Falco Builders Letter
Falco Builders Letter A Visit with Frati If anybody ever suggests you go visit Frati “in Milan,” as Alfred Scott did when he heard I was going to be in Italy writing about the Piaggio Avanti turboprop, here’s my suggestion: get Alfred to pay the cabfare. If you can’t do that, buy a car. A small Fiat will do, and it’ll prob- ably be cheaper than a cab. I leapt off the train from Genoa at Milan’s central station and plunged straight into a waiting taxi. “Via Trieste Vente-Quat- tro,” I said in my best non-Italian, and about $15 later, that’s exactly where he took me—24 Via Trieste. Quiet urban residential street... relatively upscale... odd place for an airplane factory.... Actually, there was no number 24. We found a phone booth, and my cabbie Jim and Gail Martin's Falco is the 17th Sequoia Falco to fly. was nice enough to tackle the Italian telephone system on my behalf. He First Flight: Around the Falco called Frati’s number, and I knew I was in trouble when I saw him perform the Jim and Gail Martin Patch classic application of heel of hand smartly Jim and Gail Martin’s Falco flew for Luciano Nustrini came to Oshkosh as to forehead, as though trying to jar loose a the first time on August 13th in But- planned, but not via Europe as he had subdural hematoma: the Via Trieste that ler, Pennsylvania, making it the 17th intended. There was a change in plans, I wanted, it turned out—a street that ap- Sequoia Falco to fly.
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