John Denver flew a Laverda

rocketonarail

rocketonarail

Hero member
Location
Gloucestershire,England
Well maybe ......... Milky Bar Kid lookalike and sometime folk singer Denver was a flying enthusiast and owned , amongst others , a Falco light aircraft .....

Laverda produced about twenty Super Falcos which were supplied in kit form for sale in the USA .......

Whether it was a Laverda SF that Denver actually flew , or a Falco produced by someone else ( two or three different companies were involved in producing them ) , isn`t clear ............... He wasn`t flying a Falco ( Super or not ) , when he plunged to his death into the sea just off the Californian coast ........

Top speed of the Laverda Super Falco was 202 mph ...... some 16 mph faster than the V6 ........

Being the fastest Laverda ever made , it`s gotta be a must-have for all you Laverda collectors out there ..... ( You could always reduce it down to kit form again for easy storage ... ) .........
 
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Beautiful airplane!

Jim

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Denver was a keen motorcyclist too. After a concert in Melbourne he went for a spin at 2 am on a borrowed Kawa 900 around the city blocks, got picked up by the cops for not having a helmet. After they believed him for who he said he was they escorted him back to the hotel. Shame it wasn't a Laverda.
 
I have a sales brochure for the Laverda Falco, might have to let Simon borrow it so he can do what computer techies do and show it to you all here.
unless anyone else has one
CLEM
 
I was told that the SF actually does not stand for Super Falco or Sequoia Falco (the owner of the Type Certificate now) but is for the initials of the designer .... Stelio Frati. Who knows?

The top speed of 202 mph is for level flight and max cruise power. The VNE (Velocity Never Exceed) is 239 mph. I have wanted one for years but one in good condition with lots of time left on the engine and prop runs well over $100,000 USD.

Jim
 
C'mon Jim spring for the Falco! Nothing like being able to brag on Saturday mornings you
have now pioneered the $200 hamburger....more if you get the homemade pie. For a real
reality check find out the new price of a Cessna Skyhawk (172) with a decent panel. If I have
my numbers right we are close to USD$400,000 !!!!
 
If I can borrow it for the last week of May and the first week of June, every year until my death, I will start by chipping in a monkey.
CLEM
 
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Last night pretty much over my place. RNZAF display team performing over the finish of the Coast to coast endurance race.
Noisy and very low. Not flying Laverdas sorry. I'm just inland from the densest part of the tracking.
 

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They're over Hobart today. The flight track looks like they're lost.
A couple of times they flew over my house at pretty low altitude. I could almost count the rivets on the underbelly.

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