There it sat on a lonely section of the ramp at Bartow Executive Airport (KBOW) in Florida, looking threadbare, forlorn, and forgotten. Its paint, sun-bleached to a dull, flat finish, was of an indeterminate hue, while a recent hurricane had blown parts off, including the rudder. Its engines, long unprotected, were certain to have housed generations of local avian species.
How many times have we watched similar scenes unfold at our local airports? Pilots and passersby alike can spot a neglected aircraft easily. Often parked just inside the airport fence, far from the FBO but close to the road, providing a clear view for drivers.
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The airplane’s last flight probably was not declared as such, but turned out to be. Over time the paint dulled, tires flattened, cracks formed in the asphalt underneath, weeds grew forth, and airworthiness dissolved. People start to ask how long it has been sitting there.
Arranging a Rescue
In the case of N200Y, the answer was 12 years. The aircraft was not one of the anonymous Cessna 150s or Piper PA-28-140s that often languished on the tarmac, but a Lear 23, the watershed design that heralded the arrival of the business jet category. Indeed, this was only the third Learjet built and the first delivered to a customer. This was the state it was in when a team from the Classic Lear Jet Foundation (CLJF) arrived for an inspection in July 2022.
The group, made up of former and current employees of Lear parent company Bombardier—all volunteers—had discussed the idea of acquiring a Lear to restore as a way to preserve the brand’s history.
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“Some of the guys around here had been bantering about a restoration,” said Rick Rowe, a former chief pilot in Lear’s marketing department, who handles public relations for the foundation. The foundation’s historian, Richard Kovich, was aware of 23-003’s existence and had kept track of it for years. But the talk got a lot more serious when the aircraft’s owner called Kovich “out of the blue,” Rowe said.
Is it really a surprise, in the general aviation community, that word somehow got around that there was a group of enthusiasts interested in acquiring an old jet as a restoration project? Perhaps not, but CLJF members were not expecting the owner of exactly the airplane they wanted to call them, offering to sell. With a collective sense of excitement and perhaps a dash of trepidation, a few members of the group who were intimately familiar with Lear airframes flew from their home base in Wichita, Kansas, to Bartow to “have a look,” Rowe said.
How Much?
Like anyone looking at an airplane that has been parked outside for 12 years and inactive for nearly 25, the foundation members braced themselves for what they might find. When they arrived and spotted the airplane from a distance, it did not look that bad—certainly not like a wreck. After poring over the airframe, interior, and peering under lots of inspection covers, they “deemed it a viable candidate for restoration,” Rowe said.
Of course, the aircraft still needs plenty of work, probably totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is why the CLJF lobbied Bombardier for help getting the necessary resources together. It also scheduled fundraising events, from casual get-togethers to major endeavors like last year’s Century Mission for which a modern Lear circled the globe 100 years after the first time aviators managed to do so, flying Douglas World Cruiser biplanes.
First, though, the CLJF focused on talking the owner down from his initial asking price of $250,000, which was unrealistic, it said. Members said they had to convince the seller that they were passionate aviation fans determined to do what is best for the airplane. After rounds of negotiation, the parties agreed to a price of $90,000.
Certain people who follow the used aircraft market closely will say Cessna 172 Skyhawks that sold for $30,000 a decade ago are now fetching more than the CLJF paid for a historically significant Lear 23. The comparison, though, is a case of apples and oranges. The price of the Lear is but the cost of entry for a shopping spree likely to include replacement or rebuilding of nearly all of the aircraft’s critical components and systems, from hydraulics and controls to avionics and lighting.
To Fly Again
The Classic Learjet Foundation plans to restore 23-003 to flying condition and airworthiness so it can take to the air again. Doing so will require a complete refit because after decades of inactivity, very few of the aircraft’s systems are salvageable. The group needs a lot of help and has secured a few major partners including Incora, a company specializing in aircraft electronics and other systems to supply wiring, tubing clamps, and fasteners, while Greeley, Colorado-based BAS Part Sales, an aircraft salvage operation, has a line on hard-to-find parts for vintage Learjets.
The engines—23-003’s rare General Electric CJ-600-1 turbojets, which are nonafterburning versions of a military jet engine—are being rebuilt at International Turbine Industries’ shop in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The refurbishment includes an upgrade to CJ-610-4 specifications, Rowe said, adding that International Turbine caught wind of the project and “wanted a piece of the action.” So far the restoration project supports the popular notion that aviation is a small world.
The excitement and determination around getting this particular Lear 23 back into the air reflects its place in aviation history. Widely considered as the first purpose-built business jet, it launched an entire transport category that continues to thrive while developing industry-leading technology and performance.
The Beginning
As the story goes, it all started when Bill Lear, an inventor who operated a number of businesses and developed automotive radios and the 8-track tape and player, called on the aviation industry in and around Wichita to build a jet aircraft for business travel. He told companies like Cessna, Beechcraft, and others that if they didn’t build such an aircraft within a few years, he would. They did not, so he did.
Lear’s move shook the aviation business because there was nothing else like the Lear 23 on the market. Jet airliners were still new to most people, and the idea of private jets seemed far-fetched.
“At that time, business aviation was alive and well, but people were flying piston aircraft,” Rowe said.
Outdated aircraft like the Beechcraft Model 18, or Twin Beech, were mainstays of corporate flight departments across the United States, as were other piston twins and singles. One of Lear’s earlier businesses successfully converted Lockheed Lodestar twins into Learstars for business travel. Adapting such aircraft for business use involved many compromises, largely because they were past their prime. Rowe referred to them as “Amelia Earhart-era machinery.”
Lear was inspired by a Swiss military jet called the FFA P-16 and bought the rights for the design, which he wanted to modify for civilian use. After initially planning to build his new private jet in Switzerland, Lear decided to move back to the U.S. and set up shop in Kansas in 1962.
The new jet came together quickly, making its first flight in October 1963. There was no series of prototypes. Lear essentially built its first aircraft, 23-001, for FAA testing and planned to transition straight into production following certification. New designs often encounter snags, though, and the second Lear, 23-002, had to take over the testing role when 23-001 was destroyed in a testing accident. Today 23-002 is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Nothing Else Like It
The FAA certified the aircraft in July 1964. With cruising speeds of more than 450 knots, or about 520 mph, and a range of 1,800 miles, the new private jet caused a sensation. Customers flocked to buy Lear’s fast and beautiful aircraft, which soon became a status symbol and later a fixture in popular culture.
Even before performers, including Carly Simon and Pink Floyd, began name-checking Learjets in songs, the aircraft had a foothold in Hollywood that would serve it well for decades. Frank Sinatra was an early adopter, acquiring a Lear during the mid-1960s and using it to ferry his “Rat Pack” colleagues and to commute between his haunts in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and his home in Palm Springs, California.
Lears became must-have transports for numerous 1960s celebrities from variety-show host Johnny Carson to golf ace Arnold Palmer. Helping behind the scenes as a Learjet promoter and matchmaker was aviation legend Clay Lacy, who, through his jet charter and FBO service company, Clay Lacy Aviation, introduced many celebrities to the upside of traveling by private jet. Lacy, a former airline pilot who also competed regularly in the National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada, and won the Unlimited Gold race in 1970, knew many of the stars and took them up for demonstration flights that often helped convince them to buy a Lear.
The Lear had limitations, including its takeoff distance of around 4,500 feet, which meant it had to use larger airports with long runways. Early models were loud due to their military-style turbojet engines. Their interiors were small, typically with space for six passengers or eight in a pinch, all of whom had to crouch to get to their seats. Those were small sacrifices, though, in exchange for the sense of triumph one feels when traveling on a speedy private jet that looks great and is the latest thing.
The Learjet 23 truly offered a new type of high-speed personal travel developed specifically to suit businesses and well-heeled individuals. It left previous piston-engine models far behind. The then-new crop of turboprop models arriving on the market could not keep up, either. For a while, the Lear was a singular proposition. Eventually its success opened the market to competitors, including Dassault’s family of Falcon jets and Cessna’s Citation series, both of which continue to be leaders in the business jet market.
Over time the company’s ownership and name changed. Originally founded by Lear as Swiss American Aviation Corp., it became Learjet Corp. when Bill Lear moved the operation to Wichita. Lear sold a majority share of the company to Gates Rubber Co. in 1967, and its name changed to Gates Learjet Corp.
Integrated Acquisition shortened the name to Learjet Corp. when it bought the company in 1987, and that name stuck when Bombardier acquired it in 1990. Over the years the company built more than 3,000 Learjets. Bombardier announced the end of production in early 2021 and delivered the last model in early 2022.
There is still much work to be done on 23-003, which was disassembled, starting with the removal of its unique eight-spar wing, and trucked to a Bombardier facility, where restoration is currently underway. Rowe said one recent milestone was the removal of the aircraft’s original wiring harness, which will be replaced with more efficient modern wiring. Volunteers estimated the length of all the individual wires stretched out to be just over 2 miles.
There are more parts to remove before the next big step of carefully stripping the aircraft’s paint—a process that could potentially reveal surprises. Rowe is confident, however, that based on testing the group has conducted so far, 23-003 is in pretty good shape.
“We haven’t found any showstoppers,” he said.
This feature first appeared in the July Issue 960 of the FLYING print edition.
