I remember people hating on Denver as a person who commercialized Colorado. A sellout. His tunes were okay. He died because of his own stupidity.
Don't know about that, but as I recall he wasn't paying attention and simply ran out of gas and crashed.
I just read up on it, said no drugs or alcohol were in his system, he was not lisenced to fly at the time. Was a home made plane and he could not reach the fuel tank switch to get more fuel from the 2nd tank what a way to gom
Actually, the toy size airplane supposedly crashed because he took off on the reserve tank instead of the main of the unfamiliar model. He had to lean and contort back to the valve and pitched over into the ground.
da fuel selector valve wuz badly positioned by da dude dat assembled da plane from a kit da plane wuz gud, tis a Rutan Long-EZ da aircraft design was not at fault john should have had the mechanic move da valve plus fuel gauge to da front cockpit and should have refueled da plane, plus plus or should have invited a qualified pilot friend ta fly in da back seat to control da fuel valve n watch the fuel gauge, jus sayn [ not dat i would recommend dat, it would not be a gud idea, xcept as a temporary workaround ] from da wiki and da NTSB report
Pretty much everything he sang was golden! Loved his music, but he was an entertainer. Little Known Fact: Originally, the song was going to be about country roads in Maryland, but the writers couldn't make it work.
Grew up listin to him, loved almost all his music, and didn't find issue with his environmentalism/activist stuff, he was pretty harmless, and a hell of a singer and songwriter! Today folk would call him WOKE, but he really wasn't at all, just conscious of the wider world then most folks!
I thought the plane itself was cool. None of the gauges were marked if I remember right. He should have waited.
John was supposedly a VERY accomplished and experienced pilot, it seems to me, he ether got caught up in the excitement of his new purchase of what was quite a hotrod, and didn't do his due diligence to actually LEARN the machine completely, and it cost him his life! Couple points here, 1) He should have done ground school on the aircraft with the seller/owner which would have informed him of the fuel shutoff/selector valve, and any other things he needed to know before ever attempting to even fly it! 2) The FAA actually requires a aircraft inspection and certification, even on Experimental aircraft, it's a Cert. of Airworthiness which is absolutely REQUIRED, even when purchasing a used "Kit Plane" the new buyer must apply for and have said inspection preformed and a new Cert. issued! Said inspection would have called out issues such as the fuel control valve and any other discrepancies from standard as designed, and because this was a Rutan Kit, it was VERY well known what would be standard and what would not be, and must have a noted variance included in the Inspection report, and the final sign off for that Cert would include said variance! It's not known if John had done any of these things, it's likely his "Celebrity Status" got played to skirt the process and that killed him!! Seen this happen several times in my local when we still lived in Oregon, idiots NOT doing the required inspections and ground school on a new to them aircraft and then going out and crashing them, and in a few cases, killing innocents on the ground, all because they ether didn't know the rules, or didn't care! If/when ever I buy a new aircraft, I expect ground school on THAT aircraft, before I ever even start the engine, I want to know EVERYTHING about it, especially non standard things, and any changes from factory, even on a KIT. Only after I know what I am dealing with, THEN I go through the FAA inspection process, even for an experimental aircraft and have a new Certificate of Airworthiness issued to ME on that aircraft, only after that, then I do the ground tests and once I know it's good to go, then would I attempt to fly it, and even then, I'm going to be running a bunch of performance tests within the field pattern before attempting to do anything more! After all, it's only MY life in my hands, and only after I have enough trust in that machine, enough that I know it's Me that might fail and not the machine, then I would be comfortable enough to fly it more then just test flights!
