Not Dead Yet

Environmental activists are seeking to shame air travellers and attacking business aviation. GA may soon be in their sights

- Tim Cooper

I’m very sorry to report that I am going to sell Monty. She is my much prized Laverda Montjuic motorcycle; a bright orange, rip-snorting, 500cc twin-cylinder production racer, named after the street racing circuit where she made her name. Montjuics, banned by the EEC in 1982 for exceeding the then-new noise limits, have no inlet or outlet silencing: they sound like Armageddon on steroids. A single seat bike, the Montjuic’s only purpose is to go really fast on smooth A-roads. I adore her. Taking Alan Cassidy in Better Aerobatics only slightly out of context, ‘It has no purpose other than personal fulfilment. It is selfish and pointless. It is also inspiring and addictive’.

My Monty makes me happy. Or so she would were it not for some intractable problems: speeding is no longer socially acceptable; nor are noisy motorcycles; the south of England’s speed camera infested roads are crowded, seemingly with the myopic, so it’s difficult, dangerous, and certainly illegal to use Monty as the Good Lord intended.

No longer ‘socially acceptable’, the Laverda Montjuic

It’s not all gloom though. I live south of Goodwood where, less than half a mile from my house, I can use a similarly singlemindedly-designed machine to perform just as intended by the maker. I can watch the needle sweep contemptuously around the dial until I’m doing 150mph or more; I can make body-slammingly tight turns; I can whizz hither and thither at top speed−without fear of the myopic; and I can do all this without worrying about the rozzers. Woohoo! Totally selfish? Yes! Totally addictive? Yup! Totally inspiring? You betcha!

You guessed it. The half a mile is up in the sky and it’s in our Zlin 326 that I can do all this, as can any one of us fortunate enough to have access to an aeroplane.