Private jets are the ultimate symbol of our new Gilded Age: Ever more popular with the very wealthy, they have induced a sort of hand-wringing among more progressive-minded billionaires.

Abigail Disney now eschews them; famous environmentalists including Leonardo DiCaprio and Prince Harry have been publicly pilloried for using them. Still, they’re selling better than ever — tax breaks passed by President Trump in 2017 helped with that.

Less glamorized, and for that reason perhaps less examined, is the other aircraft of the 1 percent: private helicopters. More often chartered than owned, helicopters (and their use by the rich and famous) have flown under the cultural radar.

That changed this past weekend, when Kobe Bryant chartered a private helicopter to take him from his home in Orange County, Calif., to his sports academy near Thousand Oaks, some 80 miles northwest. The helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76, crashed in thick fog in a mountainous area, killing all nine people on board, including Mr. Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna.