Phil Knight's Gulfstream G500 N19HT flies from Hillsboro to Palm Springs in 1h 49m

Phil Knight's Gulfstream G500, tail number N19HT, landed at Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (KTRM) in Palm Springs on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, at 02:01 UTC. The aircraft departed Portland Hillsboro Airport (KHIO) at 00:12 UTC and spent 1 hour and 49 minutes in the air. This was the first tracked landing at Palm Springs for Knight's fleet in the window from September 7 to November 1, 2026.

The great-circle distance between the two airports is 782 nm, or 900 miles. The flight reached a highest altitude of 41,025 feet and a top ground speed of 576 knots. Our estimate puts fuel burned at about 691 US gallons and CO2 at about 6,634 kg, roughly equal to driving a car 16,420 miles. The Gulfstream G500 has a published range of 5,300 nm and a top speed of Mach 0.925. It can seat up to 19 passengers and has a ceiling of 51,000 feet. This flight used 15 percent of the aircraft's range.

The aircraft averaged 430 knots ground speed on the trip. Portland Hillsboro Airport has a longest runway of 6,600 feet at an elevation of 208 feet. Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport's longest runway is 8,500 feet at an elevation of 115 feet below sea level. The great-circle distance from the home base to Palm Springs is 781 nautical miles.

Portland Hillsboro is the home base on file for both of Knight's aircraft. The usual destinations on file include Dublin, Rome, Benbecula, Seattle, Portland, and Reno. In the 30 days before this flight, the two aircraft made 27 flights, spent 53.7 hours in the air, and visited 10 airports in 3 countries. The most common destinations in that window were Portland with 14 landings, Redmond with 9 landings, and Los Angeles with 3 landings. The longest leg in those 30 days was from Los Angeles to Farnborough, Hampshire, on October 7, covering 4,729 nm, flown by the Gulfstream G650 N1KE.

Phil Knight is the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Nike, Inc., with a net worth of about $35.7 billion. He is an Oregon native who built Nike from Blue Ribbon Sports with $1,000. The Knight family owns about 20 to 21 percent of Nike via Swoosh LLC, controlling about 78.5 percent of Class A voting shares. Palm Springs is a desert resort city in California, about 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Knight has no known business or personal ties to Palm Springs in the public record, and no scheduled appearances or events tied to him were found near the arrival airport for this date.

If Phil Knight was aboard, the flight would represent a routine repositioning for a jet that has logged transatlantic trips in recent weeks. The aircraft had been on the ground for about three days before this flight, following its previous tracked landing at Portland on November 1. The Gulfstream G500 is a 2021 model registered through TVPX Trustee, and its tail number N19HT is a wordplay on 'NIGHT'.