This Is Not an Aerobatic Airplane but Kyle Fowler Is Rolling It Over Cleveland Anyway

https://youtu.be/lr9rnp4KUok

CLEVELAND, OH — Walking down the flight line at Burke Lakefront Airport, your eyes naturally adjust to the silhouettes of standard airshow legends, swept wings, prop biplanes, and military steel. Then you hit Kyle Fowler’s staging spot, and everything you think you know about aviation looks delightfully flipped on its head.

With its razor-thin forward canard wing and rear-mounted pusher propeller, Fowler’s bright yellow 1986 Rutan Long-EZ resembles a futuristic spacecraft far more than a typical show plane. Even sitting motionless on the tarmac, the machine tells a story. Before he straps into the cockpit, Fowler has to physically lift the craft from its nose, manhandling the front end into position just to manually extend the forward landing gear. The reason is pure center-of-gravity physics: whenever the plane is empty, that front wheel must remain completely retracted with the belly resting flush against the asphalt. Leave the nose wheel out without a pilot in the seat, and the immense weight of the rear engine will instantly cause the entire airplane to tip backward onto its tail.

https://youtube.com/shorts/iYNV5iAHDzg

For Fowler, bringing this quirky homebuilt marvel to the shores of Lake Erie marks a milestone in his traveling career. "This is my first time in Cleveland and it's the best hospitality I've seen," Fowler told Cleveland 13 with a grin as crowds gathered along the barricades. A veteran of the flight circuit whose roots run deep, he’s a second-generation performer who spent his childhood traveling to shows with his late father, Ken Fowler; Fowler knows world-class airshow country when he sees it. "Incredible location for a show. I've been going to airshows for 30 years now, and this site is absolutely incredible. To me, a good show has variety, and this show is no exception to that. It's an incredible show and an incredible lineup."

What makes Fowler’s routine such a crowd-pleaser isn't just the airplane’s sci-fi aesthetic, it’s the fact that, on paper, it shouldn’t be doing any of it. Burt Rutan originally designed the composite Long-EZ for cross-country cruising efficiency, not aggressive tumbling. Most pilots would treat it with gentle hands, but Fowler, a former automotive mechanic from Alberta who transitioned to full-time flying, CLEVELAND, Ohio approaches the airframe with a mischievous spark. "This is not an aerobatic airplane," Fowler admitted frankly. "But I've always said anything can do a loop and roll if you try hard enough."

Once airborne over the lakefront, Fowler proves his point in spectacular fashion. He winds the sleek composite bird up to over 200 knots, transforming a cross-country cruiser into an acrobatic marvel that traces sweeping loops and crisp barrel rolls against the downtown skyline. It is high-energy, unconventional flying at its finest, proving to tens of thousands of fans on the lakefront that a little bit of audacity and a lot of heart can bend the rules of flight into pure showmanship.