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Outside Magazine April 2003
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Out There
Joy Ride (Cont.)

I DIDN'T COME THIS FAR to admit defeat. Late one night I went to the basement and tightened screws and caulked for leaks. I sewed another skirt, this one with wider material. I fired up the dual 1205s, and when I sat in the saddle I experienced a shiver of delight at the clear, unquestionable sensation that I was floating on a cushion of air. If you're an engineer, you might suspect that the increased height of my modified skirt would cause handling issues. And you would be right. It took all my concentration just to remain balanced on the higher air pocket, as if I were balancing a surfboard on a beach ball. Then there was the noise factor. The air escaping beneath the skirt produced a great thunderous farting that shook my house's foundation with such force that it woke my housemate, two flights up, from his midnight slumber. When he came down—all bleary-eyed in his boxer shorts—he did not share my giddiness.

The following week, by the time I test-drove my third skirt, I started to sense diminishing returns. Then my 100-pound girlfriend came over and rode my Air Car for the first time. She said it was fun, that she thought little kids would love it, and that she was impressed I'd built it. (God, she breaks my heart sometimes.) We agreed that I would donate it to a local Scout troop. As an act of closure, I called David Ross again, to tell him that I'd gotten airborne and was retiring from the biz.

He was philosophical, too.

"That's when you know you've really succeeded," he said. "When you quit."
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