To Read Sport Aviation's January 1990 Ed on the ... - Courtesy Aircraft

MOLT TAYLOR'S QUEST FOR A MORE USEFUL AIRPLANE
, e've all indulged in the fantasy .. . we're
- - ·ng our cars along the highway and, sud-
-- ly, up ahead we see the dreaded signals
e of civilization's most wearisome woes.
Brake lights.
Brake lights warning us of still another traf­
Jam . . . brake lights telling us we are going
~ oe late getting home again . . . that we're
= '19 to have to sit there breathing exhaust
-- es and having our eardrums assaulted
_.
e cacophony of horns and hissing
-3: a ors . .. as those precious quality min­
.::&S of our lives we could have had at home
- our families slip irretrievably away.
~ M an, if I could only push a button,
sprout wings on this thing and fly right
er that traffic . .. then land on the street
front of my house!"
• of us have dreamed, but only a handful
_· · ionaries have had the courage to try to
e dream into reality . . . to take the
-ecc ical step in the evolution of personal
portation devices .. . to create a people
er equally useful on land and in the air.
e has yet reached the technological
e.e of a George Jetson flying saucer, but
' : Taylor has come closer to it than any­
: ,; else. In 1956 he obtained CAA certificaa
2-place, side-by-side airplane that
:::::_ be landed, have its wings and tail re­
.-ed and be driven away as a 4-wheel au­
"le ... in about 10 minutes or so. If
BY JACK COX
desired, the wings could be folded back
along the sides of the detached aft fuselage
and towed behind the car like a trailer.
<strong>To</strong> reiterate, this vehicle, which was
named the Aerocar, was fully certified as an
airplane and was approved for use on the
highways of every state . . . and was in production
34 years ago!
All told, six Aerocars were built, but one of
them had to be sacrificed on the high altar
of the government's certification process.
Amazingly, all the remaining five Aerocars
are still around today.
• The EAA Aviation Foundation owns the
prototype, N4994P, Serial Number 1, which
is currently undergoing a complete restoration
to flying condition by the Buehler Foundation.
• The first of the production machines,
N103D, Serial Number 2, has been registered
to a Los Angeles area resident for
many years, but is shown as a "sale reported"
entry on the latest FAA aircraft registry.
• N1 01 D, Serial Number 3, is owned by
Norton Aero Ltd . of Athol, ID and is occasionally
flown in the air shows staged at the Silverwood
museum/amusement complex
each summer.
• N102D, Serial Number 4 ... the most
famous of them all . .. is now owned by <strong>Ed</strong>
Sweeney who lives and hangars the Aerocar
at the Spruce Creek residential airport complex
near Daytona Beach, FL. Pictured here,
it was both flown and driven at Sun 'n Fun
and Oshkosh this past year.
• In the late 1960s the remaining Aerocar
I was brought back to the factory and remanufactured
as an improved Model Ill
Aerocar ... and is currently on display in the
Seattle Museum of Flight. It is registered as
the Serial Number 1 Aerocar Ill, N100D.
The Aerocars have led varied lives. Some
have been used extensively, some hardly at
all. One was flown to and from Cuba in the
pre-Castro era, another served daily as a
traffic watch airplane . .. and one was seen
weekly on a network TV sitcom! Most have
changed hands several times and all the
owners were/are satisfied customers.
So, why aren't the roads and the sky full
of latter day Aerocars Why don't we have
a vehicle that can get us from front door to
front door in about half the time present day
cars and lightplanes can Or, as Molt would
say to you, why don't we have a more useful
airplane parked in our garages every night
Before we get into the whys and wherefores,
we need to gain a perspective on the
SPORT AVIATION 11

The model Molt used to demonstrate the
Aerocar concept to his initial 50 investors.
life and times of the creator of the Aerocar,
because only then can we fully comprehend
the problems and the promise of an automobile
that flies ... or, if you prefer, an
airplane you can drive to your local gas station
for a fill up.
Moulton B. "Molt" Taylor was born in Portland
OR on September 29, 1912 and was
brou'ght home to Kalama, Washington in a
clothes basket . . . down the Columbia River
on a steamboat. His father was a county assessor
who would soon move the family
downstream to Longview, WA and go on to
become a very successful businessman,
founding a local savings and loan association
among his many endeavors.
A precocious child, young Molt would soon
be into everything. He entered the first grade
in Longview in 1918 .. . and began p1ano
lessons soon afterwards. He took to the
keyboard so effortlessly and with such personal
flair that, during his high school years,
he had his own band ... featuring, of course,
Molt Taylor at the piano.
Molt's initial exposure to aviation came in
the Boy Scouts where he learned to build
model airplanes. This, in turn, led him to the
farm fields near town that were used on occasion
by barnstormers, and in 1926, when
he was fourteen, one of them took him aloft
for the first time . . . in a Hisso Standard.
From that moment on he was the first to
greet an itinerant pilot who landed in the area
and the last to wave goodbye as a Jenny or
a Standard bounded off the rough fields and
headed for the far horizon. One day he, too,
would be up there seeing wonderous sights
through a pair of those glamorous goggles
pilots wore, young Molt promised himself.
"One day" didn't take long, it turned out.
When the first improved airstrip was built at
Longview, Molt was driving the road grader
that smoothed out the lumps and furrows .. .
and he· was the bright kid selling tickets for 15
barnstormers like Tex Rankin and Nick !
Mamer. Marner brought a Ford Trimeter into
0
Longview to relieve the local citizenry of a :
little of their hard earned cash, and Molt ~
spent the night in it as a guard. During the 5
summer of his 16th year (1928), Molt worked ~
as a line boy at the airport, oiling the rocker :g
arms on OX-5s, pumping gas, washing "-
airplanes, etc., for flight time. As soon as he
12 JANUARY <strong>1990</strong>
turned 16, his instructor, Les Meadows, soled
him in a Waco 10. Not too long afterwards,
Molt and four other young pilots
pooled their cash and bought a Hisso Standard
... which they flew when they could
afford the gasoline and oil.
One of the treasured moments of Molt's
early aviation experiences was the day
Phoebe Omlie flew into Longview in her
Velie Monocoupe (apparently during the
1928 Ford <strong>To</strong>ur). She took him for a ride in
the tiny monoplane and allowed him to handle
the controls .. . which meant tremendous
bragging rights for a young lad in that post­
Lindbergh period of aviation mania because
Omlie was a pilot receiving a lot of national
newspaper coverage at the time.
In 1930 Molt set out for Seattle in his 1919
Model T coupe to enroll at the University of
Washington to study aeronautical engineering.
Ever the entrepreneur, he wasted no
time in rounding up 9 fellow mus1c1ans to
form a new band to replace the one he had
left behind in Longview . .. and soon was
appearing all over the Northwest as "Molt
Taylor and the Washingtonians." Molt paid
his way through college with the money he
earned with his band and, in fact, remained
for a fifth year to add a business major to his
engineering degree. He occasionally had a
few bucks left over to spend on flying so he
indulged himself by renting new E-2 Cubs
and Ryan STs at Boeing Field. In those days
that now famous airport was little more than
a strip of sand.
Jobs for aeronautical engineers were few
and far between in 1935 when Molt was
ready to enter the nation's work force, so he
chose instead to sign up for the Navy's avia·
iion cadet program. He finished first in his
class at Pensacola . . . and had the thrill of
flying such aircraft as the Boeing F4B-4 and
Chance Vought SU-1 Corsair. At that time,
cadets were not commissioned upon graduation,
so Molt was assigned to the fleet as a
"cadet pilot" ... flying catapult launched Cur­
tiss SOC-1 Seagulls off the cruiser U.S.S.
is
! Quincy. (The regulations were later hanged
0 and he received a shipboard commiSSIOn as
: an Ensign.) Coming aboard about the time
~ of the ship's commissioning on the East
5 Coast, Molt was able to enjoy a South Amer­
~ ican "goodwill tour" with stops in Rio,_ Buenos
:g Aires, Santiago, Lima and other maJor ports
"- as the vessel made its way around the Horn
and north to its new home port at Long
Beach, CA.
The moment his feet hit pavement in
California Molt made a beeline for the Long
Beach Airport and soon was spending ~is off
duty hours operating various new busmess
enterprises. Among other ventures, he pur·
chased Hangar 15 at Long Beach and renteo
space to the Culver Cadet distributor for the
area. This ultimately led to h1s becom1ng 2
Culver dealer ... and a Luscombe dealer as
well. By this time Molt had met the very at·
tractive lady who would soon become h 1~
wife and after teaching her to fly, the two a·
them made numerous trips back east to the
Luscombe plant in Trenton, NJ and the
Culver plant at Columbus, OH to fer
airplanes back to California ... one each.
After a couple of years, however, Uncle
Sam threatened to bring Molt's off-duty act1v·
ity to a screeching halt. <strong>To</strong> his dismay, he
learned the Quincy was being transferred tc
Boston and, indeed, soon sailed for the Eas­
Coast. · During a layover at the Panam:.
Canal however, Molt ran into a SOC p1 lo
from the cruiser Louisville who was willing :
trade duty assignments with him. The Louis
ville was being transferred to Long Beac·
and this pilot, who was from Boston, wante:
to stay on the East Coast. The Navy w c.l
willing, so the two made the sw1tch and 1n ~
The prototype Aerocar on its first flig .
Note the amount of dihedral and the lo ;
ventral fin, both later changed. T
Aerocar was initially powered by a 90 :
Franklin, but a Lycoming 0-320 derate:
to 143 hp eventually became the standa
powerplant.
L _____.....;:...__________________________

week or so Molt was back at Long Beach for
another two years. The interesting thing
about this little episode was that the pilot with
whom Molt switched duty assignments was
Joseph Kennedy, Jr., the older brother of
later-to-be President John Kennedy. Joe
Kennedy died during World War II while on
a top secret mission against German fortifications.
Shortly after arriving at Long Beach the
first time, Molt had bought the paperwork for
a wrecked 40 hp J-2 Cub and by purchasing
the variou s airframe components from aircraft
supply houses, built a new airplane
around the old data plate. It was hardly a
stock J-2 when he was finished, however.
While still in college, Molt had become interested
in radio and had somehow found
the time to attend classes at the YMCA to
prepare himself for taking the test to obtain
his government radio license. It was this interest
that, in part, induced him to transform
his Cub into what was then an IFR or "blind
flying" trainer, complete with gyro instrumentation
and a homebuilt radio capable of "riding
the beam" of the AIN radio facilities then
in use for navigation. Molt got his civilian instrument
rating in this airplane . .. despite
the fact that it was so heavy and so draggy
with its wind driven generator and antennae
that with two aboard, the poor little ol' 40
horse Continental could hardly drag the thing
above 2,000 feet!
The "beam rider" radio had been designed
and built as a collaboration between Molt
and an electronic whiz named Lester Ray.
Other pilots at Long Beach saw it and began
pestering Molt to build them one also, so he
eventually decided to start a company to
manufacture what he had already named the
Taylor Airphone. There were commercially
available aircraft radios for light planes in the
late 1930s, notably those developed by Bill
Lear, but most were too expensive for owners
of the smallest aircraft. Molt determined
that his market niche should be a series of
panel mount and portable aircraft radios for
the low priced end of the private aircraft ownership
spectrum, so after mustering out of
the Navy in 1939, he set himself up in business
as Taylor Airphone Products and
began manufacturing and marketing his
radios.
Unfortunately, Molt's career as an aircraft
radio manufacturer was to be cut short by
World War II. He was still in the Navy Reserve
and in July of 1941 .. . with war obviously
imminent even though Pearl Harbor
was still half a year away ... he received the
call from Uncle Sam: Get your affairs in order
and report to the Naval Aircraft Factory in
Philadelphia ... in two weeks! His service
record, he would later learn, that listed a
background including engineering, radio and
flying had caused him to be selected for what
wou ld be one of the more hush-hush programs
of the war. Molt would spend the next
five years developing drones and guided
missiles .. . and on April 9, 1942 would become
the first person to guide a surface-tosurface
missile successfully to its target. In
1943 top secret Project Gorgon was established
to develop what we now call cruise
missiles and Lt. Cdr. Molt Taylor was assigned
as the project officer. Both turbojet
and rocket Gorgon missiles were designed,
built and flown . They differed from today's
cruise missiles with their inertial guidance
systems in that they were controlled visually
by means of a television camera mounted in
the vehicle . .. with the controller 20 or more
miles away in a "mother ship" aircraft ...
peering into a television screen. Within days
of the Japanese surrender in August of 1945,
Molt was directing the first successful test
flight of a turbojet powered Gorgon 111-B ...
from a FM-2 Wildcat. Molt proved he could
launch a Gorgon from under the wing of a
PBY, guide it to its target .. . and still fly the
fighter. With every large aircraft thus a potential
missile launcher, the loss of lives in conventional
bombing raids could have been
dramatically reduced, because the fighter/
launcher would only have to fly within control
range of its target, fire its missile(s) and
stand off while guiding it right down a factory
smokestack. For his work on the missile program,
by then Commander Molt Taylor was
awarded this nation's Legion of Merit ... and
the Navy made a concerned effort to get him
to commit to a career in the service and continue
his work.
The atom bomb and the end of World War
II changed everyone's plans, however. Many
of the hundreds of thousands of suddenly
released servicemen faced uncertain futures
with quite a bit of trepidation ... but not Molt.
As always, he had a number of irons in the
fire and the only question was which one of
them he would pull out. One of the projects
he had worked on during the war was a small
amphibian that was to be utilized as a drone.
It was unique in that it had a low wing, with
the wing roots serving as sponsons. He had
recognized that the configuration would
make a great sportplane, so after his release
from active duty in 1946, he and several
others formed a company to design and build
such an aircraft ... almost entirely of magnesium.
Called the Duckling, it had a nose
and cabin section somewhat like a Seabee,
but, of course, had the low wing .. . a ''floatwing",
Molt called it.
<strong>To</strong> produce the Duckling, a plant was
needed and Uncle Sam's War Assets Administration
had plenty of those available for
a few cents on the dollar. Molt and his group
were the successful bidder for the Bellanca
No. 2 Plant at New Castle, DE ... but were
in for an unpleasant surprise when they arrived
to take it over. It turned out that water
and road access to Plant No. 2 came through
Bellanca Plant No. 1 .. . and the company
was not about to aid a competitor in the postwar
lightplane market. The deal fell through
and the Duckling was not to be ... although
the ''floatwing" configuration would surface
again years later in the form of Molt's popular
amphibian, the Coot.
The brief sojourn in New Castle was not
totally in vain, however ... in fact, it would
be a major turning point in Molt's life. While
there he chanced to meet inventor Robert E.
Fulton, Jr. and became totally enamored with
his roadable airplane, the Airphibian. For
Molt the experience was much akin to a religious
conversion. In a cognitive flash he
simultaneously grasped the concept of the
vehicle, saw its portent for the future ... and
realized that at last he had discovered his
life's work. There is no zeal to surpass that
of a person who believes he has found the
reason for his existence, and if you have
ever experienced the fervor with which Molt
Taylor describes even the most superficial
aspect of his Aerocar, you quickly realize just
how complete, how all consuming was his
"conversion" that day 44 years ago.
This was not to say, however, that Molt
found no fault with the Airphibian. It was the
concept that had taken possession of his
soul, not the machine, itself. Fulton's car had
to leave its wings and propeller at the airport
to be driven on the highway ... which meant
it had to return to that same airport to fly
again. Molt saw a need for more utility. Remembering
his experiences ferrying Luscombes
and Culvers across the U. S., he
envisioned a craft in which he could be flying
along and upon encountering a front, could
land, fold the wings, hook them up behind
the car like a trailer and drive through to the
other side of the bad weather. Then, he
could simply pull into the next airport,
reinstall the wings and fly on to his destination
... and have an auto to drive to the very
door of the person or firm he intended to
visit. Such a vehicle, he believed, would revolutionize
personal travel, increasing the
door to door speed over certain distances
just as the auto had improved on the speed
of the horse and buggy. In areas of the country
without scheduled air service, there
would, in fact, be no faster means of going
SPORT AVIATION 13

Molt Taylor and the prototype Aerocar in
his home garage.
from Point A to Point B at any distance.
The concept was revolutionary, the times
were right .. . World War II had just ended
and the nation was still aviation minded ...
and Molt had what he was absolutely convinced
was the ideal configuration fer a flying
automobile. What he didn't have, however,
was the money to transform his dream into
reality.
Molt's father had always hoped his son
would eventually get over his infatuation with
airplanes and flying and, according to Molt,
" ... come home to Longview and become a
bean counter in his savings and loan association."
<strong>To</strong> at least get him headed in that
direction, the elder Taylor told his son that if
he would return home, he would help him
raise the money locally to design and build
his Aerocar. That was an enticement too
strong to resist, so Molt and his wife, Neil,
were soon headed west.
Though just a small town in the late 1940s,
Longview, WA was in the heart of the West
Coast's lumbering and paper manufacturing
country and had enough people with the resources
to fund the venture Molt was proposing.
So persuasive was Molt's vision of the
future of personal transportation that he and
his father soon had 50 people willing to buy
shares of a concern called Aerocar Associates
... with only the promise that he
would design and build a prototype flying automobile
in which he would drive from his
airport in Longview to the airport in the neighboring
town of Kelso, attach the wings and
fly back to the starting point. From that
juncture, additional capital would have to be
14 JANUARY <strong>1990</strong>
raised in order to certify, manufacture and
market Aerocars . .. or existing firms could
be licensed to manufacture it.
With funding in hand to design and build
a prototype, Molt personally bought 36 acres
of land on the south side of Longview and
along the Columbia River. On it he built the
factory and offices you see pictured with this
article plus a 4,400 foot grass landing strip.
His next step was to round up a design and
construction team so work could begin. Two
engineers were hired: Charlie Kitchell, chief
engineer at Taylorcraft during World War II
when the firm was making drones for the
Navy, and Art Robinson , formerly with Boeing.
Working from Molt's concept and the patents
he had obtained on the features he
planned to incorporate in his flying automobile,
the trio designed the Aerocar prototype,
N31214 (later re-registered as
N4994P), and had it flying in about 9
months! This industrial miracle owed a great
deal to another of Molt's first employees,
Jesse Minnick. With Aerocar from the beginning
and until his retirement in the 1970s,
Jess was one of those rare individuals who
could be turned loose in a shop and be expected
to accomplish every task imaginable,
both expertly and expeditiously. He would
go on to be Molt's close friend and good right
hand, through the Aerocar's active years and
through the years of development of the
Coot amphibian and the IMP series of homebuilts
... plus all sorts of other engine and
propeller projects. Every bit as consumed by
the concept of a flying automobile as Molt,
Jess still drops into the shop regularly to see
what's going on .
Completed in 1949, the prototype Aerocar
was initially trucked to Chehalis, WA where
a long paved runway was available for flight
testing. After Molt was confident the ::­
was airworthy and capable of operating
his grass strip, N31214 was trucked c
home .. . and the demo drive/flight for
stockholders was made without a hitch
Always a promoter par excellence,
soon had the Aerocar in the national s:
light, with articles and photos appearing ·
ularly in newspapers and magazines
was constantly on the go displaying
brainchild at various aircraft and auto s h ~
giving demo rides and being interviewe:
the media. This led to a promotional to_
the West Coast sponsored by Mobil 0
and that exposure, in turn, resulted ir
pearances on some of the nation's firs·
news programs. Molt even appeared on
Got A Secret" .. . "I drove here in a car
flies!"
The media exposure resulted in a floc
inquiries and offers to buy Aerocars, sc
next task was to raise the money to Cf
the machine as an airplane ... and r
build one airframe for static testing ana
"pre-production" Aerocars for demonstrc.
and eventual sale. Aerocar Associates
been incorporated as Aerocar, Inc. and
and Pre·ston Varney, the secretary and :­
surer of the new firm, scoured the st a ·~
Washington over the ensuing months, e
tually raising 3/4 of a million dollars fa·
new phase of operation.
When Molt initially drew up the spec::
the Aerocar in the late 1940s, his goal
to develop a personal transpo rtc..
machine that would be comparable tc
Ercoupe in the air and to the Crosle}
tomobile on the ground . . . both of v.­
were quite popular at the time. He k­
however, that because the auto porticthe
vehicle would add about 300 pou

·eight, considerably more power
- ::e needed than the 85 hp of the Eris
calculations worked out, it was
...s t his 2-place flying automobile
-eq ire about the same power as a
ace lightplane ... 140 to 150 hp.
er would have to accept the
the cost of the extra power for
o having a car capable of flight.
-..-,..,..nUllO to Molt, when he and his en-
- sat down and began to develop the
::on uration, the Aerocar more or less
_:-ed itself. They knew that the public
accept anything radically different
- car portion, especially with regards to
. so the wing had to be positioned so
- ,., as as unobtrusive as possible. That,
, dictated a high wing mounted as
- - as possible. They also felt that the
ould object to having to remove the
:r:oe er, as was necessary with the Fulton
·an, in order to use the car portion on
way, so that plus several other lac-
"' ... forward visibility, weight distribution,
:x::essive heat in the cockpit, etc .. .. made
decide on placing the engine behind
:oe seats, almost on the aircraft C. G., and
opeller at the end of a long tail cone.
-:: ovide adequate prop clearance for rotatake-off,
the tail cone would have to
:e angled up considerably .. . but, fortui-
,. , in the right direction for overcoming
e atural pitching moment of the wing .
-- . in turn, dictated the detaching of the
arid tail cone as one unit .. . which
wed the folding back of the wings and
of the flight portion of the vehicle bee
car like a trailer. The configuration
e tail also more or less fell into place. A
entional vertical tail would have caused
:::e:arance problems in garaging the Aerocar,
s:: a "Y" tail was the logical solution. A wel­
::o-:led side effect was the fact that bottom
e positioning of the vertical tail served to
agel)' offset adverse yaw . . . and was a
r in making the Aerocar spirally stable.
off, the craft would eventually enter a
w turn, then recover on its own . . . insaad
of winding up in a classic graveyard
• as conventional aircraft are prone to
Some earlier roadable aircraft, such as
Waldo Waterman's Aerobile, had just 3
wheels, but, again, Molt and his team felt
this deviation from normal automotive practice
would be a detriment to the acceptance
of the vehicle, so they stuck with 4 wheels.
Perhaps the most demanding criteria Molt
had established was that the car portion had
to be sturdy and reliable enough to endure
everyday, all weather use just like a normal
automobile. Most of the earlier attempts to
develop a roadable aircraft had assumed
only limited use of the car portion. This
meant the Aerocar would have to have
adequate suspension travel for both the road
and hard landings, it would have to "corner"
and steer like a normal car, it would have to
have 4-wheel brakes, controls and instrumentation
for operation as both a car and
an airplane and it would have to have the
required lights for both land and sky. It would
also have to have a good heater, roll down
windows, windshield wipers, both aircraft
and auto radios (and antennas), a rear view
mirror, turn signals, a jack for changing tires ,
a horn (that doubled as the stall warner) and
much, much more.
In retrospect, the engineering solutions the
trio came up with to solve the myriad of problems
they faced in attempting to cram all the
systems and components needed for highway
and aerial operation into a single small
vehicle were quite remarkable . . . and still
are to this day. The Aerocar was, for example,
one of the first automobiles to use outer
panels made of resin impregnated fiberglass
.. . several years ahead of the Corvette.
Further, the front wheel drive and 4-wheel
independent suspension they designed 40
years · ago is in concept what has only recently
come into general use in mass produced
automobiles. From an engineering
standpoint, as well as that of the operator of
an Aerocar, one of the most interesting features
of the machine is the fail safe means
by which the various controls automatically
engage and disengage when the wings and
tail are removed for driving . . . and replaced
for flying. As the car is backed into the tail
cone, the splined end of the drive shaft slips
into a larger, similarly splined receptacle . ..
and a cluster of little metal pads mounted on
the ends of levers butts up against an identical
cluster in the other portion of the vehicle.
When one of the controls in the cabin is
moved, a lever and pad in the cluster moves,
pushing its counterpart and moving the
elevator or rudder or the ailerons. It is a
clever system that requires no fasteners ..
. and the engine will not start unless every
part of it is matched up and ready to function
properly. The mating of the clusters ... for
flying ... also shuts off the front wheel braking
system, automatically pops the rudder
pedals up into position for use (they fall flat
on the floor and out of the way when the
wings are disconnected) and the control
wheel/steering wheel unlocks to permit fore
and aft motion for elevator control (it locks
for driving when the wings are disconnected).
The tail cone and wings are then
locked into position by special pins .. . and,
again, the engine will not start until every
component is properly secured for flight.
The drawing shown here indicates the
placement and integration of the various
auto and aircraft systems, the most obvious
element of which is the use of a single engine
for both road and aerial operation. (Some
flying cars had used two engines, one for
road travel and another for flying.) This
meant a long driveshaft back to the tail
mounted propeller and a second shaft extending
forward to drive the front wheels.
Front wheel drive, parenthetically, was required
because of the need to have the rear
wheels, which touch down first in a normal
landing, free from suddenly spinning up and
possibly damaging the differential and transmission.
Transmitting power to each of the
driveshafts presented special problems that
had to be dealt with separately. <strong>To</strong> smooth
out the power pulses of the big 4-cylinder
Lycoming 0-320 to the from wheels, Molt
decided to use a ''fluid drive" torque converter
attached where a propeller would normally
go on the engine, with pulleys and four
belts running down to drive the shaft extending
forward to the front wheels. This shaft, in
turn, drove a fan to cool the engine, mounted
a manual clutch and a three speed (plus reverse)
Crosley transmission and ended up
Transmission
Universal Joint
SPORT AVIATION 15

Molt Taylor's wife, Neil, in an early 1950s
Aerocar publicity shot posed in front of a
hotel. This is the prototype Aerocar I now
owned by the EAA Aviation Foundation.
plugging into the lightweight differential for
the front wheel drive.
The Lycoming, incidentally, had to be derated
from 150 hp to 143 hp, largely because
of the need to offset the carb intake to clear
the driveshaft running up to the front wheels.
The car portion was still overpowered, however,
and especially over torqued. It was
easy to take off in high gear and spin the
Crosley wheels on dry pavement at will.
There was still adequate power for flight,
also, with a 550 fpm rate of climb at full gross
(2,1 00 pounds).
Potentially, the biggest single problem in
the entire development of the Aerocar was
dampening out the torsional resonance in
the long driveshaft back to the propeller ...
because to that point in aviation history it
had never been accomplished. The power
pulses of a reciprocating engine cause minute
"wrap-ups" or twists of even the stiffest
of driveshafts and when they get in phase
with other vibrations in the system, a broken
shaft is the inevitable result. Right after the
first flights of the prototype Aerocar, Molt
realized he had a problem with his propeller
shaft, so he immediately set out across the
nation to visit Bell Helicopter and other outfits
with products incorporating driveshafts.
Every type of vibration damper Molt had ever
heard of was investigated and the most
promising were tried out on the Aerocar, but
nothing worked until, quite by accident, he
read in Design News about a device called
the Flexidyne "dry fluid coupling", a French
invention manufactured in the U. S. by the
Dodge Manufacturing Company of Mishawaka,
IN. The Flexidyne is a type of clutch
that uses tiny steel shot, enclosed in a housing
and packed into a nearly solid mass by
centrifugal force, to lock up a "wavy plate"
on the end of the unit's output shaft to transmit
power. The shot provide just enough
"give" to absorb the engine's destructive
power pulses. The Flexidyne has been used
for decades on all manner of machinery to
dampen vibration and is built in a wide range
16 JANUARY <strong>1990</strong>
of sizes. Molt chose one appropriate for the
power of the Lycoming, ran tests on it and
found to his immense relief that it worked
perfectly. It was a critical piece of the puzzle,
the part that made it possible for the Aerocar
to ultimately be certified by the CAA . . . and
the part without which so many other tail
pusher aircraft have been failures. The
Flexidyne is still the only such device to have
been certified by the CAA!FAA and examples
have been operated for thousands of
hours on the Aerocars and Molt's IMP series
of homebuilts with no problems at all . The
only negative is the fact that the Dodge Manufacturing
Company has always been adamantly
opposed to the use of the Flexidyne in
conjunction with anything other than electric
motors. One might think the firm would be
proud of the fact that their units are so good
that they have been certified by the United
States government for use in an aircraft, but
that is not the case.
Another problem Molt had to overcome
was the typically rough start-up and shutdown
cycles of large bore 4-cylinder aircraft
engines like the Lycoming, which auto owners
would not like. Fortunately, Bendix was
willing to develop shielded magnetos with
centrifugal spark advance, which not only
cured the start/stop problems but also allowed
a slower, smoother, car-like idle. A
"vibrator" system to replace the conventional
magneto impulse coupler also had to be developed
to aid starting .. . and Delco worked
with Molt to build a geared starter. Aircraft
generators that did not charge until they
were turning about 1 ,500 rpm were obviously
unsuitable for driving in traffic, so Molt
switched to an alternator as soon as those
devices came on the market for autos. Using
the mixture to cut off the engine was not
something car owners would be familiar with,
so the Aerocar was shut down with the ignition
switch.
Some of the features of the Aerocar
caused problems of their own and had to be
corrected with still more innovation. With the
heavy engine located in the rear of the car
the front drive wheels were rather ligh tl ~
loaded and this, coupled with the rigidity c
the car's frame, resulted in a loss of tractiogoing
up steep grades . A '1ork-loc" type c
differential pretty we ll eliminated that prot
lem in the car only mode of operation, but :.
loss of traction still resu lted when the wing;
and tail were being towed behind the ca·
That was solved by devising a tow hitch wi:­
the attach point at about the level of the tc:
of the car. The geometry involved actua
served to shift the weight to the front whee
for better traction.
The most serious threat to life and lirr
that developed during the long certificatir
period was a w~ry bad case of aileron flutt ec
The origir.dl ailew ns were full span so t ~ =­
they (;uuld be foldf:d down to reduce the si:
load when the wings were being towed t ­
hind the car. They were not balanced
and they almost bit Molt during the test fly ­
phase. Of course, new balanced ailercwere
substituted after the incident abou
be re lated . It all came about because :­
CAA could not allow its test pilots to fly :­
Aerocar until it had been flutter tested. l
able to afford the services of a for-hire t~
pilot, Molt opted to strap on a parachute c.
do it himself. Red line was to have been · -
mph, but as he reached 135 mph in a sha
dive ... with CAA officials just off his v.
in a Stinson 108-3 ... the ailerons sudde-­
and violently fluttered. Although the C­
later told Molt the Aerocar was shakin ~
badly that the tail was actually wagging t ~
and forth, the airframe miraculously did
come apart before he was able to thr
back and get the vibration stopped. His p­
lems were not over, however. When he
tempted to throttle back for landing, th e ­
ter started again. This time he had to SP=
up to stop the shaking . .. and therefore -
to land the airplane at cruise power! -
busy to really be scared while still in the
Molt climbed out, walked calmly back tc
tail cone . . . and saw that it was crurr:

so badly that it was canted a fu ll 5 degrees
to one side. Then he began to shake ... and
tossed his cooki es right on the spot. In any
other kind of airplane, Molt would have been
making his first parachute jump that day, but
the Aerocar 'l)'as unique in a manner that
spared him th at experience. With its folding
wings and the universal joints in the
driveshafts, every major part of the airframe
was articulated . .. and therefore flexible
enough to withstand the shaking. That is as
good an example of serendipity as you will
ever find !
It took Molt 8 years to certify the Aerocar
. .. partly because he was plowing so much
new ground, technically, and partly because
he was having to accomplish the formidable
task on a shoestring budget. He was never
able to work full time for an extended stretch
because of the continuing need to raise
money. It was a matter of working for a week
or so, then taking a week off to scurry around
the state trying to sell a little more stock.
Terribly frustrating, of course, but the only
avenue open through which Molt could work
toward his goal of revolutionizing personal
transportation. It is interesting from our
standpoint today that, according to Molt, the
CAA was very cooperative during the certification
process .. . to the extent of actually
helping him with some of the calculations on
one occasion. "They thought a flying automobile
was a good idea and wanted to see
it developed to the point of certification ," Molt
recalls. With the enforcement driven policy
of today's FAA, overriding concern for liability
and the test procedures and paperwork
now required , we have to wonder if a tiny,
underfunded concern like Aerocar could certify
any type of ai rcraft today, much less
something as complex as a flying automobile.
CAA certification (ATC No. 4A16) finally
came in December of 1956, with the CAA's
Dick Sliff doing the flight testing. He would
later do the certification flight testing on the
Boeing 707 and eventually would be in
charge of all of FAA's aircraft certification activity.
The Aerocar was not the first flying automobile
to be certified . .. Fulton's Airphibian
was approved a few years earlier ...
but it was the first that was capable of being
driven on the highway totally self-contained,
so that it could subsequently be flown from
a different airport than the one at which it
had last landed. By any standard, the conception,
design, development and certification
of the Taylor Aerocar was one of the
great personal achievements of our time .. .
and in the future when the flying car ... or
whatever it is called then . . . is the common
form of personal transportation, as it inevitably
wil l be, the history books must accord
Molt Taylor his place as the foremost pioneer
in the fie ld.
By the time certification was achieved,
Molt and his small workforce had built four
additional Aercicars and thus had them ready
for immediate sale. The price, however, was
a breathtaking $25,000 each . . . which
though necessary due to the fact that they
were hand built, was a definite sales deterrent
at the time. By contrast, the new H35
Bonanza being sold in 1957 had a base price
of $22,650.
Of course, the Aerocar was never intended
to go head to head in the market
place with the Bonanza . . . nor was it expeeled
to cost so much. Molt had always
assumed that by the time he obtained certification,
he would have also made a deal with
one of the large aircraft corporations or, better
yet, with one of the big auto manufacturers
.' .. who could crank them out in numbers
sufficient to get the price down to perhaps
$10,000 or less. He had been working hard
at just such a deal, but with a late 1950s
recession causing businesses to run scared,
no contract had yet been signed. It would, in
fact, be several years before the pre-production
Aerocars were sold, and it would be
1961 before a commercial connection could
be made. A group in Ft. Worth, TX finally
contacted Molt, proposing to finance production
in exchange for national sales distribution
rights. A deal was struck and a new company
called Aerocar International was
formed . Aerocar International, in turn, signed
a contract with Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) in
Dallas to build 1 ,000 Aerocars . . . with the
stipulation that 500 firm orders would be in
hand and that a payment of $300,000 for
advance tooling would be made to LTV by
December 31, 1961. Aerocar International
then began to develop a network of regional
distributors, who were required to commit to
a specified number of Aerocars . . . and
make sizeable advance deposits on them .
Unfortunately, the deal fell through because
the requisite 500 fi rm orders could not be
obtained before the contract deadline was
reached. What had happened was that 250
Aerocars were the maximum that could be
built in the startup year of production, which
meant a long wait for delivery for the second
group of 250. Few were willing to tie up deposit
money for so long a time .. . so what
ultimately proved to be the best chance to
get Aerocars into production slipped into history.
Unfortunately, the deal did not go
quietly. Aerocar International had spent the
distributor's deposits and had no means of
making restitution . . . and Molt, himself,
eventually had to sue to get back the marketing
rights to his invention. Sometime later,
an attempt was made to form a company in
Wichita to manufacture Aerocars on a less
ambitious scale ... just 50 of them, initially
.. . but that venture also failed for lack of
adequate funding . It was unfortunate because
by this time one of the Aerocars had
been sold to actor Bob Cummings and was
being seen throughout the nation on his
weekly TV show. A flood of inquiries resulted,
but nothing was to translate into
sales.
As noted, Molt did eventually sell the four
pre-production models, and, in fact, sold
most of them several times. He had a deal
with his customers in which he had the right
of first refusal whenever they wanted to sell
their Aerocars. Molt had a small waiting list
for the four machines, so he would buy them
back, recondition them and sell them a second
and third time. In retrospect, it was a
shame he could not have built at least 40 or
50 of them, because with even that relatively
small number, he could have had a steady
sale and resale business that might still be
going strong today. Maybe very strong . ..
in light of the current incredible run-up in
prices of vintage and specialty cars.
During the 1960s, Molt developed a
spinoff of the Aerocar project, designing a
tricycle geared, 4-place, airplane-only fuselage
that would attach to the tail cone and
wings of any of the Aerocars. It was intended
to be an option for existing Aerocar owners
who had occasional need for four seats in
just the airplane mode, or as simply an
airplane for new owners who wanted something
more modern than a Cessna 172.
Called the Aerocar II, just one example was
built and flown and it is now owned by <strong>Ed</strong>
Sweeney.
By the late 1960s the original Aerocars,
now called Aerocar Is, were getting quite outdated
in the auto mode, so Molt decided to
do an update. This time he set as his criteria
an aircraft performance comparable with the
Cessna 172 and an auto performance comparable
with Ford's then new Pinto. One of
the Aerocar Is had been damaged in a road
accident, so upon buying it back, he used it
as a basis for developing the Aerocar Ill. The
new car (the tail and wings remained essentially
unchanged) featured a modern body
style and a 3-position torsion bar suspension,
replacing the old cycle fender body with
its coil spring suspension. An electric motor
rotated the four torsion bars to fully extend
the gear for take-off and landing, to an intermediate
position for road operation, and fully
.retracted for flight. "Fully retracted" still left a
portion of the wheels extending out of the
body so that the possibility of a belly landing
was precluded, but enough drag was eliminated
that at 75% power, the cruise speed
was up about 12 mph . . . to nearly 120 mph.
Certification was pursued for a time, but with
the onset in the late 1960s of the anti-pollution
requirements for cars, the process was
put on hold. The need for certifying the
Lycoming for road operation as well as for
flight would obviously be too expensive, Molt
realized ... unless he had someone to manufacture
the Aerocars and share that cost.
In the 1970s the Ford Motor Company took
a good look at the Aerocar Ill . .. but then
the great OPEC induced fuel crises came
along, followed by the invasion of the U. S.
by the Japanese auto manufacturers and
soon Ford and all the other American car
makers had all they could handle just staying
afloat . .. with no resources left over for making
the great leap forward into flying automobiles.
The Aerocar Ill was demonstrated
throughout the 1970s and much of the '80s
to all who showed an interest. It has appeared
on TV quite a number of times as
new generations of newscasters "discover"
it and on each occasion, a new flood of inquiries
comes to Molt's shop in Longview.
When the world's fair was held in Vancouver,
B. C. a few years ago, the Aerocar Ill was
requested as one of the displays. <strong>To</strong>
everyone's surprise . .. except Molt's .. . it
proved to be one of the sensations of the fair
... and again the inquiries flooded in. Subsequently,
the Aerocar Ill has been loaned
to the Museum of Flight in Seattle and is
reportedly one of the most popular exhibits.
The constant exposure there keeps Molt's
phone line hot and his mail box full . . . which
just adds to his eternal frustration. If all the
world is fascinated by a flying automobile,
why can't he interest investors or a manufacturer,
he laments.
Why, indeed
As all EAAers know, Molt entered the
growing homebuilt market in the late 1960s,
first with his Coot amphibian ... the reborn
Duckling .. . and in the early 1970s with his
SPORT AVIATION 17

IMP series of tail pusher sportplanes. <strong>To</strong> this
day, however, he has never lost faith in the
concept of the flying automobile. In fact, Molt
firmly believes that the need for such a personal
transportation device is greater today
than it ever was. The double whammy of traffic
choked highways and the evils of airline
deregulation cause him to believe that the
world is now much closer to acceptance of
an auto that really can fly over the traffic jams
.. . and avoid the crush of humanity in the
air terminals. Consequently, he is in the conceptual
stages of the Aerocar IV, a flying automobile
that combines his towable wings
and tail with an existing auto such as the
Honda CRX. He recognizes that the task of
certifying an auto today is almost as expen-
sive as certifying an airplane, and that a
combination of the two would result in a vehicle
too expensive for anyone to afford at
almost any level of production. Utilizing an
existing, fully certified car with his wings and
tail section would be the logical way to go,
he reasons. The biqqest difference in the
Aerocar IV and its predecessors would be
the fact that it would have a second engine
to drive it in flight. Using the car's engine to
drive the propeller would cause the EPA and
safety people to want everything recertified,
so Molt opts instead for a little Allison 250
turboprop engine installed in the tail cone,
operating independently of the car engine.
This, of course, would be a very expensive
machine and would be a move away from
Molt's original concept of an Aerocar in every
garage. What he hopes is that the Aerocar
IV can be built for a few wealthy sportsman,
perhaps some movie studios and some large
companies that can use them in various
forms of promotion . . . in every case to call
wider attention to the possibilities of the flying
automobile. Enough that perhaps Ford
. .. or Honda or <strong>To</strong>yota . .. or maybe the
Russians . . . may take up his 40 year
crusade and develop the everyman's flying
automobile. His priority today is to simply ensure
that the job gets done, no matter who
does it. He stands ready to pass on his hard
earned knowledge and experience .. . and
those wanting to seriously discuss the subject
can call him at 206/423-8260.
SUMMER, 1959 . ..
As a member of the Weyerhaeuser family,
young <strong>Ed</strong> Sweeney was expected to spend
a period of time working in one of the many
and far flung plants of the giant wood and
paper products corporation . .. and in this
summer of 1959 he had chosen to do penance
in a plywood plant in Longview, WA.
Learning the family business was somewhat
secondary to this 17 year old, however. A
perfectly normal teenager, he was far more
interested at the time in racing around in his
flashy new MGA and flying his radio controlled
models at the nearby Kelso airport. It
was at the airport that he met a fellow named
Molt Taylor .. . who noted that he had some
RC experience, also, dating from World War
18 JANUARY <strong>1990</strong>
II. What really impressed <strong>Ed</strong>, however, was
learning that this Mr. Taylor was the designer
and manufacturer of the flying automobiles
that frequently operated from the airport. The
two became friends and one day, after preparing
an Aerocar for flight, Molt walked up
to <strong>Ed</strong> and said , "Let's go flying ." They did just
that .. . and <strong>Ed</strong> would never forget the experience
.. . or the N number of the Aerocar.
It was N1 02D and as <strong>Ed</strong> recalls it today, it
was silver with maroon trim.
Sometime later, <strong>Ed</strong> would have another
experience involving N102D. He was invited
up to the Taylor's summer cabin in the
nearby mountains, and not knowing the way,
was to follow Molt, who was driving the car
portion of 1020, in his MGA. Figuring he
pretty well had the Aerocar covered with his
racey British sports car, he latched on:·
Molt's tail . as they started up the twistir ·
mountain roads ... and pretty soon the siL
ation developed into a rat race. <strong>Ed</strong> had tr
firm handling of his MGA to help him in t
switchbacks, but Molt had 143 hp and g o ~
of low speed torque to power himself out :
the turns . . . so, in <strong>Ed</strong>'s own words, "He jL.
whipped my butt!"
For 1959, the Aerocar was a pretty dece·
sportscar, <strong>Ed</strong> concluded.
APRIL, 1988 .. .
In April of 1988 <strong>Ed</strong> Sweeney and his w­
Sandra, were living in Denver while be
were attending a tech school in order to ec
their A&P licenses. They owned seve·

airplanes . . . a presey
Mustang , Messerschmitt
en ·n Taifun ... and wanted
e t aintain them themselves. One
day t ·r · die son , Eric, came in brandishing
a copy of Trade-A-Plane, saying, "Hey
look, Dad. Here's an ad for a Messerschmitt
109 .. . shouldn 't we buy it to go with our
209" <strong>Ed</strong> took a look ... and suddenly was
rushing to the phone.
"We literally didn't see him for the next two
and a half weeks," Sandra recalls, "until he
came home with the Aerocar. He hadn't even
read the Messerschmitt ad ... because next
to it was an ad for an Aerocar."
'When I saw the Aerocar ad," <strong>Ed</strong> joined
in, "I knew that if there was any chance, if
there was any hope that our family could own
an Aerocar . .. any Aerocar .. . I'd better be
the first one to Florida to get it. I had no idea
that it would be the same Aerocar that I had
flown in with Molt Taylor when I was 17 . ..
that it would be the same Aerocar that actor
Bob Cummings once owned. It was nothing
less than a tremendous coincidence."
<strong>Ed</strong> had indeed lucked into N102D. It was
owned by R. J. Davis of the St. Petersburg,
FL area and was being used as a shopping
center/mall display, earning up to $1,000 a
day. Transported around in its own colorfully
painted enclosed trailer, emblazoned with
the legend, "World's Only Flying Car .. . It
Drives .. . It Flies . . . It <strong>To</strong>ws", and pulled
by an equally colorful cabbed over pickup, it
had never been flown during Mr. Davis' ownership.
The engine would run, after a fashion,
and it could be driven around in parking
lots, but was a light year from being airworthy.
The wings, in fact, still had damage incurred
while in the possession of a previous
owner.
102D was for sale because Mr. Davis had
suffered a stroke and had decided it was
time for him to retire from show biz. <strong>Ed</strong> candidly
admits that he paid a very large sum of
money for the Aerocar, but had a quick confirmation
of the wisdom of his purchase when
he was offered $100,000 more than he had
paid for it ... later the same day! <strong>Ed</strong> bought
the whole shooting match ... the Aerocar,
its enclosed trailer and its Ford pickup ...
and was soon heading back to Colorado.
At home with his treasure, he began reading
through the logs and other paperwork
and was able to trace its wanderings from
Molt's shop in Longview to the moment he
took possession of it in Florida.
Molt made the initial test flight of N102D
on August 6, 1956 .. . and it was test flown
and.given an airworthiness certificate by the
CAA on July 15, 1957. (Molt did not have a
production certificate, so each of the
Aerocars had to be individually inspected
and test flown by the CAA for compliance
with the type certificate.) Interestingly, in addition
to flying the Aerocar for 3 hours, the
CAA drove it 67 miles in car form before
awarding the airworthiness certificate.
102D was stored until the summer of 1960
awaiting a customer and, finally, one came
along in the person of actor/pilot Bob Cummings.
Bob had been flying since the 1930s
and had owned a number of airplanes over
the years, including a Porterfield and a
Cessna Airmaster. All were named
"Spinach" and were painted green. He became
interested in the Aerocar not only for
his own use, but also as an attention getter
for his network TV show. He bought 102D
during a visit to Longview, and shortly afterwards
Molt delivered it to him in Los Angeles.
As he was driving down Wilshire Boulevard,
Molt spotted one of those then famous Earl
Scheib billboards offering to paint any car in
two colors for $39.95. Sensing a chance for
some free publicity, he whipped into the
nearest Scheib shop, collared the manager
and asked, "Do you really mean any car"
"Sure," he said .. . and didn't blink an eye
when he was shown the Aerocar. Equally
well aware of the value of publicity, he told
Molt they would paint it, including the wings
and tail ... providing the work could be done
with the local TV stations filming it for the
evening news. That's how 102D came to be
painted yellow and green, which were the
colors of Nutra-Bio, the vitamin company in
which Bob Cummings had an interest. Nutra­
Bio, in fact, was actually the owner of 102D
during the time Bob used it in his TV series.
The first log entry by Cummings was for a
local flight from the Hughes Airport on July
24, 1960 ... after Molt had checked him out.
He flew 102D for several months, but quickly
found that having to climb out over the San
Gabriel mountains everytime he wanted to
leave the Los Angeles basin to the north or
east involved too much time grinding away
for altitude. Consequently, he asked Molt to
install a larger engine. Molt and Jess Minnick
retrofitted a low compression
168 hp version
of the Lycoming
0 -360, a D2B, in
one of the other
Aerocars they still
had on hand, tested
it and got the installation
approved by
the FAA . .. then
pulled it out, took it
to LA and installed it
in 102D.
The following May,
with 63 hours and
1,078 miles on 102D's
respective gages,
Molt was in LA again,
this time to repair the
speedometer cable
and to replace 102D's
Narco Superhomer
with new Collins
radio equipment.
Cummings and pilot/
mechanic Gene Bridge
continued to fly the
Aerocar through the
summer and fall of
1961 , with Bridge
performing inspections
every 25 hours.
Most of the flights
were around the LA
basin and to Lancaster
and Palm
Desert, but in mid­
November it was
flown to Phoenix
and return . . . 4
hours each way. A
number of the log
entries note that the
flying was being done
for the CBS cameras.
The last entry in the log while the Aerocar
was owned by Bob Cummings (Nutra-Bio)
was made in February of 1962 . .. and the
next one after that, dated February 25, 1963,
shows it back in Longview. Molt had bought
it back and had put it through his shop to
bring it up to new specs so he could sell it a
second time. It had 139.4 hours and 2,286
miles on it at that point.
Molt annualled 1 02D each year through
1965 . .. and flew it occasionally to keep it
in shape. That summer it was purchased by
Les Willard of Barrington, IL and began a 23
year voyage through time that saw it mostly
in a non-flying status and in storage for a
long period of time. On his way to delivering
it to Willard, Molt displayed the Aerocar at
the 1965 EAA Convention at Rockford,
spending the week showing it off to the aviation
enthusiasts gathered there. He used
the car to drive to and from his motel and
took it to a different restaurant almost every
night.
Les Willard was the owner of a string of
fast food restaurants and often displayed the
Aerocar at one of them on weekends as a
way to pull in traffic. During the week, his
kids often drove the car portion to school!
Willard flew 1 02D just a few hours during the
time he owned it . .. and as events would
transpire, that would be the end of the flying
car's flying for nearly two decades.
SPORT AVIATION 19

The Sweeney's Aerocar getting bead blasted back to bare metal.
Les Willard sold the Aerocar to Hal
Thompson who kept it in storage in Arcadia,
FL for 16 years. During this period, the wings
suffered some damage from a wind storm
. . and were never repaired.
Thompson, in turn, sold 102D to R. J.
Davis .. . and as previously related, Davis
sold it to <strong>Ed</strong> and Sandra Sweeney in the
spring of 1988.
When <strong>Ed</strong> got his Aerocar back to Col·
orado, he did a thorough inspection and determined
that a back-to-bare-metal restoration
of the airframe was in order. The engine
appeared to be in good shape, but the years
of storage in Florida's maritime climate had
taken its toll on the airframe's aluminum
structure. A lot of corrosion was found, but,
fortunately, almost all of it was confined to
exposed surfaces and could be cleaned up.
Over the next few months, the Aerocar
was stripped bare, bead blasted from stem
to stern and had all physically damaged
parts repaired or rebuilt by Beagle's Aircraft
Repair and Salvage in Greeley, Co ... who
are masters at sheet metal work, according
to <strong>Ed</strong>. All the instruments were pulled out
and replaced or overhauled, including a lot
of relettering to make the old faces look new.
All the systems . . . and between the car and
aircraft functions, there are a lot of them ..
. were serviced, repaired and replaced, as
needed. The phenolic bladed Hartzell
ground adjustable propeller was turned over
to Tri-County Propellers in Erie, CO and to
everyone's amazement, needed nothing
more than cosmetic work. It was found that
there are no AD notes on the blades or hub
so that for all intents and purposes, it is a
lifetime propeller. Very light and obviously
durable, the "plastic" blades were molded
using strips of cloth impregnated with a
phenol/aldehyde resin, a process that dates
back for decades. The fact that this early
form of "composite" construction is still holding
up today ... in something exposed to
the stresses a propeller blade is . .. probably
tells a lot about the life we can expect of our
more recent, presumably more advanced
composite materials.
20 JANUARY <strong>1990</strong>
When all the airframe work was finally
done and the Aerocar was put back together,
the cosmetic concern was making the craft
look as much like it did when Bob Cummings
owned it as possible .. . and, at the same
time, preserving it to the greatest degree
possible. It would be painted Earl Scheib yellow
and green, of course, but modern, durable
lmron polyurethane would be substituted
for whatever paint was put on for $39.95
nearly 30 years ago. Some aluminum surfaces
were left in bare aluminum when the
Aerocar was new, so to retain the original
look and preserve the metal, they were
painted with silver Alumigrip.
Before 1 02D was ready for flight, the
Sweeneys moved from Denver to the Spruce
Creek aviation community near Daytona
Beach, FL., taking all their airplanes with
them, of course. It would be December 23,
1988 before <strong>Ed</strong> would be ready to make the
first test hop .. . the first flight by 1 02D in 25
years. He drove the Aerocar, towing its
wings, to the New Smyrna Beach airport, assembled
it for flight and made several taxi
runs up and down the runway before he attempted
to lift it off. When everything felt
right, he opened up the Lycoming and put
some Florida sunshine beneath the 4
wheels.
All did not go well, however. Almost immediately
the cylinder head temperature ran
up to 600 degrees. Everything else felt normal
and all the other instruments were in the
green, however, so <strong>Ed</strong> eased the Aerocar
around the pattern and made a smooth landing.
A thorough check of the engine revealed
nothing, so <strong>Ed</strong> finally concluded he had a
faulty CHT gage . . . and decided to fly 1 02D
the 1 0 miles or so home from New Smyrna
Beach to Spruce Creek . .. in formation with
Lou Spanberger in his beautifully restored
Stearman. Subsequent flights and tweaking
of the engine and its systems began to make
<strong>Ed</strong> suspect that the long period the Aerocar
was in storage had taken its toll on the
Lycoming. It started, it ran, it never let him
down . . . but it seemed to be a little short
on power on the top end, and oil consumplion
was higher than he knew it should be.
He had been advised to run the engine for
about 10 hours before making any determinations,
one way or the other . . . and was
within that period when he flew to Lakeland
for Sun 'n Fun last April. The flight was without
a hitch, but upon landing, he found one
cylinder had been pumping oil .. . badly. The
next few days were spent on the other side
of the airport from the fly-in site, rebuilding
the cylinder, but he was able to get back and
show off the Aerocar in the fly-by pattern
several times before the week was over.
Stuck rings had been the culprit.
Sometime before Sun 'n Fun, <strong>Ed</strong> had
added another treasure to his family's aeronautical
collection. He remembered seeing
the Aerocar II (or Aeroplane, as it is also
called) years ago, and during a phone con-
~ versation with Molt, asked what had hap­
" pened to it. It was still in his shop, Molt rel
vealed ... and, yes, he would sell it. The
il3 upshot was that <strong>Ed</strong> and his son, Eric, were
~ soon in Longview with their "World's Only
t:
Flying Car" truck and trailer to retrieve the
8 Aerocar II. It turned out to be a good trip in
a number of respects. In the course of pulling
the Aerocar II out of the loft where it had
been stored for two decades, a lot of missing
pieces of the prototype Aerocar I were found
. . . a wing , propeller and driveshaft, among
other things . . . so <strong>Ed</strong> loaded them in his
trailer and hauled them back to Florida for
delivery to the Buehler Foundation which is
restoring the craft for the EAA Air Adventure
Museum. (Thanks to all involved for this contribution
to the project.)
The rebuilt cylinder seemed to solve the
engine problem, so the Sweeneys brought
their Aerocar to Oshkosh this past summer
and had a tremendous time flying and driving
it for EAAers there. The problem of producing
power at the top end was still there, however,
so that after returning home to Florida
the decision was made to do a top overhaul.
The cylinders were yanked off during the fall
and sent out for rebuild and were back home
and ready for installation when this
magazine went to press. <strong>Ed</strong> is looking forward
to having full power at his disposal ..
. and being able to enjoy flying and driving
the Aerocar in the years ahead.
THE FLYING SWEENEYS
<strong>Ed</strong> Sweeney has been involved in aviation
as long as he can remember . . . and he
came by the interest naturally. His father was
a pioneer in aviation law and after service in
the Navy in World War II, published the
Journal of Air Law and Commerce for
many years while he was a professor at
Northwestern University. He was later president
of the National Aeronautic Association
(NAA) .. . and, according to <strong>Ed</strong>, "snatched
us (he and Sandra) out of college to publish
American Modeller for the Academy of
Model Aeronautics." An avid modeller since
childhood, that was right down <strong>Ed</strong>'s alley.
Later, <strong>Ed</strong> and Sandra would publish their
own news tabloid, RC <strong>Sport</strong>sman, which
was quite successful, but when hang gliding
and the ultralight movement burst upon the
aviation scene in the late 1970s, they became
totally absorbed with that new form of
flight. Selling out their publication, they
launched into the development and man-

ufacture of power packages for hang gliders
. . . and, eventually, into the manufacture of
ultralights. EAAers from the late 1970s and
early '80s will recall their popular twin-engine
Hummingbird, which was an evolution of
Klaus Hill's Humbug. Many may also recall
that the Sweeney's son, Sean, was usually
the youngest ultralight pilot at Sun 'n Fun
and Oshkosh. <strong>To</strong>day, he is a Commercial
pilot with a CFII rating, has his A&P license
. . . and is in line with the rest of you who
are waiting for a job with an airline.
In a rather unusual turn of events, Sandra
earned a pilot license before <strong>Ed</strong>. While Sean
was attending one of the famed Black Forest
Glider Camps at about 14 years of age, she
took a ride in a sailplane, became hooked .
. . and in rapid progression earned licenses
to fly gliders, single and multi-engine powerplanes,
got her A&P . . . and is currently
working on her instrument rating! That got
<strong>Ed</strong> out of his model airplane and ultralight
workshops long enough to get his pilot
license, and as previously noted, his A&P.
During the time they were manufacturing
Hummingbirds, the Sweeneys owned a
Varga Kachina and used it to check out
every buyer. If you weren't a licensed pilot
and could not fly the Varga, you would not
be sold a Hummingbird. This was their way
of dealing with the product liability situation
and they are proud today of the fact that
none of their customers were killed or seriously
injured in one of their ultralights.
After the Varga, the Sweeneys owned a
Cessna Cardinal, Valentin Taifun, a pressurized
Mooney Mustang, Messerschmitt
209 Monsun, Partenavia Observer .. . and,
of course, the Aerocar. The Cardinal and
Mooney were traded for later additions to
their fleet, but they still own the remaining
four aircraft . . . four and a half, <strong>Ed</strong> says,
referring to the Aerocar II which, when restored,
will share the wings and tailcone with
1020. A Mooney Mite project also sits in the
Sweeney hangar at Spruce Creek and will
be next on <strong>Ed</strong>'s list after the Aerocar II is
completed.
Their middle son, Eric, is also a Commercial,
instrument rated pilot and he, too, is
in the airline pilot waiting line. He owns a
Culver Cadet that is currently undergoing restoration
.. . but might be for sale to the right
buyer. The Sweeney's youngest son, Mark,
is 15 and predictably has already started flying
lessons.
<strong>Ed</strong> and Sandra look on their ownership of
the Aerocar and the Aerocar II as a sort of
trusteeship. They feel they are preserving a
valuable historical artifact . .. and by keeping
it in flying condition, may well serve as the
bridge to the hopefully not too distant future
when the flying automobile becomes a widespread
reality. They have exposed about 3/4
of a million people .. . in person .. . to the
concept just during this past year, plus all
those who have read about 1020's appearances
at Sun 'n Fun and Oshkosh or saw it
on TV.
When you are at Sun 'n Fun or Oshkosh
this year, stop by and talk to the Sweeneys
about the future of personal transportation .
. . and see how it all started 40 years ago.
SPORT AVIATION 21