Google doesn't have its own corporate jets — good thing, since that transportation perk is so déclassé these days. Instead, the company leases planes, including a set of jets jointly owned by Schmidt and Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Peter Kafka at MediaMemo notes that Google paid for $106,201 worth of travel to have Schmidt's "family and friends" accompany him on business trips.

Which made us think: What happened in Schmidt's life last year? Schmidt, who is married, has had a series of girlfriends on the side. (Good for him!) But he started getting serious with his most recent one, Kate Bohner, in late 2007. Bohner, who was briefly married to author Michael Lewis and is said to have inspired the character of sex-crazed Samantha on Sex and the City, lived in south Florida until she relocated to Los Angeles last fall. During the presidential campaign, she was spotted escorting Schmidt to at least one YouTube-sponsored debate.

I asked a Google spokesman if Bohner was one of Schmidt's passengers, but he declined to comment. So did Bohner fly free on the Google party plane? If so, good for Schmidt: Not every executive, in this perk-hostile times, gets to fly such friendly skies.

We have scant details, but a tipster sent in this picture of the Googlers' flight crew at a party in Auckland, New Zealand. (Another planespotter recently sent us a sighting of the Google Jet down under (right) in late December, so the location seems to check out.) The woman on the left, we're told, is named Colleen, and chose to expose herself in front of the camera. A bit nippy, though, considering the nearby ice sculptures.

It's hardly a surprise Google's dynamic duo, known for attending the sex-infused Burning Man festival in Nevada, picked a racy bunch to steer the plane. Page was famously photographed canoodling aloft with his future wife, Lucy Southworth. And Brin demanded that his private bedroom in the sky be fitted with a king-size bed. Colleen seems like the type who wouldn't blink at mile-high-club antics.

Does anyone recognize the rest of Larry and Sergey's aeronautical servants? Please let us know.

Last year, Google struck a $144 million deal to lease land from Nasa's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, for future office space. Separately, but not coincidentally, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt, through a company called H211 LLC, struck a deal with Nasa to lease a hangar at Moffett Field for their growing fleet of private jets.

Why on earth, or in space, did the Googlers get parking privileges at Moffett? Nasa and Google came up with a great spin: The jets would be available to fly scientific missions. Larry and Sergey got to geek out, thinking their party plans served a higher purpose — while saving hours commuting to and from SJC or SFO.

One small hitch, Miguel Helft reports in Bits: Using the party planes for scientific missions required tinkering with their electronics. And changing anything about the planes required new FAA certifications.

This may explain why Larry and Sergey pulled their party plane from a recent Nasa mission. We know it wasn't out for repairs — around the same time, they used it to ferry guests to and from Gavin Newsom's wedding.

Hence the Dornier fighter jet, which is deemed an "experimental" plane, and which will now satisfy H211's space-mission duties. But that leaves the Googlers and Nasa in a rather unsatisfying position. When the Googlejets were flying for Nasa, they had a reasonable excuse for parking them at Moffett Field. But the purchase of a special plane to run space missions leaves Larry and Sergey's party-plane fleet used solely for civilian purposes. What are they doing at the field? Why, satisfying a quid pro quo, like they always were. This latest twist on Larry and Sergey's lease just makes it more obvious.

Larry and Sergey yanked a promised Boeing 757 from their private fleet, operated by a company called "H211 LLC," just weeks before the originally scheduled reentry date of the Jules Verne ATV-1 space freighter, forcing Nasa and the European Space Agency to scramble to find an old DC-8 to be able to observe the freighter's burn up in the Earth's atmosphere as planned.

What prompted the Google execs to pull the 757, and jeopardize a mission of the American and European space agencies?

Days before the announcement that the 757 was no longer available for the mission, the promised jet was instead used as a limo for San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom's wedding. But it should have been ready for action after the unremarkable flights to and from Montana.

In the end, the Googlers did deliver one Gulfstream V party plane to watch the Verne burn. But one hopes it was a spare, not the same one used to chauffeur Larry, Sergey and their wives to the Google Maps satellite launch in September, right around the time of the originally scheduled reentry date. Was that the event which forced the rescheduling of the Verne mission? And if so, should Nasa be relying on billionaires' personal jets, and their whims, to complete complex, dangerous and time-critical missions?

Were Larry and Sergey aboard the Gulfstream? If so, someone ought to tell Google shareholders that the companies' cofounders were in close proximity to a flaming fireball. And someone ought to tell American taxpayers that Nasa is now scheduling its missions around the viewing requirements of loopy billionaires. (Illustration by the European Space Agency)

Yes, Jennifer is one of those Siebels — her dad, Ken Siebel, is a cousin of Tom Siebel, the founder of Siebel Systems. The father of the bride is also chairman of Private Wealth Partners, which manages a $444 million fund. But Newsom might find it difficult to pry any campaign contributions from his new father-in-law, since the elder Siebel has donated only to Republicans in national elections since 2000, including George W. Bush, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

Newsom did at least convince the bride's family to host the wedding in Stevensville, Montana, where the groom wore a casual linen suit and the bride wore Vera Wang and rode down the aisle bareback on a white black stallion. By far the best blow-by-blow of the nuptials was from Newsom's predecessor at City Hall, Willie Brown. Siebel and Newsom plan to tour Africa on their honeymoon — no word if they intend to indulge in the hot celebrity trend of adopting a child as a souvenir.

Being in the family way might help burnish Newsom's image after an adultery scandal in 2007 and a public admission of the entrepreneurial wine salesman's drinking problem. The timing of this marriage eerily reflects that of Newsom's first in 2001, when the then-Supervisor wed Kimberly Guilfoyle months before he announced his candidacy for mayor of San Francisco.

But the couple divorced a year after he was elected amidst talk of a new "Camelot" couple rising in the Democratic Party ranks. You can expect the eternal flame of the media's love for Newsom to be rekindled along those lines, though I doubt the newlyweds will be posing in any oil-money mansions this time around.

With Newsom now fielding an exploratory committee to run for statewide office, longtime superfan and San Francisco Chronicle blogger Beth Spotswood was generous: "I give them two years, that's my wedding gift to Gavin." Which is just long enough to last until June 8, 2010, when the votes for Governor will be tallied.

Hopefully Siebel can continue to steer clear of commenting on blogs in the meantime. Siebel's first publicity challenge will be to show up California attorney general Jerry Brown's longtime partner and current wife Anne Gust in the primary, followed by Maria Shriver, wife of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Photo by Getty Images/Meg Smith)

• The environment, burning enough fuel to power a car for a year in just one hour.
• Public safety: Even though private planes incur the same air-traffic control costs as commercial airliners, commercial planes pay for 95 percent of FAA air-traffic control costs in $2,015 in taxes per flight, while just accounting for 73 percent of air control capacity. Private planes only pay $236 per flight in taxes.
• Tax revenues: Private plane buyers can take a larger deduction their first year owning a new jet.
• The war on terror: The Department of Homeland Security IDs private planes as a particular risk.

Google has taken over san jose airport as they all go to disneyland for their company trip. Everyone is in love with them. Best moment...all flights are currently delayed so naturally the quick thinking googlera are buzzing gate agents trying to jump on other flights. Thankfully the airlines are not allowing googlera to change their group assigned tickets. I LOVE watching googlers argue in earnest only to be denied by the polite agent who lets escape a wry smile after each denial, much to the pleasure of nearby nongooglers. What ... Sergey's plane is too busy running NASA experiments to help out?

So, our questions: Come on guys, quit blogging about net neutrality or whatever and give the people what they want. Who was on the party plane? Mitch? I'm checking your blog. Tim? That's some Radar I'd like to see. Zuck? I'm checking your status updates. Nothing. Don't let us down. Oh yeah, and Paul Boutin is in the market for a new bed. What size does the Google Jet have — King, California King, or Euro King? Oh, and did any of you cheapskate tech moguls reimburse Larry and Sergey for the cost of the flight?

I've heard that Tim O'Reilly, Mitch Kapor, Reid Hoffman and Mark Zuckerberg will be on that flight. Basically, every Davos attendee from the Bay Area except me managed to hitch a ride back with Google.

OK, we know that Larry and Sergey own a heavily retrofitted 767. Schmidt owned one — or two — Gulfstream V's. Then we reported that Page, Brin and Schmidt might be buying another commercial jet, a Boeing 757 widebody.

The NBC report linked above specifically mentions that a Gulfstream V ran this mission. Perhaps this confirms our report that Schmidt bought a new Gulfstream V to replace the one he sold earlier this year. Either way, that's a lot of planes.

(Photo by Drewski2112)

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who has plenty of money of his own, recently sold a Gulfstream V and Valleywag reported that he was looking at a brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Perhaps Larry, Sergey and Eric — the three Musketeers of Silicon Valley jet ownership — will pick up one of the A380s to add to their growing collection. Googlers always aim high, don't they?

And the A380? Custom designs could include a movie theatre, a gym, jacuzzi, multiple bedrooms, a very large dining area and more. What mogul doesn't need their own flying palace with more square feet than most houses?

(Photo by AP/Christof Stache)

I almost forgot about this. Last saturday (22nd) I saw Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) walking towards Kepler's bookstore b/w 2:00 - 3:00 PM in Menlo Park. 20 mins later he emerged out with Mine's Bigger (Tom Perkins) book and another book. He also had a muffin and coffee in hand (from Barrone's). Drove away in a Mercedes Benz - couldn't figure out the model. It could be a CLS or CL and his license plate had bunch of 5s' in it along with few letters.