In the past few months Jimmy Buffett has shuffled his airplane inventory, replacing his Caravan amphibious floatplane with a brand new version and also adding another seaplane.

According to records, Buffett now owns a 2009 Cessna 208 Caravan with registration number N915JB. His previous Caravan (N208JB) was a ’98 model.

Buffett also now owns a 1939 Grumman Goose seaplane with registration number N48550 (pictured top right). N48550 flew in the Navy early in its career, then spent several years with Alaska Coastal Airlines and Antilles Air Boats before being bought by an individual in 1990. In terms of size, the Goose is larger than the Widgeon but smaller than the Albatross.

Below is a video from Margaritaville.com’s Buffet Hotel video collection of Buffett flying the Goose to the tune of the new song “Wings” :

In addition to the Caravan and Goose, Buffett owns a Falcon 900 jet, a Stearman biplane, and a Grumman Albatross dubbed The Hemisphere Dancer (now on display at the Orlando Margaritaville).

Learn more about Jimmy and aviation here.

Jimmy and Jane Buffett recently hosted a kickoff celebration for the Child Study Center Foundation at their home:

As far we know, no one was searchin’ for [their] lost shaker of salt at Jimmy Buffett’s home during the kickoff celebration for the Child Study Center Foundation.

That was probably a positive, as this isn’t really margarita season, and it also enabled guests such as Ronald Perelman, Jon Corzine, Linda Carter and Claude Wasserstein to discuss the charity more coherently. The author and musician and his wife, longtime supporters of the organization, looked every bit as casual as they would, say, at the beach.

The Boot has a lengthy article on Wednesday night’s CMT Crossroads taping with Jimmy Buffett and the Zac Brown Band: “Zac Brown Band + Jimmy Buffett Chill Out in Nashville”

Before they launched into ‘Where the Boat Leaves From,’ Jimmy said, “I write a few songs about boats and the first time I heard this one, I [thought], ‘That’s a song I wish I’d written’.” After that performance, the Country Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year, Mac MacAnally, joined the musicians onstage. “He’s musician of the year and he’s having trouble plugging in his guitar,” joked Jimmy as Mac took a few moments to get ready to play.

“I have to tell you that the van referred to in this song was used only to go to Jimmy Buffett concerts,” Zac said prior to singing ‘Free,’ a song about traveling across country and living in said van.

After a rousing version of ‘Chicken Fried,’ the singers had to repeat the first two songs, as is common practice with TV tapings. “It wasn’t out fault, honest,” Zac said. “I think they screwed up out in the [sound] truck.” The energetic crowd, on its feet much of the night, wouldn’t have cared if the two bands had to repeat every song several times. They were in the mood to party, whistling and screaming throughout the evening.

“When you do other people’s songs you have to learn them and it’s like doing homework or going to summer school,” Jimmy said as they went into the second half of the taping of his songs. “Now we’re coming to the easy part of the show for me. We’re gonna cover things you know but I’m also going to do some shameless promotion for a new album that will probably be history by the time this show airs.”

Read the full article here.

Wednesday night Jimmy Buffett and the Zac Brown Band taped their episode of CMT Crossroads at The Factory in Franklin, TN. Linda Zettler of The Tennessean has an article on the filming:

Jimmy Buffett had this reaction when he saw the Zac Brown Band in concert: ‘e2’80’9cHe reminds me of what I was doing 25 years ago and it’e2’80’99s nice to see that passed on.’e2’80’9d

No one’s sound is completely his own, Buffett said on Wednesday night in Franklin during a taping of CMT’s genre-mixing performance series Crossroads; Buffett’s own work was informed by Harry Belafonte, for one.

So in that spirit, during the taping, Buffett announced the passing of the “tiki torch.”

“Here’s the torch, man,” Buffett said, motioning to Brown and then adding, I’m not going anywhere.”

Songs performed:

• Where the Boat Leaves From
• One Love
• Free
• Into the Mystic
• Toes
• Chicken Fried
• Wings
• Nobody From Nowhere
• Son of a Son of a Sailor
• A Pirate Looks at Forty
• Margaritaville

The episode will air at 9 pm on Friday, March 19th.

Jimmy Buffett is in the latest issue of Premier Guitar, a magazine geared towards the serious, accomplished guitar player.

On page 22, there is a shot of Jimmy from this year’s Alpine Valley show in East Troy, WI. The accompanying blurb tells what kind of guitar equipment Buffett uses.

View the free, digital copy of Premier Guitar here.