"The King" is selling his jets......

If those jets could talk, they'd have some pretty wild stories to tell ...

Here's Elvis with Linda Thompson (his girlfriend after his divorce from 1972 to 1976).
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Hard to imagine what museum is gonna want them, my guess is that nobody is paying to see them and they need some expensive maintenance /repaint before they fall apart. They are ratty looking and really underwhelming to see, very badly dated and not in the retro cool way. I think I got free tickets to see them because it was something stupid like $30 extra if you were buying tickets. My guess is that they will go to anybody who is willing to pay a dollar more than the scrap value. If they aren't at Graceland it's hard to imagine them being any sort of tourist attraction.

 

isn't Leno a huge Elvis fan/memorabilia collector? he already owns a few hangars....

 

I live 25 minutes from Graceland and have toured the jets frequently. As a pilot myself, I've always enjoyed walking through the airplanes. Sure they're over the top but so was Elvis (I'm a big fan by the way). I'm disappointed the jets aren't part of Graceland expansion plans.

Me and my nephew with the "Lisa Marie" about five years ago.
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This one sold back in January:

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https://www.hagerty.com/media/buying-and-selling/auctions/elvis-jet-is-grounded-forever-but-its-new-owner-is-flying-high/?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=MED_UN_NA_EML_UN_DailyDriver_Thursday&hashed_email=8e43f6a5abf43ff70e0771781e4993de6c08fd1510eadb1414b4ce6b84c34e12
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I suspect that Convair 880 is probably the last complete Convair 880/990 left in the world. To me, that is more valuable than the Elvis connection!

 

Not "complete" any longer
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Unloading Elvis Presley Private Jet - YouTube

 

That is the JetStar, not the Convair.

Google tells me there are actually 3-4 Convair 880/990s sitting around in Mojave, so I guess his isn't the very last one.

 

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series of vids, starting with this one



guy wants to turn it into an RV ........ without the wings or tail, what good is it?



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But is it worth making airworthy? Can that be done without a conversion to a more modern engine? Seems every time I hear of an old 4 engine jet its biggest value is in scrap metal.

 

Airworthy? Not a chance. I believe the last flying one belonged to NASA and was used until the mid-1990s, so 25 + years since any of them have flown.

The ones in Mojave are apparently used for movie and TV work, on the ground.

 

There are two airworthy and quite nice examples at KCXO (Conroe, Texas) as of a year ago.

 

Two airworthy Convair 880/990s? Seriously? That have flown in the last year?

Or are you talking JetStars, which is a whole different deal... although there won't be many airworthy JetStars soon either. Someone in Klamath Falls has been buying them and stripping the engines off.

 

I've been somewhat keeping tabs on this series and am still struggling to figure out how this guy is going to climb out of this money pit. The videos haven't done nearly as well as I believe he anticipated and now he's left with a hunk of scrap for 260k... [emoji47]


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total views on all Elvis jet vids are currently ~4M but his videos are so long I typically skip a lot so no idea how much $$ they're actually bringing him.

crazy story with the auction and their contacting him afterwards:

 

I was talking about Jetstars….

 

The ones from Conroe are now at Klamath Falls, I believe being scrapped. N700RM and N710RM.

 

That’s a real shame because they were two of the nicest ones I had ever seen.

 

After tax he is probably making 2-3k per million views. So 8-12k max revenue, and that's being generous.


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WOW!!!!!

 

could
Work as a Vegas attraction at some casino

 

How does that goe? " Elvis has left the room.' A waist of time and money.

 

I tend to think of that convair with its shag interior as a cultural artifact. Casinos seem to like attractions to draw the crowd, be it a Eiffel tower or a fake pirate ship, why not this, esp given Elvis and LV synonymous. They could even do Elvis themed wedding there lol.

Id just like to see the aircraft saved, even though its already only scarp anyways, they cut the wings off through the spars to get it to Graceland.

In other news the ss united states is about to be sunk as an artificial reef, truly sad, but a lot harder to park a ship than a plane.

 

Saw it sitting at the dock in Philly a couple weeks ago. Amazing how outdated (and small) that ship looks compared to modern cruise liners.