Jon Shirley's Falcon 7X flies from Van Nuys to Palm Springs in 28 minutes

Jon Shirley's Dassault Falcon 7X, tail number N74JK, landed at Palm Springs International Airport (KPSP) on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, at 00:06 UTC. The aircraft departed from Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) in California at 23:38 UTC. The flight took 28 minutes to complete.

The Falcon 7X is a trijet with fly-by-wire controls and three living areas. It has an EASy cockpit and a top speed of Mach 0.90, or 497 knots. The aircraft burns about 250 US gallons of fuel per hour, according to our estimate.

The great-circle distance between the two airports is 101 nautical miles, or 117 miles. The aircraft averaged a ground speed of 217 knots and reached a top speed of 436 knots. It climbed to a highest altitude of 17,000 feet. Based on our estimate, the flight burned about 117 US gallons of fuel, producing about 1,125 kg of CO2, roughly the same as driving a car 2,786 miles. The Falcon 7X is an ultra-long-range trijet with a range of 5,950 nautical miles and a ceiling of 51,000 feet. It typically seats 12 to 16 passengers.

This was the first landing at Palm Springs in the tracked window of 13 flights since September 25, 2026. The aircraft's home base is King County International Airport, Boeing Field (KBFI), about 863 nautical miles north of Palm Springs. In the 30 days before this flight, the aircraft visited 10 airports in three countries and flew about 17,414 nautical miles. The longest leg in that period was from Everett to Venice on October 16, 2026, covering 4,714 nautical miles. The most common destinations in that window were Everett with four landings, Teterboro with two landings and Venice with two landings.

Jon Shirley came to Microsoft in 1983 after 25 years at Tandy, and served as president, COO and director of the company until 1990. He oversaw the 1986 IPO and the construction of the Redmond campus, and remained on the board until 2008. Born in 1938, he lives in Medina, Washington, across Lake Washington from Microsoft's headquarters. With his late wife Mary, he assembled a significant collection of modern art, including more than 40 works by Alexander Calder, which they donated to the Seattle Art Museum. He remarried in 2016 to Kim Richter Shirley, and the couple appears on the ARTnews Top 200 collectors list.

The aircraft is registered to Executive Jet Management, NetJets' managed-aircraft arm. The tail number N74JK appears to be a set of initials, similar to the Gates family's WM tails. The aircraft was on the ground for about seven hours before this flight, after arriving from Everett earlier on October 27.

In the 30 days before this flight, the aircraft made 12 flights totaling 42.4 hours in the air. Those flights produced about 101,791 kg of CO2, based on our estimate. The previous tracked landing at Van Nuys was on October 27, 2026, after a flight from Everett.

This short hop between two Southern California airports used just 2 percent of the Falcon 7X's maximum range.