Jon Shirley's Falcon 7X N74JK Flies 101 Nautical Miles from Van Nuys to Palm Springs in 28 Minutes
Why It MattersA managed ultra-long-range trijet logging a 28-minute regional hop within a month of transatlantic legs shows how fleet-management programs fly the same aircraft across widely different mission profiles.
The Dassault Falcon 7X N74JK, associated with Microsoft's former president and COO Jon Shirley, flew from Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) in California to Palm Springs on October 27, 2026. It departed at 23:38 UTC and covered the 101-nautical-mile great-circle distance in 28 minutes, averaging 217 knots ground speed, reaching a top speed of 436 knots and climbing to 17,000 feet. The flight burned an estimated 117 US gallons of fuel and produced about 1,125 kg of CO2. The hop used just 2 percent of the Falcon 7X's maximum range of 5,950 nautical miles.
It 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, and it had spent about seven hours on the ground at Van Nuys after arriving from Everett earlier the same day. In the 30 days before this flight, it visited 10 airports in three countries and made 12 flights totaling 42.4 hours in the air, covering about 17,414 nautical miles and producing an estimated 101,791 kg of CO2. Its longest leg in that period was Everett to Venice on October 16, 2026, at 4,714 nautical miles.
The aircraft is registered to Executive Jet Management, the managed-aircraft arm of NetJets, and its tail number N74JK appears to be a set of initials. Shirley joined Microsoft in 1983 after 25 years at Tandy and served as president, COO and director until 1990, overseeing the 1986 IPO and the construction of the Redmond campus; he remained on the board until 2008.
