The Starship
Led Zeppelin was never a band terribly fond of air travel. John Bonham had gone through such a crippling fear of flying he would not board a plane unless he had a drink first. Jimmy Page probably hated flying more than any of the others, often appearing as though he were about to faint during turbulent flights.
However, all was solved when Peter Grant gave Richard Cole the orders, 'Get us something so big it won't seem like flying at all.' The Starship was Led Zeppelin's rented plane during 1973. Grant had rented the plane from singer Bobby Sherman and one of the creators of the Monkees.
The band's introduction to the Starship happened to take place at Chicago's O'Hare airport, right near Hugh Hefner's plane. One reporter asked Peter Grant, 'How does your plane compare to Mr Hefner's?' Although he had barely seen the Starship's interior, Grant curtly replied, 'The Starship makes Hefner's plane look like a dinky toy.'
Not only was the Starship a gigantic Boeing 720B forty-seater; it also held a thirty foot long sofa parallel to a bar, a television set, a video player, a den with a low couch and pillows on the floor, a bedroom with a white fur bedspread and shower room, and a Thomas organ. As Robert Plant said on his first Starship flight, 'It's like a floating palace.'
The plane was staffed by two stewardesses, Susie (an attractive eighteen-year-old blonde), and Bianca (a twenty-two year old with a dark complexion and a sense of humour). Susie once told the band, 'Back in 1973, when you guys would get off the plane and we'd be straightening things up, we'd find one hundred-dollar bills rolled up with cocaine inside them. We knew we weren't on a chartered flight for the Queen of England, but in the beginning I was shocked.'
As well as for the remainder of the 1973 U.S. tour, the Starship was also used for Zeppelin's 1975 U.S. tour. By then John Bonham enjoyed occupying the co-pilot seat. 'He flew us all the way froom New York to L.A. once,' Peter Grant told a startled fellow traveler on one tour, 'He ain't got a license, mind...'
Zeppelin stopped using the Starship in 1977, due to engine problems. The Boeing 707 'Caesar's Chariot' eventually took its place.
View short clip of Jimmy Page boarding The Starship and a bit of the inside
Images of the Starship and Zeppelin on it
Diagram of The Starship's interior
1973: famous hanging out shot
1973: disembarking from the Starship
1973: Bonham & Page aboard the Starship
1973: Bonham & Percy aboard the Starship
1973: Led Zeppelin inside the Starship
1975: Bonzo, Peter, Pagey, & Jonesy aboard the Starship
1975: Jimmy making a face at the camera