[In Footsteps Of Regs] 'The Starship'

N7201U in original United Airlines livery

The Starship was a former United Airlines Boeing 720 passenger jet, bought by Bobby Sherman and his manager, Ward Sylvester, and leased to touring musical artists in the mid-1970s.

The Starship, N7201U (S/N: 17907), was the first Boeing 720 built. It was delivered to United Airlines on October 1960 and then purchased in 1973 by Contemporary Entertainment.

N7201U as 'Starship'

English rock band Led Zeppelin used the aircraft for their 1973 and 1975 North American concert tours. During the 1972 tour and in the early part of the 1973 tour the band had hired a small private Falcon Jet to transport its members from city to city, but these aircraft are comparatively light and susceptible to turbulence. After performing a show at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco in 1973 Led Zeppelin encountered bad turbulence on a flight back to Los Angeles. As a result, the band's manager Peter Grant resolved to hire The Starship for the remainder of the tour, at a cost of $30,000 ($2,500 a day or $5 a mile).

Highly modified cabin interior for star amenities

The aircraft was the same type as used by commercial airlines, but its owners allowed it to be specifically modified to suit the whim of their clients. Purchased from the airline by Contemporary Entertainment for $750,000, owner Ward Sylvester invested almost $200,000 to reduce its seating capacity to forty and to install into the main cabin a bar, seats and tables, revolving arm chairs, a 30-foot-long (9.1 m) couch (running along the right hand side of the plane, opposite the bar), a television set and a video cassette player, complete with a well-stocked video library. An electronic organ was built into the bar, and at the rear of the craft were two back rooms, one with a low couch and pillows on the floor, and the other, a bedroom, complete with a white fur bedspread and shower room which was also popular with the band members.

“They painted their name across the fuselage, snorted cocaine with rolled-up hundreds and treated the master suite like a pay-by-the-hour motel,” wrote Steve Kurutz in 2003 NY Times article, “Jimmy Page, used the Starship as a personal hideaway, retreating into the master bedroom — with its queen-size waterbed, fake fur bedspread and shower — to deepen his heroin habit and hide his teenage girlfriend, Lori Maddox. 

Flying on The Starship, Led Zeppelin were no longer required to change hotels so often. They could base themselves in large cities such as Chicago, New York, Dallas and Los Angeles and travel to and from concerts within flying distance. After each show, the band members would be transported direct by limousine from the concert venue to the airport, as depicted in the Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains the Same.

N7201U 'Starship' with American-flag paint scheme

The Starship was used throughout Led Zeppelin's 1975 US concert tour, this time featuring a different red-and-blue paint scheme with white stars similar to the United States flag, and with a smaller "Led Zeppelin" logo on the fuselage. According to Peter Grant, at one point during this tour Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham sat in the co-pilot's seat and assisted in flying the plane all the way from New York to Los Angeles [it's rumored that he did not have a pilot license - the editor].

 The exterior of the plane was re-sprayed with Led Zeppelin emblazoned down the side of the fuselage. The Starship is included at the end of "Stairway to Heaven" on disc 2 of the Led Zeppelin DVD with both its 1973 and 1975 paint schemes.

English rock band Deep Purple hired The Starship for their 1974 U.S. Tour. They can be seen arriving in the jet with the band's name emblazoned on the jet in the DVD for the infamous California Jam rock festival, entitled Live in California 74. In an interview with Circus magazine in 1974, Deep Purple's Jon Lord explained: "It's a 707 put together by a firm in L.A. that Sinatra, Dylan and The Band just used and Elton John uses. It has a lounge, a bedroom, a shower and a study. It's supposed to look as little as a plane as possible."

In 1975, the Rolling Stones leased the Starship for their tour. “For the Stones, there was an added bonus: (...) it solved the longstanding problem of Keith Richards’s tardiness. The often comatose guitarist could now be propped up, wheeled onto the tarmac and tossed aboard the plane, where Suzee would be waiting with his favored drink, a Tequila Sunrise.” – Steve Kurutz, NY Times. 

The Allman Brothers and Alice Cooper were also Starship clients. Peter Frampton was the last to charter The Starship in 1976. As early as Alice Cooper's 1974 tour the aircraft was beginning to show signs of engine difficulties, and for Led Zeppelin's 1977 US Tour, it was permanently grounded at Long Beach Airport. The band was forced to find a comparable alternative, and tour manager Richard Cole eventually chartered Caesar's Chariot, a 45-seat Boeing 707 owned by the Caesars Palace Hotel in Las Vegas.

N7201U in 1978

The aircraft had a very short run as chauffeur to the stars between 1973 to 1976. It’s client list also included the likes of John Lennon, the Bee Gees and Olivia Newton John. During the oil embargo, the plane went through many owners and eventually ended up in the UK’s Luton Airport storage hull. It was eventually sold to a Middle Eastern buyer who dismantled it for parts in 1982.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starship
http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/07/10/im-with-the-band-on-their-private-jet/