
DATE: Saturday, October 18, 1997            TAG: 9710180035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LOUIS HANSEN, staff writer

                                            LENGTH:  108 lines

PILOTS LOYAL TO PLANES LIKE THE ONE IN WHICH DENVER DIED

AT FIRST GLANCE, this plane looks like somebody built it backward.

A pair of short, narrow wings, known as the canard, jut out near the nose of its fiberglass body.

Farther back, behind the pilot's seat, sprouts the main, 24-foot wingspan, tipped with a pair of vertical stabilizers with rudders.

There, at the tail, a wood and aluminum propeller butts a foot clear of the rear-mounted engine.

Pilot Guillermo Geary offers one of the plane's two seats to a visitor, saying, ``Climb in.''

The craft heads down a stretch of runway at Suffolk Airport with few rumbles, like the sound of an impertinent rider lawn mower, and reaches 80 mph.

And the plane, known as a Vari Eze, similar in design to the one singer John Denver flew on his fatal flight, emerges from the runway with a buzz and a waggle.

``Any time you take an airplane into the air,'' said veteran Virginia Beach pilot and skydiver Jim Parkman, ``you take a calculated risk.''

Pilots know that crashes are always possible, but the rewards of the sky blue freedom and solitude are simply too much to pass up.

Several pilots in Hampton Roads offered a caveat to their grief about the 53-year-old singer's fatal crash: it won't stop them from flying.

Denver flew his Long Eze solo over Monterey Bay in California on a clear Sunday afternoon. Investigators say he was about 500 feet in the air and 100 yards off the coast when his engine quit and the craft dropped into the rough water.

The cause of the crash has not been determined.

Public funeral services for the singer, who enjoyed worldwide popularity for his folksy ballads and songs, are scheduled today.

The type of aircraft Denver was flying, known by its two model names, the Vari Eze and the Long Eze, was designed by aviator Burt Rutan in the 1970s.

The design has been popular with recreational fliers across the country since the early 1980s. Eze aficionados say it's fun and fast - with the rear-propulsion and feel, but not the speed, of a jet plane.

Although the planes are classified as experimental by the Federal Aviation Administration, their manufacture and flight usually involve no experimentation.

Before going airborne, they must pass scrutiny from FAA inspectors. They are tested again later for airworthiness and again annually.

``It's not like some cowboy is building these in his garage,'' said Roger Leonard, owner of Cardinals' Pilot Shop at the Suffolk Airport.

Aviators can purchase kits to build the plane, which can cost about $30,000, or buy them used for about $25,000.

Despite Denver's accident, local pilots are still buoyant about the plane.

``They're great,'' said Chesapeake pilot John Wise, an aviator for 15 years. ``As far as experimentals, it's one of the best ever made.''

George Shell has flown for 17 years and darts out of work and into a hanger at the Suffolk Airport to build his own Long Eze.

``It's a real fast aircraft and it's real safe,'' said Shell, 48, of Suffolk, who expects to have his Long Eze finished by next June, when he plans to retire from the Navy.

When completed, Shell's two-seater plane will have a wingspan of 27 feet, rise 7 1/2 feet high, carry 52 gallons of gasoline and reach a cruising speed of 200 mph. The engine has two sets of spark plugs, in case one fails.

With a 1,200-mile range on one tank of gas, ``it'll open up half the United States to you in a weekend,'' he said.

Most aviators agreed that at 500 feet, the altitude investigators said Denver was flying, there is only a few seconds of error for an Eze pilot. The sleek plane can drop 500 feet, Shell said, ``before you can get a full sneeze out.''

Once airborne from the Suffolk Airport runaway, Geary's plane ascends over the Nansemond River, its estuaries, and a brown and green farmland tableau.

Radio headphones dull the engine buzz.

The worn, rigid brown seats in the 1980 model plane are covered with faux-sheepskin seat covers. A pair of seat belts fit snuggly across the belt and down the torso to secure passengers.

Wind brushes through cracks between the thin, smoked plastic cockpit and the fuselage.

Every turn contains a slide, and sometimes a swing. The cockpit rocks like a hammock as he flies over a dusty field.

That's a nice place to land in an emergency, Geary says. ``You want to avoid (flying) places where you can't land,'' he adds.

The 27-year-old San Diego native has been flying since he was 13. He's training to fly F-14 fighter jets and handles his nimble plane with a deft touch on the control stick.

Geary's plane is about 15 percent smaller than the Long Eze. Crisp, quick, agile - it might be an aviator's Mazda Miata. He reaches 165 mph.

At 2,200 feet, he drops the engine into idle. He glides, pulling circles and turns through an invisible highway, offering gravity an elegant and stubborn fight.

The design of the plane makes it almost impossible to stall. If the engine dies, he says, ``it just means you're a glider.''

At the landing, he drops off his passenger and heads back up.

``If you're scared,'' he says, ``you probably shouldn't be flying.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos

JOHN H. SHEALLY II / The Virginian-Pilot

Pilot Guillermo Geary, front, gives a ride to reporter Louis Hansen

in his Vari Eze plane at Suffolk Airport. The Vari Eze is a slightly

smaller model of the Long Eze that John Denver was flying when he

crashed.

The plane's propeller, powered by a rear-mounted engine, is a blur

as Geary prepares for takeoff. The main wings, mounted behind the

pilot, have a 24-foot span. Another pair of short wings, the canard,

are near the nose.