The New York Post is reporting a group of New Yorkers have ponied up $42,000 to charter a Falcon 50 jet to fly them to Saturday's NFC Championship in San Francisco.
“I didn’t think they’d make it this far,” Giants fan William Powers told the Post. But now, “there is no way we’d miss this game.”
We can't help but notice the choice is a Dassualt Falcon 50, a short-and-stubby plane (designed by the French), generally designed to carry 12 people. It needs around 3,000 feet of runway to land.
"SFO can easily handle that" chuckles Mike McCarron, spokesperson for San Francisco International. "They could probably land on one of our taxiways".
Like New Yorkers, the Bay Area's wealthy also enjoy private aviation. Sergey Brin and Larry Page have gone dutch on two private aircraft, including the tumescent Boeing 767.
The massive airplane can be configured to carry as many as 245 passengers comfortably. The all-American built Boeing is more than eight times bigger than the Falcon.
"The 767 is an excellent value proposition for a business jet" Boeing's Tim Bader tells NBC Bay Area. He then tried to upsell us to the 747-8, which costs $300,000,000.
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Are there really customers for a 300 million dollar airplane? "You'd be surprised" says Bader.
Boeing is of course biased, favoring its airplanes over competitors. So we turned to the true experts on aviation: Navy pilots.
Former Navy aviator turned airline pilot Steve "Fido" Filson used to fly the 49ers to games. He points out the Google plane is the size of a football field.
And the Giants' fans plane? "About the size of a football."
Kurt "My Call Sign is too Dirty to Reveal" Beyer says "When I was flying F-14 Tomcats and we came across Falcon Exec jets in New York airspace we would refer to them as Volkswagen Beetles. I hear the 'New Jersey' Giants fans can get them with a CD changer now."
The Post says the Giants fans will leave New York on Saturday. The 5 1/2- hour flight will get them to the City by the Bay in plenty of time for a game-eve bash and then on Sunday "wake up, head over to the stadium, do some tailgating, go to the game — then go to the airport, hop back on the plane, and head home."
Navy pilot Elvin "Elrod" Rodriguez - a lifelong Raiders fan who's rooting for the 49ers this weekend -- says "it will be long trip home in that luxury French jet if the Giants can't pull off the victory".
