Country Singers With Private Jets: What the FAA Registry Actually Shows

Toby Keith died in February 2024. In the FAA’s October 2026 aircraft register, his Bombardier Challenger 605, tail number N405TK, is still listed to the same Norman, Oklahoma, company that registered it in 2018.

That is the kind of detail that separates the record from the rumor. Country music has a handful of genuine private jet owners, a larger group of stars who charter, and a surprising number who hold a pilot certificate and fly themselves.

This guide covers every country singer with a documented private jet, checked against the FAA registry, plus the ones who charter and the pilots whose certificates appear in the FAA’s own airmen file.

Which Country Singers Own a Private Jet

Four country names trace to a jet on the current FAA register. Each one is registered to a company rather than the singer, which is normal for private aircraft.

Kenny Chesney: The Falcon 900EX With His Initials

Kenny Chesney’s private jet is the easiest in country music to identify, because the tail number carries his initials. N7KC is a 1997 Dassault Falcon 900EX, serial number 14, registered to Falcon 200 Inc of Nashville.

The FAA issued the current registration certificate on February 20, 2009. Spotters have photographed the jet at Nashville International and captioned it as the Falcon 900EX “used by country music star Kenny Chesney,” and celebrity flight trackers list N7KC under his name.

Dassault Falcon 900EXN7KC · serial 14 · Falcon 200 Inc

Current · active

Built1997

RegisteredFebruary 20, 2009

Range4,500 NM

Max cruise speed565 kt

SeatsUp to 19

Engines3x Honeywell TFE731-60

The Falcon 900EX is a three-engine, large-cabin jet with a range of 4,500 NM and a ceiling of 51,000 feet. That is enough to fly from Nashville to Europe nonstop, far more than a US tour schedule ever asks of it.

The registrant’s name is the other clue. A company called Falcon 200 Inc owning a Falcon 900EX points to an earlier, smaller Dassault, but the FAA’s bulk files do not record previous owners of a tail number that never changed hands, so the earlier jet cannot be confirmed from the register alone.

Toby Keith: The Challenger 605 Still on the Register

Toby Keith’s private jet was a Bombardier Challenger 605, N405TK, serial number 5751. Spotter photos caption it as the country star’s Challenger, and the “TK” suffix follows the same initials pattern as Chesney’s tail.

The FAA register lists N405TK to Flying Star III Inc of Norman, Oklahoma, with a certificate issued April 26, 2018. Keith died on February 5, 2024, and as of the October 2026 release the jet had not been re-registered to a new owner.

Bombardier Challenger 605N405TK · serial 5751 · Flying Star III Inc

Still registered · owner died 2024

RegisteredApril 26, 2018

Range4,045 NM

Max cruise speed470 kt

Seats12

Engines2x General Electric CF34-3B

Ceiling41,000 feet

The Challenger 605 is a large-cabin jet with a range of 4,045 NM and a 41,000-foot ceiling. An earlier Keith aircraft was harder to miss: a 2015 report from Rome, New York, described his Lear jet parked at Griffiss airfield with an image of Keith raising his microphone painted on the tail, in Oklahoma Sooners colors.

Luke Bryan: The Learjet 60 the Trackers Follow

Luke Bryan is the country singer whose private jet flies the most, at least on paper. A year-end Ranker list built on CelebrityPrivateJetTracker.com data put him seventh in 2024 with about 373,000 miles flown, ahead of Donald Trump, Kylie Jenner and Bill Gates.

The trackers tie Bryan to N506AB, a 2003 Learjet 60, serial number 266. The FAA lists it to LJ60-266 LLC of Memphis, a company named after the jet’s own serial number, so the link to Bryan rests on the trackers rather than on the register.

Learjet 60N506AB · serial 266 · LJ60-266 LLC

Current · active

Built2003

RegisteredAugust 14, 2014

Range2,405 NM (4 passengers)

PassengersUp to 8

Engines2x Pratt & Whitney Canada PW305A

Owner linkFlight trackers

A Learjet 60 is a midsize jet, far smaller than Chesney’s Falcon or Keith’s Challenger. Its 2,405 NM range with four passengers covers any US tour routing from Nashville, which is what a touring jet needs to do.

Bryan also flies himself, in a different kind of aircraft. Taste of Country reported that he earned a helicopter license in 2021, during the pandemic, and bought his own helicopter. Fellow star Jason Aldean has said he refuses to ride with him.

Kid Rock: A Challenger 601, Not a “Challenger 600”

Kid Rock, the rock act who crossed over to country radio, has a jet that carries his initials too. N71KR is registered to Lost Highway Touring Inc of Clarkston, Michigan, with a certificate issued May 24, 2017.

Flight trackers list N71KR as a “Challenger 600,” and spotter photos caption it as Kid Rock’s jet. The FAA record is more precise: it is a 1995 airframe, serial number 5191, of type CL-600-2B16, the designation that covers the Challenger 601-3A and 601-3R.

Bombardier Challenger 601N71KR · serial 5191 · Lost Highway Touring Inc

Current · active

Built1995

FAA typeCL-600-2B16 (601-3A/3R)

RegisteredMay 24, 2017

Engines2x General Electric CF34-3A series

Owner linkTail number, trackers

The difference matters. The original Challenger 600 flew on Lycoming engines and only 81 were built, from 1978 to 1982. The 601-3A and 3R that followed used General Electric CF34 engines and a glass cockpit, so a tracker label of “Challenger 600” undersells the airplane by a generation.

Garth Brooks: The Jet That Ended a Retirement

Garth Brooks’s best-known private jet was never his. In 2009, Steve Wynn brought him out of retirement to headline the Encore Theater in Las Vegas by offering him the use of a private jet, so he could fly home to Oklahoma between shows to be with his three daughters.

“The plane was the whole thing.”

Garth Brooks, quoted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal via General Aviation News, December 2009

Brooks said Wynn had thought of something “no one else had thought of.” We found no aircraft on the FAA register under Brooks’s name, his wife Trisha Yearwood’s name, or the company names associated with them.

Morgan Wallen, Dolly Parton and the Stars Who Charter

Morgan Wallen gave the internet its most famous country private jet moment. After leaving the stage early at the end of his March 29, 2025 Saturday Night Live appearance, he posted a photo of a private jet with the caption “Get me to God’s country.”

He later leaned into the joke in an interview, naming “a jet” as the obvious thing you can sit in that flies. Digital Music News reports that Wallen does not own a private jet and rents instead, and no aircraft is registered to him or his label in the FAA file.

Dolly Parton is the other big name with no jet of her own. Our Dolly Parton private jet guide traces the claim that she borrows other stars’ aircraft, and why it rests on thin sourcing.

Charter is the default for most of Nashville. A touring act that plays three cities in four nights needs a jet for days at a time, not all year, and a charter operator absorbs the crew, hangar and maintenance costs that make ownership expensive.

The Country Stars Who Fly Themselves

Country music has an unusual number of working pilots. The FAA’s October 2026 airmen file confirms two of them by name, and the rest rely on the artists’ own accounts.

Aaron Tippin: Commercial Pilot and Flight Instructor

Aaron Tippin holds the strongest credentials we found. The FAA file lists Aaron Dupree Tippin of Tennessee with a commercial certificate for single- and multi-engine airplanes, an instrument rating, a private helicopter rating, a flight instructor certificate and a type rating for the Douglas DC-3.

His flight school, Tennessee Flying Machines, is the registered owner of a vintage fleet on the FAA register: a 1941 North American SNJ-4, two Boeing-built Stearman biplanes and a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub.

Dustin Lynch: Instrument-Rated Since 2023

Dustin Lynch earned his license in January 2023 after a two-year effort and bought a Cirrus, according to Taste of Country. The FAA file lists Dustin Charles Lynch of Nashville with a private pilot certificate, a single-engine land rating and an instrument rating.

Dierks Bentley, Tim McGraw, Alan Jackson and Jamey Johnson

Dierks Bentley took his first flight at 13 and was licensed by his early 20s, and he has flown himself home between shows in his own Cirrus. Tim McGraw learned to fly while quitting drinking and also owns a Cirrus, according to Taste of Country.

Alan Jackson learned largely from the pilot who flew him to shows, and he stopped flying because his wife Denise worried. Jamey Johnson learned during the pandemic and flies a King Air.

None of these four appears in the FAA’s releasable airmen file under a matching name. That is not a contradiction: pilots can ask the FAA to withhold their address, and those who do are left out of the public download.

For pilots beyond country music, see our list of famous celebrities who are pilots.

Why Country Music Is Wary of Small Planes

Country music lost some of its biggest names to aviation accidents, and those losses still shape how Nashville talks about touring by air.

McEntire turned the loss into the album For My Broken Heart, released that October, and she still marks the anniversary every March.

How Country Stars’ Jets Compare

Country fleets are modest by celebrity standards. The oldest, Kid Rock’s Challenger 601, was built in 1995, and none is a Boeing 767 or Gulfstream G650 of the kind that turns up in our rappers with private jets roundup.

That fits how country tours run: dense US routings and short hops between arenas, where a midsize jet does the job. The star who started in country and went furthest from it has her own guide: Taylor Swift’s private jets.