way to struck a deal.
April 10th, 2009 at 5:45 am
Yes this sounds very good. A true patriot with sharp business acumen can do this. Cheers
April 10th, 2009 at 9:55 am
oh great fantastic buy jet for nasa
April 10th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Brin and Page are the same two who two years ago spoke of wanting their company to go all green. They're big supporters of Al Gore's global warming crusade, but these morons still fly around in private jets. Clearly, these nitwits haven't yet realized that flying first class commercial will add far less to their own personal carbon footprint. Who do they think they are, Al Gore?
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:32 am
Why wouldn't they? I don't think money is an issue for them, not even now we're in a crisis.