The first metal midget to bear the Luscombe name was the almost-extinct, but still-legendary, Phantom which had lines and a round engine which made it look like a Lockheed Vega that had been run through the fast-dry cycle and shrunk two sizes. Not too many folks know about the Phantom today but Luscombe's second design, the lovely little 8 Series, always comes up when the conversation turns to airplanes that are fast for their horsepower, fun-to-fly and relatively cheap.

Gene Popma of Somerset, New Jersey, owns one of the "other" types of Luscombes. You see, as time went on, and thousands of Luscombes were built, they became one of the most common used airplanes in existence. Eventually, the time came when an airport of the grassroots variety wasn't worthy of the name if it didn't have at least one derelict Luscombe (tires flat, leaning to one side, four families of mice living in the wings), and two airworthy examples that, if they were painted at all, were done with a combination of paint rollers and spray cans. And then there's the "other" type of Luscombes . . . the dressed-to-kill super birds.

Luscombes didn't make the jump into the classic category quite as quickly as others in its peer group, like the sophisticated Swift or overtly practical Cessna 140 so, today, the dichotomy between the grassroots, around-the-patch king-of-the-el-cheapo-flying-machines, and the super-spiffy Naugahyde specials is striking. Surely Gene Popma's hot-rodded 8F custom category classic has to be leading the way in dragging more and more of the paint roller specials over to the side of the paint, pamper and polish fanatics.

I'm certain Popma doesn't consider himself to be a fanatic. On the other hand, he's a highly-intelligent, rational business executive who owns two 150 horsepower Luscombes, so he might just be perfectly willing to label himself "fanatic" and be damn proud of it.

Gene and I met as flying fanatics usually do . . . on a sunny day at an airport. Mother 'Nature had gotten her calendar screwed up and mistakenly gave us a Labor Day weekend with weather right out of a Kodak ad. I had both hands on the tail-wires of my Pitts and had just pushed it out through the open hangar doors when this winged block of chrome greased onto the runway and rolled up to the gas pumps. I could see my own reflection from halfway across the ramp, as I walked towards it in the natural gait of a midwestern moth who was attracted to an eastern flame.

By the time I got over to the airplane the pilot and passenger had disappeared into the terminal, so I did several quick laps of the craft and made a beeline after them. There is undoubtedly a type of protocol to be used in rousting somebody out of a rest room but in this case a simple, "Hey-who owns that polished Luscombe?" was enough to bring Gene Popma out the door and headed in my direction. It would have been terribly disappointing had Gene been one of those I've-got-mine-you-find-yours type of individuals. Fortunately, Gene was as enthusiastic about showing his airplane as I was in looking.

Since I had already done a quick turn around the hyper-polished sheet metal, I headed for the interior and found that the sheet metal was outshone by the unexpectedly sophisticated accoutrements of the interior . . . how many Luscombes do you find with new Collins Microline gear and a full IFR panel including ADF? It was so unexpected, in fact, that it took me a second to assimilate everything that was on the panel, because there was so much there that shouldn't have been.

Gene was pleased as a proud papa, as he took me on a tour of the tiny cabin of his travelling machine. He peeled back the Velcroed bulkhead to show the extended baggage tube that carries his golf clubs and pointed out how the rear baggage area would accommodate either a twenty-gallon aux tank (which brings the total up to a whopping forty-five gallons) or a jump seat capable of carrying as much as 180 pounds.

As he would point out different parts of the interior, he would mention that "This was done after the engine conversion" and he mentioned the words "engine conversion" several times before I asked him what the conversion was. He nonchalantly (but with a sly grin) said, "They installed a 150-horse Lycoming."

A 150 Lycoming! I had walked around the airplane several times and been as attentive as you could possibly be while protecting yourself from the awesome glare the airplane presented and I had seen absolutely nothing that indicated this machine was as much "go" as "show". Even after ducking back out and looking at the cowl for a second time, it is hard to pick out any obvious change in form that would set this particular Luscombe nose apart from any others but a 150 Lycoming very definitely sets it apart, whether it shows or not.

It's quite obvious that Gene is used to a certain amount of adulation over his shiny plaything. It's also obvious that he enjoys every second of showing it to appreciative audiences and I was one very appreciative audience.

Gene, an ex-World War Two SBD pilot, first found his Luscombe in 1980 at an airport in Colorado. The airplane had already been converted to a 150, but in many other ways did not measure up to what Gene's idea of a custom classic should be, so he took it back up to Moody Larson in Belleville, Michigan, who did the original conversion and bad him strip the airplane down to its sheet metal skivvies and bring it up again as a new airplane. It was during this rebuild that the beautiful, original aluminium wheel pants were reinstalled.

Gene offered me a pilot's-eye view of what it's like to fiy a 150 Luscombe and I was in and had the safety belt around me before he could reconsider the offer.

When we lit the burner under that Lycoming, there was no doubt that this was not your average 8F Luscombe. At the same time, however, there was a "complete" feeling that this is the way all Luscombes should be because the panel, the interior and the noise all fit together so smoothly. The nice thing about taxiing Luscombes is you can see over the nose ---maybe not quite as well as a Skyhawk, but certainly better than most other airplanes of their era. Of course when you come to the end of the runway and you need to check for traffic, the 360-degree clearing turn is obligatory because you're sitting so far back in the wing/ fuselage intersection that you can't see squat out to the side . . . one of the biggest drawbacks in Luscombes.

Lined up on the center line, I depressed the button on the vernier throttle (vernier throttle in a Luscombe!) while pushing it in and we left out of the chute smoothly but in a hell of a hurry. I picked the tail up almost immediately, trying to hold a slightly tail-down attitude so it would fly off on its own. While I was trying to figure out the attitude, the airplane lost its patience with me and left the ground.

SEVENTY-FIVE TO EIGHTY MPH WAS THE POPMA-recommended climb speed but the nose attitude was so high that I dropped it down and climbed out at eighty-five or ninety, all the time turning to see what was in front of and around me. Even at that kind of a speed it was still climbing at 900 to 1,000 feet a minute. Gene has a fairly coarse prop on the airplane and on takeoff we didn't see more than about 2300 rpm. Even so, a seventy-five mph max climb effort puts 1,300 feet per minute on the VSI and Gene says with a climb prop it'll run right up to 1,900 feet per minute. How's that for a Luscombe? But then what would you expect with 150 horses in it?

The airplane is equipped with one of those new Dave Clark intercom systems that's hot all the time and it was magnificent. At one time I took the headset off to assess the noise level (which is very definitely there) and found they all but insulated you from any noise whatsoever. They made conversation as easy as sitting in your living room, and that might as well be where I was sitting because there was absolutely no similarity between sitting in this Luscombe and any other I had flown. Sure, the elbow-to-elbow seating position is still there, and the same tiny little rudder pedals placed close together, but everything else that normally says "Luscombe" is gone except, of course, those blinders out to the side called wings.