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"  IT&amp;#039;S DAY FOUR of a five-day build, and the nine-man Monster Garage team has reached its first crisis. The project being tackled is ambitious even by the audacious standards of a show that has turned a Mustang into a 50-mph lawnmower, and a school bus into a party boat. In the center of the Long Beach, Calif., shop, a number of mechanics are chipping away the shell of a partially dismantled Panoz Esperante, an exotic aluminum and carbon-fiber sports car built in Atlanta. Nearby, another group is riveting 4 x 8-ft. sheets of shiny aluminum to form the skin of a wing about 16 ft. long, 5 ft. wide and a good foot thick. Another wing&amp;#039;s worth of ribs and spars is stacked under a table. Sparks fly. Pneumatic riveting hammers tattoo intermittently. An HDTV camera on a 30-ft. boom silently circles the action like a UFO, poking its nose in tight for the closeups, backing off for the wide shots. There&amp;#039;s a substantial pile of leftover Esperante parts in the corner of the shop, as nearly a thousand pounds of car have been removed to lighten it. Within 36 hours this car has to be ready to fly. An increasingly loud discussion at the back of the car attracts several crew members--and the hovering camera. Over the rear of the vehicle, one group has fabricated an articulated frame out of steel square tubing. On top of it is a Lycoming O-320, a 200-plus-pound, four-cylinder aircraft engine salvaged from a hurricane-damaged Cessna. The crew wants to make the engine retractable, rising above the wing for flying, and then returning to what used to be the trunk when it&amp;#039;s time to drive with all four wheels on the ground. The strength of the engine mount has become the subject of debate. Vigorous debate, actually. Like all Monster Garage build teams, this one is a patchwork of people from different backgrounds: three engineers on loan from Cessna, a couple of guys from Atlanta Air Salvage, two mechanics from Panoz, a couple of aircraft enthusiasts and fabricators, and a fellow who&amp;#039;s been working on his own flying car project for years. Now they&amp;#039;re split down the middle. The fabricators have spent two days cutting and welding to make the mount glide up and down. They think it&amp;#039;s more than adequate. The engineering staff sees the structure&amp;#039;s flexibility as a potential liability. If the car makes a hard landing, the engine could conceivably break free--and seeing as how it and its rapidly rotating propeller are mounted about 2 ft. from the pilot&amp;#039;s head, this is cause for concern. Click here for our exclusive Web-only photo shoot of Jesse and the Monster Garage build. And seeing as how the pilot is going to be Jesse James, Monster Garage&amp;#039;s host, head fabricator and principal butt-kicker, there&amp;#039;s really only one way to resolve the dispute. Jesse rises from his workbench at the rear of the set and walks over to the car. He pokes and prods the engine mount, seeming to ignore the debate still volleying back and forth around him. He rubs the back of his head, the part closest to the propeller, then points at the mount with his other hand. &amp;quot;Screw it,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Cut it off and make a solid mount out of roll-cage tubing.&amp;quot; End of discussion. Jesse retreats to his workbench and continues his day&amp;#039;s contribution to the build--zoomy-looking headers for the Lycoming, which are styled suspiciously like the headers on a chopper parked outside the shop. The crew members return to their tasks. The riveting hammers resume their clatter. Within 20 minutes, the engine mount has been plasma-cut from the chassis, and work on a new one begun. JESSE FIRST DECIDED that he wanted to build a flying car at the age of 7. Three decades later, he&amp;#039;s getting his chance. It&amp;#039;s been an unlikely journey. After an unruly youth in Long Beach and a short stint as a rock-band bodyguard, Jesse settled into a career building custom choppers and hot rods. Within the past few years his Long Beach-based West Coast Choppers has become the boutique chopper shop for pro sports figures and Hollywood personalities, with bikes costing well into six figures. The Discovery Channel came calling in 2001. Reality shows featuring battling robots and junkyard engineering had become surprisingly successful on cable, and the channel was looking for a host who could up the mechanical ante and appeal to a younger, more heavily tattooed audience. Monster Garage became an immediate hit, propelled both by Jesse&amp;#039;s cable-ready intensity and by the show&amp;#039;s inherently dramatic format: A crew of maverick mechanics tries to beat the clock--and the temptation to clock each other over the head with a wrench--as they transform some mundane vehicle into ... something else. The crew has five days to complete its task. If the vehicle isn&amp;#039;t ready on time, Jesse takes it out into the desert and blows it up. Or worse. The show is totally unscripted and unrehearsed. No one, least of all Jesse, knows if the finished Frankenstein creation will sink or swim--or fly. &amp;quot;Unscripted?&amp;quot; you scoff. Actually, yes. I know this because I was part of a Monster Garage build crew last year. We spent five very long days turning a ratty 1968 Ford Bronco into a rock crawler with four-wheel steering. Skeptical of journalists, Jesse pretty much ignored me on set for the first few hours. Until he saw me welding. (I wasn&amp;#039;t always a journalist; I used to work for a living.) Welding, in the hot-rod/chopper world, is cool, and I know how to weld. Jesse now thinks I&amp;#039;m cool. At 2 am of the last build day, Jesse used our rock crawler to demolish a parked car outside the shop. Each team member won a toolbox containing $3400 worth of Mac Tools. Nice. The rock crawler episode went on to be one of the show&amp;#039;s most popular, and Jesse ultimately bought the crawler from the production company for his own personal use. Wal-Mart sells a battery-powered toy rock crawler that is a faithful miniature and carries Monster Garage signage. It&amp;#039;s another few seconds tacked onto the team&amp;#039;s 15 minutes of fame.    &amp;amp;gt;  --&amp;amp;gt;  WE WERE ALL PRETTY PROUD of our rock crawler, but let&amp;#039;s face it, it didn&amp;#039;t have to leave the ground. Arriving back on the Monster Garage set to observe the flying car build, I&amp;#039;m struck by the audacity of this particular project. Three builders are huddled over a laptop, pointing and making little finger airplanes fly back and forth in front of the screen, in the universal language of pilots. The laptop belongs to Neal Willford, whose day job is as an engineer at Cessna. He&amp;#039;s preloaded his laptop with a spreadsheet to help calculate things like lift/drag ratios and weight and balance. Willford explains that their goal is for the flying car to be roadworthy after the wings are folded away. After all, it&amp;#039;s based on a vehicle that&amp;#039;s already been licensed and driven. The FAA, in contrast, probably would have different ideas about approving an airplane built in such an off-the-cuff fashion. The amount of paperwork and number of FAA inspections required to have this aircraft certified for flight could never happen in only five days--especially for a rule-averse outfit like Monster Garage. So the team has come up with a clever dodge: The car will fly--but only in ground effect. In other words, it will ride the cushion of air that gets trapped between an aircraft&amp;#039;s wing and the ground within a wingspan of the surface. Jesse has already stated that he hopes only to get a few feet off the ground for a hundred feet or so--much like the Wright brothers did in their first flight--so this ought to be adequate.  Willford has carefully calculated the weight, drag and power of the craft. There won&amp;#039;t be enough power to get more than 5 or 6 ft. off the ground, anyway. Therefore, the FAA won&amp;#039;t consider it an aircraft capable of true flight, and the whole project will fall through a regulatory crack in the runway. At least in theory. More shortcuts: Because the flying car will be flying only a few feet above the ground, there will be no need to be able to bank steeply into turns like a real airplane. All the flying will have to be pretty much straight ahead and into the wind. The Wright brothers discovered early on that an airplane needed both rudders and ailerons for controlled flight, but the build team seems to think they can cut this corner and leave off the rudder. Besides, with brake, clutch and gas pedals on the diminutive floor of the Panoz, there&amp;#039;s no room for aircraft-style rudder pedals. And leaving them off will simplify the build. Jesse has taken an hour of flight time with an instructor. One hour total, consisting of flying in circles around the airport and practicing landings. I ask him if he thinks he&amp;#039;s ready. &amp;quot;Flying&amp;#039;s easy,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t need any more instruction.&amp;quot; Later in the day, his flight instructor drops by the shop. He allows that Jesse probably could get a license pretty easily within the FAA-mandated 40 hours of instruction if he pursued it. Several members of the build team suggest that a qualified test pilot should test hop the car before Jesse climbs into the claustrophobic cockpit. Jesse mulls this concept for several milliseconds before dismissing it. It&amp;#039;s just not how they do things at Monster Garage. Test pilot, indeed. Day Four wears on, but progress is gruelingly slow. There&amp;#039;s concern that the second wing half won&amp;#039;t be completed in time to be installed and rigged with cables to control the ailerons. The Lycoming hasn&amp;#039;t been started since before the hurricane. The car&amp;#039;s electrical system has been out of the car since Day One and is slowly being reinstalled by the Panoz guys--minus some parts. Ed Sweeney divides his time between rebuilding the Lycoming&amp;#039;s carburetor and petting his dog, Rusty. He&amp;#039;s part of the camp that thought the engine mount was under-engineered. Rusty is tied to a chair and barks when no one pays attention to him. Sweeney is currently deeply involved in designing a flying car of his own, based on a Lotus Elise, a project he&amp;#039;s been pursuing for many years. It&amp;#039;s calculated to fit into NASA&amp;#039;s Small Aircraft Transportation System that will make flying nearly as accessible as driving a car. He recently partnered with a major aerospace company, and may well be successful within a few more years. NOBODY&amp;#039;S PANICKING--yet--but there&amp;#039;s still a tremendous amount to do as the team shuffles in on Day Five. Both engines need to be fueled and fired. (But not until the welding is finished, someone from the production crew shouts. Smart man.) The second wing, amazingly, is finished by midafternoon. By suppertime the plumbing and electrical wiring are more or less completed, and it&amp;#039;s time to start the engines. Fuel is added to both tanks, but though the Panoz engine--a Ford 4.6-liter V8--cranks willingly, it won&amp;#039;t catch. The Panoz mechanics dive under the dash, and a half-hour later the problem is found--a ground wire to the engine management computer that had never been reconnected. The fix is made in a few minutes, and the engine catches instantly. The V8&amp;#039;s new exhaust system is way loud inside the sound studio. Everybody likes that. Now the aircraft engine is ready, but the spark plugs haven&amp;#039;t been installed. Sweeney wants to run the engine on the starter motor for a few seconds to clear any hurricane leftovers out of the combustion chambers. The other team members want to just fire the thing--but Sweeney has stashed the plugs. Sweeney gets his way for about 30 seconds, and then the plugs are installed. The engine starts almost instantly, the prop wash blowing open the stage door, and blasting dust and welding slag all over a half-season&amp;#039;s worth of completed Monster Garage project cars in the next room. It&amp;#039;s still a couple of hours before the midnight deadline, so there&amp;#039;s time for a few last-minute tweaks and then, finally, the car is ready to fly--or at least go for a test drive. The build team removes the wings and puts them in a truck, while the car is driven out of the shop and onto a trailer. The entire team heads to a local sports arena with a huge parking lot. I ride over in Sweeney&amp;#039;s Elise, folded up like the fortune in a Chinese cookie. The goal isn&amp;#039;t actually to get airborne--the first flight is scheduled to happen about a month later--but on Monster Garage, anything is possible. Body Drop, the show&amp;#039;s resident midget, buzzes the lot on a go-kart made from a beer cooler, looking for debris on the asphalt and annoying the security guards from the stadium.  Jesse cranks up both engines and floors it across the dark, rain-soaked parking lot. He makes a few passes, but the lot is far too short to attempt liftoff. Still, Jesse reports that the steering got very light as he accelerated through about 70 mph, indicating the front wheels were carrying almost no weight. &amp;quot;And then that chain-link fence started to get really close.&amp;quot; The build is declared a conditional success. But the car has yet to actually fly. &amp;amp;gt;  --&amp;amp;gt;  THE FIRST mention of a flying car in POPULAR MECHANICS appeared in 1906. The article showed a vehicle with a loose, fabric wing and announced: &amp;quot;Flying auto the latest motor car.&amp;quot; The aircraft didn&amp;#039;t make it--but over the years many designers have tried, with varying amounts of success, to realize the dream of creating the ultimate hybrid vehicle. A 1957 PM cover depicted a hypothetical flying sedan that employed ducted fans to get airborne. The concept lives on today in various vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, but, needless to say, the home version has yet to arrive. Aircraft designer Molt Taylor&amp;#039;s Aerocar of the early &amp;#039;50s was one that flew, but it never became commercially successful. Perhaps the only working model happens to be owned by Ed Sweeney. A COLD RAIN speckles the tarmac at a small North Carolina airport where several members of the Monster Garage build team are attaching the wings to the Panoz. Why did Monster Garage come all the way across the country to fly the car? Because this airport is just a few miles from Kill Devil Hill, where the Wright brothers made their first flight, and that&amp;#039;s the kind of drama the Monster Garage folks like (this is show business, after all). The weather on this February day is much like it was in December 1903 when Orville Wright first took flight--miserable, cold and windy, with sprinkling rain. Nonetheless, several hundred fans strain against the airport fence, holding up signs and shouting encouragement. In the month since the build was finished, the flying car has been painted a shiny Red Baron red. It now looks like a serious aircraft instead of an accident on an airport access road. Swarming over it is the entire build team--minus Sweeney and his dog--giving everything one last preflight check. (Apparently, Sweeney has been e-mailing Jesse, telling him not to fly the car for a variety of technical reasons, most of which involve the high likelihood of dying. So far, Jesse has been unmoved.) As usual, time is tight. Jay Leno&amp;#039;s The Tonight Show has a crew here. So does CBS. Jesse is a popular man. He&amp;#039;s told the production staff he&amp;#039;ll be leaving by limo at 4:30 to catch a commercial flight, regardless. FINALLY, JESSE arrives and looks over the vehicle with a keen eye. &amp;quot;You guys built this thing,&amp;quot; he says to the team, &amp;quot;but if it doesn&amp;#039;t fly, I&amp;#039;m the one who&amp;#039;s going to look like an idiot.&amp;quot; The car is fueled. The wind is blowing steadily straight down the runway at 20 to 25 mph. Good flying weather. Or not. Word comes from Discovery Channel brass, who seem to have been out of the loop on the project until this morning: Having considered the implications of letting the star of their hit show potentially turn himself into a pizza on a drizzly North Carolina runway, they&amp;#039;ve decreed that a test pilot must hop the thing before Jesse gets anywhere near it. Another holdup. Jesse cops an attitude that gets worse as the pilot&amp;#039;s 2 o&amp;#039;clock arrival approaches. The pilot is flying in from Maryland in his own homebuilt airplane. Bob Green is his name, and he buzzes the airstrip in a 3G near-vertical bank with the smoke generator on at about 300 ft. The crowd cheers. Jesse pouts, but at least Green knows how to play to the fans. It takes the pilot 20 minutes or so to make it over to the hangar. He&amp;#039;s shown around the car by the build team while Jesse glowers nearby, muttering vague threats. Finally, someone introduces Green to Jesse. &amp;quot;I had to stop in the tower to take a call from the local FAA administrator,&amp;quot; Green says, explaining the delay. &amp;quot;I thought I was getting yelled at for that slightly low flyover, but that wasn&amp;#039;t it. He told me in no uncertain terms that if I didn&amp;#039;t see a current airworthiness certificate for this thing he&amp;#039;d pull my pilot&amp;#039;s license if it left the ground with me in it. So I can&amp;#039;t try to fly it.&amp;quot; Jesse frowns. Does this mean that he won&amp;#039;t be able to fly, either? Who put this guy in charge, anyway? &amp;quot;But it looks fine to me,&amp;quot; Green continues: &amp;quot;So I think you should go ahead.&amp;quot; Jesse smiles. The Discovery Channel has had its shot at clipping his wings. He&amp;#039;s not going to give the FAA a chance. &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s do this right now,&amp;quot; he announces, &amp;quot;before they find some way to stop me.&amp;quot; The car is ready. The frigid wind is blowing straight down the runway. Local law enforcement clears all nonessential personnel from the flight line. Jesse drives (or taxis or ... whatever) the Panoz out to the downwind end of the runway, followed by a camera car and helicopter. He makes a couple of passes, gaining speed and confidence. On the third pass, the car lifts from the runway surface just abreast of the crowd, the wheels a good 3 ft. above the asphalt, and stays aloft for a good 300 ft. The car settles back to the pavement easily. This roughly triples the over-the-ground distance of Orville&amp;#039;s first flight. The crowd goes wild. Jesse makes his 4:30 limo. GETTING AIR There are more challenges to building a flying car than bolting on a pair of wings. The Esperante is heavy by airplane standards. The wheels are in the wrong place. The aircraft needs controls. Here&amp;#039;s how they got it off the ground. Rotation Airplanes have their main gear just to the rear of their aft center of gravity (CG) limit. When the plane accelerates to takeoff speed, the pilot raises the nose (rotates) to generate more lift, and the plane lifts off. The flying car&amp;#039;s rear wheels are too far aft of the CG--it&amp;#039;s not possible to make the car rotate around the rear wheels.  Airfoil Engineer Neal Willford designed a custom airfoil shape that generates more lift at a smaller angle of attack so the flying car won&amp;#039;t need to rotate. Jesse won&amp;#039;t have to pull back hard on the stick--which might make him overcontrol and go too high. More Power The flying car has two engines: the V8 Ford engine that&amp;#039;s coupled to the rear wheels, and the Lycoming that drives the pusher prop. The V8 accelerates the heavy (3800 pounds) vehicle to liftoff speed. (A Cessna powered by the same engine weighs less than 2300.) The 320-cu.-in. flat Four Lycoming engine generates about 160 hp at takeoff rpm. That&amp;#039;s enough power to keep the flying car flying but not enough to let it climb out of ground effect.  Bernoulli Was Right Wings generate lift by a simple principle: The airflow over the top of the wing is faster than the airflow under it because of the shape. The faster airflow has lower pressure, and the pressure difference lifts the wing by displacing air from above the wing to below it. Flight Controls The Wright brothers figured out that aircraft need to be controlled differently than cars--they need to bank into turns as well as go up and down. Pitch is an up-and-down motion, and it&amp;#039;s controlled by a large movable surface on the rear of the plane called the elevator. Roll to the left and right is controlled by ailerons on the ends of the wing. Yaw is a left-and-right motion and is controlled by a rudder. The flying car has no rudder, which makes it difficult to control. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/how-to/a294/1751557/>