Thank you, thank you, terriby sorry, no autographs...

The flying versions of the Switchblade were carbon fiber. We do a
fair bit of carbon fiber structural stuff for the av biz, but
no "appearance parts". The look of exposed CF is a big turnoff to me,
UV degradation is an issue best solved through opaque finishes.

Combining test flying and competition flying is a bad idea, and I've
been around enough to be able to say "no thanks" to camera crews.
They got me back by using some of the dumber shots, but it was all
good fun. But no, that wasn't a rocket powered Pterodactyl, that was
a turbojet.

Now then, if you get The Science Ghannel, I'm getting a few minutes
on Brink, Friday evening Jan 30, showing the Escape from Berkeley
car. That's the Kubota car with the Prisoner paint job and fenders,
converted to run straight vegetable oil. I don't know how that's
going to turn out (one of my directions was to "...stand by the car
and look seriously cool...like an action hero") and there's a nice
little homage to Young Frankenstein with my head among the vegetable
oil bottles, but we'll know in a few weeks.

Jack in OR kineticvehicles.com


--- In Locost_North_America@yahoogroups.com, "Scott Kilborn"
<scottk@...> wrote:
>
> Yea, they showed the swing wing thing too - he acutally used part
of the tail for the back end of the hang glider. Oh, and I forgot -
they had video of a rocket powered Pterodactyl he was flying at the
end too!
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Keith Williams
> To: Locost_North_America@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 2:33 PM
> Subject: Re: [Locost_North_America] Jack is famous!!!
>
>
> Scott--Not to embarrass Jack, but that is the tip of the iceberg
so to speak. Run him up on Google. He manufactured the Pterodactyl
hang glider and as I understand built a 2-place to haul his
girlfriend of the time around in.. Also the 200 mph swing wing
glider, "Switchblade", in an 007 movie was one of his doings... Jack-
before I forget it, I applied at Advanced Composites Group in Tulsa,
and they had a neat graphite F-1 body in the front office and they
told me the rocket powered back pack wing deal that crossed the
English Channel was of their fabrication if you ever need a supplier
of that sort of stuff.
> Keith (Brrr)Williams
>
> --- On Sat, 1/10/09, Scott Kilborn <scottk@...> wrote:
>
> From: Scott Kilborn <scottk@...>
> Subject: [Locost_North_America] Jack is famous!!!
> To: Locost_North_America@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Saturday, January 10, 2009, 11:16 AM
>
> Got a special treat last night. Was watching an old (2006)
episode of
> "Gearhead Gladiators" on National Geographic channel. They were
following
> three competitors in an ultralight competition. Told a little
about the
> first, and then moved on to the second. And from Cave Junction,
Oregon (and
> I said - wow - I know somebody from there) then there was Jack
McCornack!
> Jack was making a very inovative ultralight that ALMOST ended up
working
> really well - lots of innovative design ideas. Don't know if they
plan to
> show it again, but if you can catch it it's pretty neat!
>
> -Scott Kilborn
> Gilman, IA
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>