Bill Gates's Gulfstream G650ER N887GV flies from Mountain View to Palm Springs

Bill Gates's Gulfstream G650ER, tail N887GV, flew from Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View to Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport in Palm Springs on Friday, October 30, 2026. The aircraft departed at 03:30 UTC and landed at 04:36 UTC, spending 1 hour and 6 minutes in the air. The great-circle distance was 368 nautical miles, or 423 miles.

The flight covered 5 percent of the aircraft's range of 7,500 nautical miles. The Gulfstream G650ER reached a top ground speed of 526 knots and a maximum altitude of 35,025 feet. Our estimate puts fuel burned at about 518 US gallons, producing about 4,977 kilograms of CO2, roughly the same as driving a car 12,318 miles. The aircraft typically seats 12 passengers and can carry up to 19.

This was the first landing at Palm Springs in the 30-day window for all of Bill Gates's tracked aircraft. The home base on file is Boeing Field in Seattle. Usual destinations include Palm Springs, West Palm Beach, Las Vegas, and Bozeman. In the days before this trip, N887GV flew from Seattle to Mountain View earlier on October 30, and from Mountain View to Seattle on October 25. Other tracked aircraft that landed at Palm Springs in the 24 hours before this landing included a Bombardier Global 6000 linked to Fortive, about 5 hours earlier.

Bill Gates is a Microsoft co-founder, philanthropist, and investor with a net worth estimated at $104 to $107 billion. He focuses on global health, development, and climate philanthropy through the Gates Foundation, Gates Ventures, and Breakthrough Energy. His home base is in Seattle, and he owns a property in Medina, Washington, near Boeing Field. A web search did not turn up a public event tied to Bill Gates or his organizations near Palm Springs on this date.

This flight follows a pattern of short hops around California and the Pacific Northwest in recent weeks. The aircraft had been on the ground for about zero hours before this trip, after landing at Mountain View earlier on October 30. The flight to Palm Springs used a small share of the aircraft's range, leaving plenty of margin for onward travel.

Two other MENTE LLC aircraft operate out of Hangar 80 at Boeing Field: a 2021 Airbus Helicopters H145 and a 2022 Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, both used for short hops around Puget Sound.

In the 30-day window ending with this flight, all three of Gates's tracked aircraft made 34 flights. The most common destinations were Mountain View, with five landings, and Seattle, with four. The longest leg in that period was a 4,659-nautical-mile flight from Epping, Essex to San Jose on October 24. The aircraft had been on the ground for about zero hours before departing Mountain View for Palm Springs.