JET!

We've recently taken a tour of rock star houses. Now Paul Bowler hops on board some famous band aeroplanes

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Few things show off a musician's success or accumulation of wealth better than a privately-owned or chartered jet. As such, they've played a key part in numerous musical legends' stories down the years, whether ferrying the jet-set elite between their assorted residences, or in their role as dens of iniquity (and, occasionally, some songwriting) during the rock'n'roll excesses of the 70s and 80s. While their use nowadays may be more prosaic, not to say controversial, given their environmental impact, they remain an important part of the modern music megastar entourage's setup.

Private aviation was pioneered in the 1930s by US business magnate/aviator, Howard Hughes, who created custom-built aircraft for business and leisure travel. Mid-century saw private jets begin to appear, with the introduction of the Learjet 23, leading to a boom in ownership among the super-rich. Frank Sinatra was one of the first musicians to invest in aircraft, taking delivery of his Learjet in 1965. Named Christina // after his youngest daughter, Sinatra famously used it to fly with Mia Farrow to the south of France for their honeymoon. More often, he used the jet for trips between Los Angeles, Las Vegas and his home in Palm Springs, while he loaned it out to friends such as Marlon Brando and Sammy Davis Jr, who used the plane to fly to Mississippi to join Martin Luther King Jr on a civil rights march. On 1 May 1967, Sinatra loaned Elvis Presley his Learjet to elope from Palm Springs to Las Vegas with 21-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu. Sinatra sold the plane later that year, replacing it with a Gulfstream II.