All Wound Up

After six years and three months, George Heaven’s dream of building the world’s first rubber band-powered airplane capable of carrying a human is winding up.

The Rubber Bandit, which has amassed a following of fans and naysayers from around the world, is finally finished. Heaven, a Woodland Hills aeronautical engineer who designed the craft, said he plans a secret test flight this month to gain certification from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Then in September, Heaven vows, the radio-controlled plane powered by 90 pounds of giant, tightly wound rubber bands will make its first public flight--an event expected to attract tens of thousands of spectators. Although details are still being worked out, the flight may be at Van Nuys Airport, where the airplane was built and assembled.

Heaven says if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn’t.

“It was too much of a struggle. Nobody would do it,” he said, recounting years of delays in his battle to raise more than $500,000 for the quirky project.

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Despite adversity, the 47-year-old stunt pilot still talks with a boyish glint in his eyes about the records he plans to set with the world’s largest model airplane. On Friday, Heaven and his crew of a dozen volunteer builders rolled out the completed craft from its hangar to admire their creation.

Like a graceful sea gull frozen in flight, the 71-foot span of the clear blue wings fashioned in space-age materials stretched across the hangar aisle as the two-story-tall prop spun fluidly in the light breeze. The men, in awed silence, could only stare and imagine.

A plane powered by rubber bands? As syndicated columnist Dave Barry says, it’s “Stuff That Guys Do.”

Among “the guys” Friday was Greg Morton, a sound engineer for motion pictures and television, who has been working on the plane almost daily for the past three years.

“When we wind that thing up, there will be no way to stop it,” Morton said. “George will be there for the ride.”

Another was Spencer Marks, an electronic systems engineer who joined the crew 18 months ago. “This is going to be one of those historical projects,” he said. “This will hang in the Smithsonian forever.”

Harold Wissell, an aviator, stunt man and engineer, enthusiastically joined the project 15 months ago after meeting Heaven.

“I said, ‘This is Field of Dreams stuff, George. I’ll help you build it,’ ” Wissell said Friday.

Heaven was commissioned to undertake the project in March 1994 when a pair of radio deejays concocted a plan to “fly” a 240-pound Bob’s Big Boy statue across the Grand Canyon. That proposal fizzled when Heaven, as the consulting engineer, concluded the task was not feasible. But his scientific calculations led to the concept that a giant model plane, weighing just 200 pounds not counting the motor and pilot, could fly up to a mile and a half.

Today, thousands of people from around the world have visited Heaven’s Rubberworks shop at Van Nuys Airport and followed the plane’s progress on www.rubberbandit.com.

Sales of T-shirts, hats and other souvenirs have helped raise money, as have ongoing fund-raising and sponsorship campaigns. Heaven has periodically set aside the project for months at a time to take on jobs as an aeronautic and aerospace engineer to raise more money for his primary interest.

Over the course of the project, Heaven says, four of his volunteer workers have died and his marriage of 19 years ended in divorce.

“The whole saga is not on the Web page,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s been six years of hard labor.”

His face lights up again, though, when he talks about the invitations he has received to demonstrate the plane in Japan, England, Australia and Spain.

“We’ll go all over the world,” he said.

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But he still needs a truck and trailer to transport the plane and its support equipment. He has started building a 40-foot-long fifth-wheel trailer that will become the craft’s permanent home. The plane, constructed of carbon fiber and Mylar--the same materials used for model airplanes and the Stealth fighter--will break down into a dozen parts for transporting in a specially outfitted trailer.

Nine pieces of support equipment, including a winch that fits onto a tractor and is used to precisely wind the rubber band, will travel with the airplane.

Heaven said he has not yet determined where he will conduct the test flight for the FAA, which is required to demonstrate that the aircraft is controllable.

FAA officials have ruled the test cannot be done at Van Nuys because it is a busy airport within close proximity to homes. Heaven said, however, he is hoping the maiden public flight can be made at the Valley airport after the plane is certified.

The date for the public flight is uncertain, but Heaven is at least sure of the weather: It will be a windless day with takeoff between 5:30 and 7:30 a.m. Like all the calculations penciled into a 3-inch-thick notebook, Heaven has thought of every detail.

Does he ever wake up in the night, suddenly aware of some unforeseen trouble? “No, never,” Heaven said confidently. “I don’t have any fears. It will fly.”