Beating traffic - Greenwich Style: via Soviet fighter jet

Outlandish vehicles seem to be the status symbol of choice for venture capitalists these days. Case in point: Jeff Marshall's ride may not have a lot of trunk space, but it provides one of the smoothest and fastest commutes around.

"There's no noise . . . but you just see things whizzing by the windshield," said Marshall, 51, a Greenwich resident who works as a venture capitalist in Stamford.

His vehicle is a two-seat L-39 attack fighter jet used in the Soviet Air Force during the 1980s. Marshall has owned it for nine years. It can fly 400 mph, burns nearly 200 gallons of fuel an hour and can get him to business trips and family vacations in about 20 minutes.

Marshall, who goes by the call name "Boom Boom," was never in the military. But he comes from a long family tradition of fighter pilots, dating to his grandfather, who flew during World War I. His father and his uncle were pilots during World War II.

Marshall's passion for "war birds" remains. When he and a friend bought the L-39 for an undisclosed amount in 1997, it was in pieces. Marshall studied the jet's background and believes it was used in the Russian-Afghanistan war in the early 1980s.

He keeps the jet at Sikorsky Airport in Stratford and uses it often, taking it to air shows nationwide and flying it to family trips on Martha's Vineyard and in Vermont. "You have to keep it flying," Marshall said. "It's like a horse. You have to keep feeding it."

When Marshall traveled to Boston for business two days a week, he took the jet, blowing past stalled traffic on Interstate 95 below. "One time, it was a very hot day and we took off out of Nantucket and going west along I-95 it was solid from Stamford to Rhode Island," he said. "I'm looking down at them from 1,500 feet, and I felt so guilty."

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