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.

He had become familiar with the VariEze through building canards for others and then heard the plans for the LongEZ were about to come out.

"I drove up to Mojave and met Sally Melville for the first time. I asked her when the plans would be out and she looked at her watch and said, 'Oh, in about half an hour,' so I got in line and received the second set."

By 1983 he had built three LongEZs for others, hadn't yet completed his own and still hadn't even gotten a ride in one. That's when Dick Rutan and Jeanne Yeager talked him into coming to work on the Voyager project. While there, he finished his own LongEZ.

After leaving the Voyager project he returned to the LA basin where he continued custom building and became involved with California Microwave modifying LongEZs to use as RPVs. At the same time, he was doing subcontract work for such companies as Yamaha, showing them how to use fibreglass for conceptual work, designing prototypes, building prototypes and anything else that came along. He even became involved in a three-wheel vehicle prototype.

All the time he was doing this work he was working on a new airplane, a new evolutionary step away from the LongEZ.

"Every LongEZ I built was non-standard. They had different noses, different canopies, cowls, engines, exhaust systems, induction systems. I kept modifying and improving until by 1985 I had quite a wish list of things I wanted to incorporate into a single airplane. Moulding the fuselage was high on that list along with retractable landing gear and a larger engine.

"Even though I didn't know what gear I wanted to use, I knew I wanted to stay away from mounting it on the outboard end of the main spar. I talked to Shirl Dickey about his retract gear and saw that by lengthening the fuselage to both balance the engine and give a larger cockpit, it also give me room to mount the gear in the belly. Today Dickey makes my gear legs.

"I wanted to move everything forward because of the LongEZ's ability to have an aft CG accidentally built into it. Also, I wanted at least 360 cubic engines behind the firewall because I knew the LongEZ's gross weight was primarily a factor of its ability to climb or perform at higher density altitudes. It all worked together to give more room and more power with a cleaner airframe."

Prototypes being what they are...prototypes...they always have a bunch of things that "...will be taken care of in the kits..." In the dozens of demonstrators we've flown, not one has been as-kitted, so the Berkut is far from being alone in that respect.

A word about canard airplanes and especially those with a tandem configuration: Canards are different than other airplanes, both in the way they fit and in the way they fly. The differences aren't huge and are easily acclimated to by a pilot with some adaptability built into him. To a Spam can driver who has limited homebuilt experience, however, just sliding down into the airplane will make him or her feel as if they are boarding an F-16. Or the space shuttle. And that's not far from being the truth. The environment alone is enough to get the juices flowing, both the good ones and the bad, which makes flying the airplane that much more of a challenge.

In the case of an airplane like the Berkut, almost every aspect of it has to be looked at from two points of view: The first is how it would be viewed by someone with experience in canard aircraft. The second is how it would be looked at by the average pilot/builder (300-500 hours total time, 35-50 hrs per year) with no tiny airplane or canard experience.

For instance, sliding down into the cockpit requires threading both legs through cut-outs in the bottom edge of the panel and slinking down into a semi-supine seating position. To a LongEZ driver the fit will feel almost luxurious in both elbow room and general accommodations. Everything fits the way a high-performance pilot sees it in his dreams. A C-172 pilot, on the other hand, is going to feel as if he is being loaded into an artillary shell. Even though it's not even remotely tight (how much moving around do you actually do on a cross country?), it will be perceived that way by a big airplane pilot. To him or her, the smallish instrument panel is going to feel like a lap top computer is strapped across his legs. Once the pilot is accustomed to the environment, his biggest problem will be in staying awake, it is so comfortable.

As it happens, the rudder pedals were too far away for my what are apparently stubbier than average legs and we had to put a thick pack behind me. That, unfortunately, moved me so far forward it screwed up the ergonomics of the stick placement and the canopy curvature. It was nothing major, but noticeable.

Here it is again: Kit-build aircraft have the option of adjustable rudder pedals.

Norm went through the litany of avionics, switches etc. and it was time to crank. The Lycoming lit off and I felt it, rather than heard it start barking. The airframe is so stiff there was no doubt when the air/fuel mixture was right for firing.

The brakes at first give the impression of being mushy, but we hadn't moved 20 feet when I began to like the way they were modulated. Some steer-by-brake systems are touchy, others not positive enough. This one had a nice soft feel that developed pressure just before actually getting braking so it was easy to steer.

A problem I always have with canards is keeping my feet off the pedals when they aren't needed. Since the rudders are independent, my usual technique of keeping pressure on both pedals always backfires because it deploys both rudders at the same time. Not critical but certainly strange looking to an observer.

The Berkut canopies probably add a lot of complexity and cost to the kit, but from my perspective they are worth every penny. The ability to taxi with one or both canopies open, ala F-4 Phantom, is worth its weight in AN hardware (or gold, which ever is higher). The usual canopy on a canard can't be opened during taxi although you can crack them to the safety notch on the latch. Taxiing the Berkut like a convertible was nice. Then, just reach up and pull, remembering to get the hands out of the way when it starts down.

Once the canopy was down, I found my forward seating position put the forward canopy combing in a position that blocked part of the top row of instruments including the airspeed. Again, adjustable pedals will solve that.

As we lined up on the centerline of the big Williams-Gateway 12R, I was conscious of a lot of pressure on the side stick from the elevator trim springs. Norm had said it was trimmed okay for takeoff, but there was no trim indicator so that was an educated guess.

The plan was to accelerate to 90 mph, smoothly rotate and climb out. With that in mind, I eased the power in, remembering I might need some brake to steer. It took only one tiny poke with the brakes before the rudders took over. Then it was just a matter of waiting a few seconds until the needle started towards 90 mph. I gently increased back pressure on the stick and found I was still fighting a lot of trim pressure. Norm had said the elevator would blow up to neutral and lighten the trim load. Apparently it needed the trim rolled further back because it took a lot of muscle to get the nose up.

When the nose cleared the runway, the airplane started off the ground and I went to check the nose and hold that exact attitude. When I did, the nose dropped far more than I wanted with the help of the trim springs and I skipped off the runway. Embarrassing! That was okay, though, because I'd embarrass myself much more later in the flight.

A quick fix for the trim problem would be a trim indicator, which could be nothing more than a paint stripe on the inboard end of a canard tip where the elevator mates.

Once off the ground I found holding the pitch attitude required some careful isometrics of me against the springs until I had enough sense to reach up with a thumb and toggle the lollipop trim switch on top the stick back a couple times. Then life became much more livable.

The airplane was moving around a little because I hadn't yet learned to appreciate how rapidly the airplane responded to any kind of aileron pressure. Any kind!

Retracting the gear was strictly a matter of throwing the small switch between my legs up. If the lights hadn't winked I would have never known anything had gone on, since the airplane didn't do anything unusual.