Virgin America Names Jet After Steve Jobs

[MacRumors]

Virgin America has named one of its fleet after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, emblazoning a popular Jobs quote "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" on the side of this Airbus A320.

Steve mentioned the phrase in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, noting that it was originally used in The Whole Earth Catalog in the 1970's:

On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

A Virgin America spokesperson explained to MacRumors that the name was chosen as part of an internal plane naming competition. The plane, with tail number N845VA, first flew last fall.

Virgin America is the only airline based in Silicon Valley, with 2,200 employees based in Burlingame.

(Photo courtesy Virgin America)

Article Link: Virgin America Names Jet After Steve Jobs

 

[eawmp1]

So there's no food service on this jet?

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I'm not sure I would say this is named after Steve Jobs... it's not even his quote originally.

 

[Tiger8]

Nice tribute...

On this note, Virgin America ROCKS! Other carriers are lucky Virgin America has limited destinations...

 

[Dragonforce]

Just a measly A320...

How about a Dreamliner, a 747 or even an A380?

 

[greenythebeast]

Just a measly A320...

How about a Dreamliner, a 747 or even an A380?

Hey now...don't hate on the A320 =P Great aircraft.

 

[kingtj]

re: A380

Isn't the A380 the one that keeps having problems with the connectors cracking that hold its wings on? Yeah, that could become a huge embarrassment if IT had a tribute to Jobs on it and then had a structural failure due to design flaws.

Just a measly A320...

How about a Dreamliner, a 747 or even an A380?

 

[Bubba Satori]

Virgin America jumps the shark.
Cult film at 11.
I wonder when Apple will sue them?

 

[termite]

Burlingame is in the Silicon Valley? Did I miss a really big earthquake?

 

[Colpeas]

Mmm, I would rather see some kind of "Clipper Steve Jobs", instead of quoting him on a fuselage. Also I am not quite sure, if "stay hungry stay foolish" is originally his quote... One way or another, it's a pretty huge tribute for a CEO

 

[FrizzleFryBen]

Something about "Stay Foolish" on the side of an airline that would make me nervous.

Maybe they can quote Dennis Leary, "Folks, this is your Captain speaking. Look, uhm, light 'em up, 'cause we're going down, okay. I got a carton of Camel non-filters, I'll see you on the ground."

 

[fabian9]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Isn't the A380 the one that keeps having problems with the connectors cracking that hold its wings on? Yeah, that could become a huge embarrassment if IT had a tribute to Jobs on it and then had a structural failure due to design flaws.

Just a measly A320...

How about a Dreamliner, a 747 or even an A380?

It's not technically the "connectors" that hold the wings on, it's L-brackets that join the wing surface to the rips.

Normal teething problems for a huge technical achievement...

 

[Porco]

Just a measly A320...

How about a Dreamliner, a 747 or even an A380?

I don't know, an A320 sounds pretty powerful, I mean the iPhone 4S only has an A5, so it must have 64 times the power of that... the thing must fly.

 

[SteveW928]

Something about "Stay Foolish" on the side of an airline that would make me nervous.

No kidding! I'm a big fan of Steve, and he was a very smart person. But, using any reasonable definition of 'foolish' makes this, well, a rather foolish statement.

 

[LarryC]

I'm sorry, but this just seems to be a bit too much. Why don't we carve his image into Mount Rushmore, Put his image on our currency, make his birthday a national holiday. Good lord! He was a great sales and marketing guy, it isn't as though he cured diseases, raised the dead and walked on water, for God's sake!

He didn't even invent the personal computer. And yet people act as though he was the most important person who ever lived. I just don't get it. And I would bet that if Steve Jobs were here to see and hear these things he wouldn't get it either.

 

[swingerofbirch]

I think it's a nice, fairly tangential reference to Steve Jobs. I hope Virgin America starts coming to some smaller hubs. I'm a very anxious flier, and I've heard their cabins are the nicest for domestic (US) travel.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

So there's no food service on this jet?

And they charge extra for the pleasure. (The 'foolish' part.)

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I'm sorry, but this just seems to be a bit too much. Why don't we carve his image into Mount Rushmore, Put his image on our currency, make his birthday a national holiday. Good lord! He was a great sales and marketing guy, it isn't as though he cured diseases, raised the dead and walked on water, for God's sake!

It's not like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt (images on Mount Rushmore), Franklin, Hamilton, Grant (people on currency not already listed,) MLKJ, or Columbus (people who have federal holidays named after them,) cured disease, raised the dead, or walked on water, and yet they do have currency marked with their image, or statues of them carved into mountainsides, or had their birthday made into a holiday.

Jobs was a modern Einstein, Edison, or Disney, the kind of guy who love him or not, changed the world. Many looked up to him. He was probably my #1 role model outside my family. I'll probably look for my own little ways of memorializing him throughout my life.

Oh, and FYI, between the (RED) and breast cancer aware-pink products he probably did more to cure disease than many of the people who I listed in my first paragraph (I could be mistaken though... I'm not too terribly familiar with all of their life accomplishments.)

 

[wilycoder]

"Don't fly it that way"

 

[AriX]

I'm not sure I would say this is named after Steve Jobs... it's not even his quote originally.

My interpretation, from reading this article, was that the plane is internally named "Steve Jobs" or something of the sort, and the quote was added as an extra tribute.

 

[rei101]

I'm sorry, but this just seems to be a bit too much. Why don't we carve his image into Mount Rushmore, Put his image on our currency, make his birthday a national holiday.

Wait, one island at a time...

 

[justperry]

Just a measly A320...

How about a Dreamliner, a 747 or even an A380?

Hey now...don't hate on the A320 =P Great aircraft.

Agree, they are better planes than the boeing 737, horrible unstable planes.

Isn't the A380 the one that keeps having problems with the connectors cracking that hold its wings on? Yeah, that could become a huge embarrassment if IT had a tribute to Jobs on it and then had a structural failure due to design flaws.

As if boeing never has/had any problems, they already solved those problems in the new A380's and is not a big problem in the existing planes.


Why not just put the name of Steve on it instead of a quote which wasn't even his?

 

[applegigs]

That's cool!

I was on a flight from Copenhagen to Vienna a few weeks ago, and on the side next to the door of a A320 there was a tribute to Freddie Mercury.

 

[interrobang]

Is it actually named the Steve Jobs, or did they just put the quote on the side?

I'd be rather annoyed if some corporation I had no connection with used my name on something after I died. Even if it was to "honor" me. Well, I'd be annoyed if I wasn't dead, anyway.

Fortunately, I'm never going to be famous, so it's not something I worry about.

 

[Schizoid]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

They've also got a helicopter saying "I love FCPX" and an A380 saying "where's my new f@&?ing Mac Pro!"