The descendants of the Mongols of central Asia must have an intense feeling of pleasure knowing they'd progressed to the point they could command the mighty golden eagle to do their wolf hunting for them. Their name for this ultimate bird of prey is Berkut.
'Wonder how they'd feel seeing their stately weapon swoop to the Earth backwards? Its tail feathers in front?
Those of us belonging to the tribe EAA wouldn't bat an eye at seeing a Berkut swoop down to the numbers with its traditional beak and tail pointing the wrong direction. That's how far we've progressed.
We now accept the unusual as the usual, courtesy of the sultan of weird, Burt Rutan. We have come so far since the original VariEze, 4EZ, blew us away at Oshkosh '77 with its absolutely Buck Rogers, this-can't-really-be-happening appearance, that nothing surprises us any longer. That is why an aircraft such as Dave Ronnenberg's wonderfully modern rendition of the feathered, Mongol wolf hunter is accepted as being only logical. It is part of a progression, a natural evolvement of the unique breed of eagles that look as if they fly backwards and are only a few steps removed from an picnic cooler in structural complexity.
Ronnenberg and his company, Experimental Aviation (3025 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90405, 310-391-8645 Editor's note: this company no longer is in business), have taken the basic concept of the VariEze/LongEZ and carried it to the next level. A long-time builder of LongEZs (eight to his credit), Ronnenberg didn't start out to have a career building backwards flying machines. He had been a serious model builder when, in his mid-twenties the death of his brother set him on a new life-path.
"That was the turning point of my life," he remembers, "I needed something to help me keep my sanity, so I decided to design and build an airplane of my own."
At that time he hadn't even been in a light airplane, but he felt he had to build something that flew.
"I don't know why I thought I could do it, but I had no reason to believe that I couldn't do it either. As a child I had always felt if I had the right tools and the right materials I could build anything."
He describes that first airplane as a cross between a Mustang and a Spitfire built of thin plywood and foam. Four years later he found the airplane had had its desired effect.
"At that point I realized I had survived the emotional upheaval of my brother's death and at the same time realized I had a natural feeling for fiberglass and composites. I looked at that airplane and knew I had done my kindergarten work at one end of it and my college thesis at the other.
"It had been a combination education and psychological survival course. it had served its purpose, so I took a saw to most of it and the only time it flew was as the parts left my hand and spun a few times before they hit the dirt at the Los Angeles dump."
