3 min clip

That cockpit and interior is rough

I hope it gets a refurbish.

I’ve seen you tube videos of 477K before. I think it’s incredible and wonderful that this fellow is keeping it airworthy.

Timeless design. Bill Lear and his team sure made a classic. Has barely aged. I still maintain that the 60XR is the prettiest jet ever made.

It may not be 2020s pretty but those old school instruments and panel are gorgeous!

Thanks for posting, lucky guy. In 1979 I was typed in a 1964 Lear 23, N711TJ serial number 11, that got the mods to make it a Lear 24; windshield bird splitter, brakes, and fuel system jet pumps. It had a 1960's bare bones panel, six pack, no flight director. All of the type training was done in the plane at Long Beach, and Bakersfield CA, no sim.

It was run off the runway into a ditch landing at Lake Tahoe in 1986 by a 13,000 pilot with 40 hours in type. Most Lear 23's had a much shorter life expectancy.

Edit: When the examiner, a Western Airlines DC-10 Captain handed me my type rating he said "Stay off runways any shorter than 5000 feet for awhile." And the plane met it's end running off an 8500 foot runway.

That is fantastic. What a cool rocket if you can keep it going safely. I’ll never forget my first Lear low pass and climb riding right seat in 24D. About 1993. Respected Learjets since.

After my first training flight my instructor told me that if the plane would have crashed, I wouldn't have been hurt...because I was so far behind it.

Same.......but in a 25!!!!

Bill Lear Jr (William Lear's son) wrote a book about his own fascinating aviation career, and in it he covers a lot of development and early history of the first Learjet. Apparently the FAA crashed the prototype, which turned out to be a godsend: That airplane had been built in Switzerland and was all metric so they wouldn't have been able to sell it, they were able to then guilt the FAA into expediting the cert, and they were out of money and the insurance funded the first production planes.

Same.......but in a 25!!!!

Is this something he can fly without a copilot?

No, but that was the original intent of Bill Lear using 23 as the model number referring to intended FAR Part 23 certification. But that went out the window when the first one crashed on takeoff with the spoilers deployed and FAA in the right seat.

This owner probably gets a day rate type rated pilot to fly with him, possibly serving as PIC for insurance rates.

A fighter pilot wouldn't be challenged flying it single-pilot, but wide spread single-pilot approval wouldn't be warranted. In fact, when I took our Lear 35 to Wichita for a wing mod, the factory test pilot did the entire fight test flying it single pilot; I was in the right seat just to observe. He was a former Navy test pilot.

My only ride in a Lear was a 28, Longhorn If I remember correctly.

The crew flew it up to 510, Saw the curvature of the Earth up there!!

One od the coolest flights I have ever had!!

I got to fly in 2 of the 28s (I think they made 5) and we took it up to 510 regularly. Looked the same as any other altitude to me. What was coolest was the fuel burn was the same as idling on the ground.