The first episode of Monster Garage in which Jesse James forms a team
to build an airplane out of a Panoze sports car occured last night.

Unlike just about all the previous episodes I've seen, this team had a
lot of people. Rather than save a bit of time by scavenging a set of
wings, they actually built their own. One of the engineers designed
an airfoil and they cut out templates, bolted metal between the
templates and slapped it and hammered it into flanged rib pieces.

They rushed some material over to a local machine shop to bend up the
spars, then riveted doublers onto the cap strips and riveted the nose
pieces, middle and tail pieces to the spars. Lots of people working
and a lot of work. In three or four days, they had a wing assembled.

It's impressive, but as usual I felt that the effort was wasted on a
joke vehical.

One of Jesse's concepts is that everything the teams build is supposed
to look basically stock, but do these ridiculous stunts. In this case
he insisted that the aircraft engine be concealed until needed then be
raised for action. This is creating friction between a number of
workers. The guy who is the "chief" aerodynamics engineers told Jesse
that if he wanted this thing to fly, the engine had to be fixed in
place, none of this raise or lower it stuff. Besides, there's a huge
tube extension that has to be built for the tail plane that isn't
going to be retracted, it's welded in place. Jesse, for his part, had
little to add to the chaos, as building an airplane is way out of his
league.

He did have a suggestion as to using a tool that made bending the rib
material over the formers, a slapper, but the one suggestion he made
to having a rib cut so that the material that required shrinking was
eliminated from the blank turned out to be a dud. The material cut
out of the rib was exactly the material needed for riveting, and the
engineers told him so. He just shrugged, as did everyone else, they
all went back to bending metal.

The engine turned out to be an 0-320 out of a hurricane damaged
airplane. 150 hp.

Corky Scott

Corky Scott wrote:
> The first episode of Monster Garage in which Jesse James forms a team
> to build an airplane out of a Panoze sports car occured last night.
>
> Unlike just about all the previous episodes I've seen, this team had a
> lot of people. Rather than save a bit of time by scavenging a set of
> wings, they actually built their own. One of the engineers designed
> an airfoil and they cut out templates, bolted metal between the
> templates and slapped it and hammered it into flanged rib pieces.
>
> They rushed some material over to a local machine shop to bend up the
> spars, then riveted doublers onto the cap strips and riveted the nose
> pieces, middle and tail pieces to the spars. Lots of people working
> and a lot of work. In three or four days, they had a wing assembled.
>
> It's impressive, but as usual I felt that the effort was wasted on a
> joke vehical.
>
> One of Jesse's concepts is that everything the teams build is supposed
> to look basically stock, but do these ridiculous stunts. In this case
> he insisted that the aircraft engine be concealed until needed then be
> raised for action. This is creating friction between a number of
> workers. The guy who is the "chief" aerodynamics engineers told Jesse
> that if he wanted this thing to fly, the engine had to be fixed in
> place, none of this raise or lower it stuff. Besides, there's a huge
> tube extension that has to be built for the tail plane that isn't
> going to be retracted, it's welded in place. Jesse, for his part, had
> little to add to the chaos, as building an airplane is way out of his
> league.
>
> He did have a suggestion as to using a tool that made bending the rib
> material over the formers, a slapper, but the one suggestion he made
> to having a rib cut so that the material that required shrinking was
> eliminated from the blank turned out to be a dud. The material cut
> out of the rib was exactly the material needed for riveting, and the
> engineers told him so. He just shrugged, as did everyone else, they
> all went back to bending metal.
>
> The engine turned out to be an 0-320 out of a hurricane damaged
> airplane. 150 hp.
>
> Corky Scott

You do know that the drama in these shows are often not real don't you?

On 7 Jun 2005 10:22:54 -0700, "Sport Pilot" > wrote:

>You do know that the drama in these shows are often not real don't you?

Of course. I watch it to see how things can be fabricated and am
always a bit put off by any grandstanding that occurs. That's bound
to happen when you get a group of individuals with largish ego's and
follow them around with a camera.

It's very likely that the producers do a pep talk with everyone so
that they understand that crazyness and merriment is part of the show
so let's see some.

Corky Scott

PS, if you ever wondered if it's possible to carry on normally with a
camera in your face, trust me, it's impossible to ignor. One of
Charles Kuralt's "On the Road" show's was shot in the Vermont town
where I live because we happen to have what is considered to be a very
picturesque town meeting hall. We gather for town meeting every year,
first Tuesday in March. The folks meet to vote the town and school
budgets etc etc. There were roving cameramen with BRIGHT floodlights
walking around filming the various people of the town. Word had
gotten out ahead of time of course, and the place was jammed as it's
never been before or since. My wife and I were as curious as anyone
and also relatively new to the town so we wanted to participate.

We tried to avoid the cameras, not encourage them by looking at them
so to speak, and in general watched as various people argued in front
of the camera's over such hugely mundane questions as "whether the
town should leave it's street lights on at night or turn them off to
save energy." There may be a total of 5 street lights in both
villages...

During the break for lunch, a camera person wandered down the aisle
and stopped by my wife and I while we were eating our lunch. The
lunches were something the town pulls together, it's a showcase of
local cooking talent so it's eagerly awaited each year and probably
the prime reason people go to the meetings.

There we sat transfixed by the brighter than bright floodlights from
this camera guy while he filmed us scooping up baked beans on our
plastic forks and tried to get them into our mouth's without shaking
them off.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" the guy asked as he shut off the lights
and turned away for other likely subjects. Actually, we kinda thought
it was.

In article >, Corky Scott says...
>
>On 7 Jun 2005 10:22:54 -0700, "Sport Pilot" > wrote:
>
>>You do know that the drama in these shows are often not real don't you?
>
>Of course. I watch it to see how things can be fabricated and am
>always a bit put off by any grandstanding that occurs. That's bound
>to happen when you get a group of individuals with largish ego's and
>follow them around with a camera.
>

After my 2 experiences with Junk Yard Wars I realize that there is a certain
amount of Hollywood magic in all these shows. When I heard about this build it
sure piqued my interest. As I watched I was pleased to see a familiar face on
the build crew a guy named Ed Sweeney. He's an early ultralight manufacturer who
is now involved with various flying car projects.

Then lo and behold he's the one who gets into it with the one guy over the swing
engine concept and seems to walk out of the show.Guess we'll find out in the
next thrilling episode of Monster Garage if he does or not :-) Next time I see
Ed I'll ask him if it was for real or staged for effect.

Frankly I hope someone with piloting skills tests it for the first time even if
off camera and not for the show. Sometimes testicular fortitude is no substitute
for skill and ability .

Chuck(same time same station) S

ChuckSlusarczyk wrote:
> In article >, Corky Scott says...
>
>>On 7 Jun 2005 10:22:54 -0700, "Sport Pilot" > wrote:
>>
>>
>>>You do know that the drama in these shows are often not real don't you?
>>
>>Of course. I watch it to see how things can be fabricated and am
>>always a bit put off by any grandstanding that occurs. That's bound
>>to happen when you get a group of individuals with largish ego's and
>>follow them around with a camera.
>>
>
>
> After my 2 experiences with Junk Yard Wars I realize that there is a certain
> amount of Hollywood magic in all these shows. When I heard about this build it
> sure piqued my interest. As I watched I was pleased to see a familiar face on
> the build crew a guy named Ed Sweeney. He's an early ultralight manufacturer who
> is now involved with various flying car projects.
>
> Then lo and behold he's the one who gets into it with the one guy over the swing
> engine concept and seems to walk out of the show.Guess we'll find out in the
> next thrilling episode of Monster Garage if he does or not :-) Next time I see
> Ed I'll ask him if it was for real or staged for effect.
>
> Frankly I hope someone with piloting skills tests it for the first time even if
> off camera and not for the show. Sometimes testicular fortitude is no substitute
> for skill and ability .
>
> Chuck(same time same station) S
>

Autoweek had an article on this. James few it himself but it wasn't
more than a taxi test if you ask me... I'd be real surprised if it
could reach the next airport over.

Tony

"ChuckSlusarczyk" > wrote in message
...
> Frankly I hope someone with piloting skills tests it for the first time
> even if
> off camera and not for the show. Sometimes testicular fortitude is no
> substitute
> for skill and ability .

Chuckles...........

This issue of Popular Mechanics has a cover story on it - tells all.

Rich S.

I have watched a few early episodes of Junkyard Wars, and Monster
garage, and Orange County Choppers, and that custom car guy in
California - Ward something or other -but I have quit... The fake
deadlines and manufactured crises annoy me to the point that I cannot
enjoy watching... Actually what they do with the machinery is
interesting and I dearly love watching rough metal being shaped and
smoothed and painted and coming out looking like a piece of sculpture,
but the crap that the vapid producers use to hype the show ratings is
intolerable...

Denny

In article >, Rich S. says...
>Chuckles...........
>
>This issue of Popular Mechanics has a cover story on it - tells all.
>
>Rich S.


I'll check it out for sure "inquiring minds want to know" :-0

See ya

Chuck S

In article . com>, Denny
says...
>
>I have watched a few early episodes of Junkyard Wars, and Monster
>garage, and Orange County Choppers, and that custom car guy in
>California - Ward something or other -but I have quit... The fake
>deadlines and manufactured crises annoy me to the point that I cannot
>enjoy watching... Actually what they do with the machinery is
>interesting and I dearly love watching rough metal being shaped and
>smoothed and painted and coming out looking like a piece of sculpture,
>but the crap that the vapid producers use to hype the show ratings is
>intolerable...

It's true enough that sometimes things get hyped or overblown. There were enough
real life crises in the first episode I was on to help balance the hype.
There are deadlines but you have the next day called "safety day" to fix up any
potentially dangerous items.All in all it was a lot of fun for me especially if
you take it tongue in cheek. I like you enjoy seeing guys using things like an
english wheel or making ribs by beating metal around wooden forms.
Unfortunately it seems that everyone in Hollywood is following the same format
and think a show can't be interesting unless there is a crises real or
imagined.

See ya

Chuck S

Somehow I doubt that it can ever come even close to what the British
build (in just 20 hours) and flew in JYW. That thing looked like it
was just about ready to go into production, it appeared to handled so
well.

And then there was that great judge... what was his name??? <G>

On 8 Jun 2005 04:48:57 -0700, "Denny" > wrote:

>I have watched a few early episodes of Junkyard Wars, and Monster
>garage, and Orange County Choppers, and that custom car guy in
>California - Ward something or other -but I have quit... The fake
>deadlines and manufactured crises annoy me to the point that I cannot
>enjoy watching... Actually what they do with the machinery is
>interesting and I dearly love watching rough metal being shaped and
>smoothed and painted and coming out looking like a piece of sculpture,
>but the crap that the vapid producers use to hype the show ratings is
>intolerable...
>
>Denny

My feelings precisely. The producers appear to think that just
building a great vehical from scratch isn't interesting enough to
appeal to a broad enough audience, so they make sure there's always
looming deadlines to produce conflict, intrigue and anger to attract
the non mechanically minded people to watch the show. They may be
right, but I don't care for that aspect of the shows at all.

After all, they're building hot rods and/or choppers, why does
anything have to be rushed about that? Rushing ALWAYS causes
problems. It's kind of the opposite of the homebuilding aircraft
ethic, to me. Of course, I probably carry it to the opposite extreme,
being very slow at construction. I've been working on my Christavia
for some 15 years now and I'm nowhere close to finishing. Work has
slowed almost to a stop right now while I do LONG delayed house
improvements. I view this work as an absolutely necessary part of the
airplane construction: If I don't do the house work, I won't be able
to work on the airplane due to pressure and anger from the other
important one in my life. And she's right. I'm building a toy,
albeit a very expensive toy, but the house may eventually be sold some
day and we should do what's necessary to get the best price possible
for it, when/if that time comes. Even if it doesn't come, the home
improvements are gratifying anyway. So I thought this summer was
going to be the big push to finally get the fuselage blasted and
painted, but work on the house will likely make this difficult to do,
if not impossible.

Testing the engine will be the goal for this summer, it looks like.

Corky Scott

Sorta-on-topic:

In tonight's episode of MythBusters, they explore whether you can build
a personal VTOL vehicle from plans that you can buy on the Internet. I
had a good look at the parts when I auditioned for the show last year.
I won't say much about it til after the show, but what's in the public
domain:

They talked with the SoloTrek guys, and filmed at least part of the
segment at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos where the SoloTrek
prototype is:

http://www.millenniumjet.com/Trek_News.htm

They originally selected a Rotax 582 for power:

http://www.worldtalkradio.com/archive.asp?aid=2471

It'll be interesting to see what they've made of it since I last saw
it.

Thanks, Bob K.

"Corky Scott" > wrote in message
...
> After all, they're building hot rods and/or choppers, why does
> anything have to be rushed about that?

Work pace drives total man-hours to complete. If they bid a fixed cost
contract (not sure if they do it that way), then "taking your sweet time"
eats profits.

> Rushing ALWAYS causes problems.

Not true. But you gotta have the right people that can work fast and get it
done right the first time (well, most of the time). If you have some good
top-gun designers/fabricators, they are the only ones doing the special
jobs, the one-offs, and the prototypes.

> It's kind of the opposite of the homebuilding aircraft ethic, to me.

Absolutely. The typical hobebuilder is not economically driven to complete
fast. In fact, slowing things down is probably economically better. Keep the
airplane in the garage. No hangar costs, no fuel costs, blah blah....

I work for Lockheed in Palmdale (Flight Controls engineer). I've worked on
some projects where there's no time, no money, and a next-to-impossible
design challenge. Imagine a crisis level like they typically show on
American Hot Rod, but sustained over a year or longer. The pressure to be
efficient and not waste a penny on idle time can be immense. Having one
person sitting around doing nothing cuz he's waiting for someone else to
finish his part is really bad, so you have to keep running around making
sure everyone stays busy at all times. Hissy fits and blow-ups are fairly
frequent. The thin-skinned typically don't survive. Those types, if they
stay with the company, end up working paper research projects (i.e. not on
prototyping efforts). Now, we typically don't have managers that scream at
employees (company rules DO mandate proper behavior to some degree), but
there are other ways to apply pressure.

So, from my perspective, I guess the drama looks about right. It never
occured to me that it was all fabricated, since I live it every day (at
least on my current project).

Kinda makes me wonder what it's like to work at Scaled Composites. Maybe I
should go ask some of my compadres that used to work there.

Pete

jmk wrote:
> Somehow I doubt that it can ever come even close to what the British
> build (in just 20 hours) and flew in JYW. That thing looked like it
> was just about ready to go into production, it appeared to handled so
> well.
>
> And then there was that great judge... what was his name??? <G>
>
I believe that even Chuck well admit that they didn't REALLY build it in
20 hours.

Jerry

Denny wrote:
> I have watched a few early episodes of Junkyard Wars, and Monster
> garage, and Orange County Choppers, and that custom car guy in
> California - Ward something or other -but I have quit... The fake
> deadlines and manufactured crises annoy me to the point that I cannot
> enjoy watching... Actually what they do with the machinery is
> interesting and I dearly love watching rough metal being shaped and
> smoothed and painted and coming out looking like a piece of sculpture,
> but the crap that the vapid producers use to hype the show ratings is
> intolerable...

You would probably enjoy the British series of series "A [plane/race
car/classic car] is (re)born". Same presenter and format in each
episode, building something. Only one guy (mostly), no rush or
deadlines, but he does tend to skip over big chunks... its still
entertainment rather than how-to. There's also a series called "Wheeler
Dealer" that I enjoy -- again one presenter buys a beat-up old car,
fixes it up (with help from others), and sells it for profit.

Frank

In article . com>, jmk says...
>
>Somehow I doubt that it can ever come even close to what the British
>build (in just 20 hours) and flew in JYW. That thing looked like it
>was just about ready to go into production, it appeared to handled so
>well.
>
>And then there was that great judge... what was his name??? <G>

I'll let ya in on a little secret ,the Brits and the French were prepared for
the build.They had drawn full size plans at home and knew what they were gonna
build ahead of time. The USA team pretty much winged it because only one guy
knew what was going to be built. The French even practiced building components
back in France for practice. The Bill the pilot on the Brits team even built a
flying scale model back in the UK to test the design. As Judge I was there for
the 2 build days and the planes were pretty complete except for details like
throttles ,wiring fuel tanks etc. True it was longer then 20 hrs but all in all
it was 3 planes built ,N numbered and flown in under a week.And there was a
couple of days wasted in transporting the planes to the desert.

As far as the Judge went he should go back to building and leave the Judging to
Judge Wapner LOL!!

See ya

Chuck(out of work JYW's contestant)S

"Richard Riley" > wrote

> Back in a previous life, when I was in the Biz, I pitched a series to
> PBS (before any of the cable channels existed) called "The Masters."
> The idea was every week we'd do 2 segments on master craftsmen, doing
> masterwork. Commission them to make some of the best work they'd ever
> done, their choice, them follow them thorough the process. They paid
> for a pilot, we filmed a silversmith and a wedding dress maker, but it
> didn't get picked up.

I have watched a show, that was exactly that. Home and Garden Network,
maybe. I don't remember.
--
Jim in NC

I don't get it. If you think the "effort was wasted on a
joke vehical" why watch? I have never seen the show, the previews
looked like a bunch of guys who think they are better than everyone
else. I also figure that instead of waisting and hour watching someone
else build something and complain about how they do it, I could work on
my own projects.

Lou

On 9 Jun 2005 03:41:22 -0700, "Lou" > wrote:

>I don't get it. If you think the "effort was wasted on a
>joke vehical" why watch? I have never seen the show, the previews
>looked like a bunch of guys who think they are better than everyone
>else. I also figure that instead of waisting and hour watching someone
>else build something and complain about how they do it, I could work on
>my own projects.
>
>Lou

Interesting, you didn't watch it but feel the need to comment anyway.
Doesn't matter that the car is a joke, that's what they do, build joke
vehicals, it's the point of the show. What's interesting is watching
the guys do things like turn a Mazda Miata into a jet ski boat: how
would they do that? What pieces go into it? Or turn some other car
into a snomobile that raises and lowers the tracks and ski's so that
it can both drive on the pavement and run on the snow. Or build a car
that can fly. They chose not to give the vehical the full three axis
controls, guess it was one complication too many because the original
vehical controls remained (brakes, accelerator pedal and steering
wheel) but they had to add the aileron controls and elevator actuator.
Perhaps working out the rudder controls was just too much for a five
day build, since they also fabricated their own wings and struts and
roll cage to which they would attach.

Yes, they act like a bunch of egomaniacs because they've spent all
their lives building things other folks can't, and most have been very
successful at it.

I appreciate their skills, I just don't like the producers efforts to
create acrimony to make the show more "watchable".

Corky Scott

Corky Scott wrote:


> I appreciate their skills, I just don't like the producers efforts to
> create acrimony to make the show more "watchable".
>
> Corky Scott


One of my favorite is the OC chopper show they do great things with their
bikes but suffer from the same "producer" troubles. The producer
concentrates on the bickering between father and son which I know is a turn
on for a lot of people but just turns me off. Kinda like the political
threads on this ng! ;-)
John
Sorry Corky couldn't help that last gib!

> sure everyone stays busy at all times. Hissy fits and blow-ups are fairly
> frequent. The thin-skinned typically don't survive. Those types, if they

My shop builds plastic injection molds. Every job we do is a one of a kind
job, and every job we do has a dead line and they are all quoted jobs. I
encourage my guys to take their time and do things right. If I didn't quote
enough time (or money) into the job, it's not their problem. If they get
frustrated, I send them for a walk. It's amazing how many times they solve
their own problem by just cooling off a little bit. A good manager can
convey deadlines and concerns without adding pressure to his employees. A
tool maker's job is tough enough without worrying about management issues.

A rushed job almost always comes back for repairs.

> I still think watching people who are really, really good at what they
> do is entertaining, no matter what it is they do.

I agree. I would've watched.

Denny wrote:

> but the crap that the vapid producers use to hype the show ratings is
> intolerable...
>
> Denny
>

I agree, Denny. I was liking JYW until first they kept putting more and
more emphasis on the competition and then they started specifying the
end product so closely and giving the 'experts' so much authority that
both teams came to the contest with nearly identical machines. At
first, the show was about creating a machine to do a job. It eventually
became 'build this machine'. Which was boring. I basically quit
watching with the 'Tractor Pull' episodes.

The most irritating thing about Monster Garage was that they'd set a
budget, and the competition was supposed to be about if they could
complete the project within that budget. The episode where they turned
a bus into a catamaran, they were using 12ft lengths of 4" square steel
tubing that was 'scrap', so that it didn't count against the budget. I
want' to know where I can find some of that scrap.


--
This is by far the hardest lesson about freedom. It goes against
instinct, and morality, to just sit back and watch people make
mistakes. We want to help them, which means control them and their
decisions, but in doing so we actually hurt them (and ourselves)."

> tubing that was 'scrap', so that it didn't count against the budget. I
> want' to know where I can find some of that scrap.


The same place they found "scrap" in junk yard wars. It was planted.