Posted on by Ian O'Neill

Google Founders Buy Fighter Jet… to Help NASA

[/caption]A company owned by Google’s founders has just bought a 1982 light attack Dornier Alpha Jet. H211 LLC owns several aircraft that are frequently used by Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and in an “unusual” agreement signed last year, H211 managed to get the rights to operate from an airstrip ten minutes away from Google HQ near the south end of San Francisco Bay, California. This isn’t any ordinary airstrip, it is Moffett Field, owned by the NASA Ames Research Center…

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

58 Replies to “Google Founders Buy Fighter Jet… to Help NASA”

  1. 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?

  2. 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.

  3. 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

  8. 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…

  12. 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.

  15. I am an elderly Australian with a great love of things American,particularly Google….GO GOOGLE and good onya.

  16. papa ese avion es argentino!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    fue fabricado y diseñado en argentina!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    que grandes…saludos

  22. 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

  23. 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

  26. To that I say, “Ride on, time is money and who wants to fly in those stinky commercial planes anyway!”

  28. 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?

  30. 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…..

  31. 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

  32. 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.

  33. 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.

  42. 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…

  43. 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..

  46. If you wish just send me one mail.
    So that i can be sure that you have receive my mail.

  47. 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 …..

  49. 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

  50. 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.

  51. 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 ,

  52. 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

  53. 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.

  54. 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.

  55. Yes this sounds very good. A true patriot with sharp business acumen can do this. Cheers

  57. 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?

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