UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED?

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

The term experimental aircraft carries an ominous suggestion of danger. If it's experimental, it might still have glitches that could send you plummeting out of the sky in a hurry. Besides, nonmilitary experimental planes are often built from kits out in the pilot's garage or barn. It's pretty obvious that you would need to have a death wish--or at least a reckless soul--to go up in one.

Yet what's obvious isn't always true. The plane in which John Denver died last week was indeed an experimental aircraft, a model called the Long-EZ. But it would be naive to assume that the airplane was at fault. Not only is the Long-EZ considered solid, safe and relatively easy to fly, but it also requires a pilot's license and medical certificate to operate--and Denver didn't have the latter. His certificate had been yanked by the Federal Aviation Administration after Denver was arrested twice for driving his car while intoxicated.

The temptation to blame the plane comes largely from a confusion between experimental aircraft and ultralight planes. Both became hugely popular in the mid-1980s after a series of product-liability lawsuits drove the makers of conventional small planes--Piper Cubs, Cessna 150s and other single-engine aircraft--to the brink of bankruptcy and, in some cases, over it.

Experimentals and ultralights, by contrast, are often built by the pilots themselves, which shifts the liability to the owner and cuts insurance and labor costs sharply. As a result, these flying machines cost from a few thousand dollars to $30,000, in contrast to $100,000 or more for a conventional aircraft. "Before these planes came along," says police sergeant Bruce Talbot, who built and operates his Long-EZ in Bolingbrook, Ill., "flying meant you had to be a rich man."

No more. Nearly 30,000 experimental and ultralight planes are currently plying the skies, with about 1,000 more joining them each year. There's a world of difference, though, between a homebuilt ultralight and a homebuilt experimental plane. Ultralights have to weigh less than 256 lbs. fully fueled and go no faster than about 63 m.p.h., and they can be flown only during daylight hours. You don't need a license to fly one, and you don't need an inspection to make sure it's safe. Many ultralights are elegant and airworthy; the plane featured in last year's movie Fly Away Home is a good example. But if you strapped a snowmobile engine and some plywood wings onto a lawn chair and got it to fly, the FAA couldn't stop you.

Planes like the Long-EZ are also built at home, but that's where the resemblance ends. They're created by experts. The Long-EZ was made by legendary designer Burt Rutan, whose Voyager in 1986 became the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. Before any experimental aircraft can take off, an FAA inspector goes over it in excruciating detail to make sure it's airworthy. Flying a Long-EZ isn't as safe as sitting on the couch watching Seinfeld--71 accidents and 28 deaths have been reported since 1983. But that's safer than many homebuilts and comparable to other small planes that are factory built. Besides, many of those Long-EZ accidents were the result of pilot error.

That doesn't necessarily mean Denver made any mistakes--other than flying without a medical certificate. There's no evidence that he'd been drinking that day. "He was a solid pilot," says Tom Poberezny, president of the Experimental Aircraft Association in Oshkosh, Wis. The man who recently sold Denver the nine-year-old plane says the singer took it up for two checkout flights before the final, fatal one. The investigation still being conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board may test another theory: that Denver had a freak collision with a pelican. But unless the NTSB finds otherwise, Denver, his plane and experimental aircraft in general should probably be presumed innocent.

--Reported by James L. Graff/Chicago and Jerry Hannifin/Cape Canaveral

With reporting by JAMES L. GRAFF/CHICAGO AND JERRY HANNIFIN/CAPE CANAVERAL