The Richest Man in the World by Ronald Kessler

Author:Ronald Kessler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2017-10-31T04:00:00+00:00

For more than a year, a model of a McDonnell-Douglas DC-8 sat on Shaheen’s table at his office in Khashoggi’s Olympic Tower apartment in New York.

“This is our next plane,” he told visitors proudly, as if pointing out a car he was about to acquire. “It goes from Los Angeles to Riyadh without refueling.”

Khashoggi always wanted to outdo himself, and the plane—known as a DC-8/73—fit the pattern. It was one of eighty-nine DC-8s reengined by California’s Cammacorp Inc., and then converted into a luxury craft for Khashoggi at a total cost of $31 million.

As long as a jumbo jet and as wide as the Boeing 727, the plane weighed 358,000 pounds fully loaded. More than twice the size of the DC-9, the plane carried 24,000 gallons of fuel and could fly forty passengers and their baggage for fifteen hours without refueling. Its four GE/Snecma fan jet, fuel-efficient engines cruised at eight-tenths the speed of sound.

To customize the interior, Khashoggi again hired AiResearch, which brought in a separate designer, Michael Reese of Reese Design Inc. in Austin, Texas. To suggest what he had in mind, Khashoggi set up a meeting on his yacht, the Nabila, as it floated off the coast of Martinique.

Taking AiResearch’s Graser and Reese on a tour of the boat, he showed them the discotheque, the advanced communications equipment, the swimming pool on deck, the movie theater, and even the engine room.

In the lounge, he discussed the new plane and told them what he wanted: “Make it way out—avant-garde,” he said.

At lunch with twenty associates and family members on board, both men realized they would have to surpass the sumptuous interior of the Nabila.

Reese created two lush main salons lined with couches of soft leather and silk, built-in end tables, silk and leather wall coverings and trim, and hand-woven, platinum-colored carpeting made of silk. Between the two salons curves an arch of holographic art forms; with lights perceived as three-dimensional images, the display changes color and seethes like a galaxy of darting comets.

In the center of one of the salons, a gold-trimmed otto-manlike cocktail table contains a color video monitor that shows the ground below and the view the pilots see. Besides takeoffs and landings, the guests can watch sunrises and sunsets on the monitor.

Constantly changing electronic maps show the position of the plane as it flies across the earth, and can display closeups of any area of the globe.

One end table holds a gold gimballike device—a representation of the solar system calibrated in accordance with the Moslem calendar. A holographic light emanates from a huge mirror on the wall of one of the salons. On the end tables are specially designed white matchbooks with “AK” done in silver encircled in gold.

The aircraft has six video machines for playing movies, which Khashoggi often obtains before they are previewed. The entire interior of the plane can be closed to outside light with electronically operated panels.

Usually, Khashoggi travels with these panels closed. That way, he has total control of his environment and can choose to sleep or stay up according to his own time schedule.

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