(Pictured: The tiny "Ursaab" 92001 which reminds me of a small plane stepped on by an elephant.)
I give to you, again, a post from Kurt Nelson, skier, writer, road pilot, with a few thoughts on automotive flight:
Born from Jets: You have all seen the advertising for Saab, touting their long heritage in aeronautics and airplane history. Well, this is not really a jet story, but it does involve a Saab leaving the ground, so I guess Born from Jets is accurate. Saab was started as an aeronautics company, and in the mid 1940s a group of their engineers decided to build a car, which resulted in the Saab 92001 or “Ursaab” and the rest is history.
(Pictured: A jet fighter plane in the SAAB Museum, and we all thought Swedes were pacifists.)
I have had the happy occasion of getting my Saab off the ground a number of times over the years, but it was the first time that evokes such good memories and makes me continue to look for places to launch.
A few years ago, my wife and I bought some property in Northwest Wisconsin, a very rural area, with great roads, ribbons of blacktop that stretch for miles and undulate with the local terrain, over peat bogs and thru white pine forests. Where most people just see a road to their cabin, I see roads that beckon for me to put my car to the test. It is in that spirit that this story comes.
Driving alone one morning to go for a mountain bike ride, I went past our normal access road, looking for another entry into the forest. The road had a large dip, one with a steep upside and a flat entry or landing depending on your point of view. My immediate thought was, hey, I could probably get my car off the ground if I try; and being one who likes to try, I gave it a shot.
I turned around and started into the approach again, but with a little more urgency, in fact I was giving it thru 3 gears, up to about 80mph, I rode up the steep side, and launched at the apex, now this was not 3 feet off the ground, more like all 4 wheels left the pavement for a time, I landed softly, but In my usual doubting way I thought, did I really leave terra firma, or was this just hopeful thinking. I turned around and tried it again. This time I hit the steep side at 90, and this time I heard the wheels spinning and engine revving as I left the pavement, so I knew that I had succeeded in getting weightless albeit for a brief instant.
A couple of weeks later my wife and I were going to spend the day at the property hiking and maybe a mountain bike ride, with a picnic. Knowing full well that I was going to let her in on the fun. I approached the dip, and rather than tell her what was going to happen I just got on the go peddle, getting the tires to chirp in 3 gears. We hit the dip at 90, and launched, all the while she was laughing with child like joy, and enthusiasm.
Not only did we get off the ground, we did it twice so I could hear that laughter again. how you approach it, and for me and my car born from jets, getting in the air is an appropriate nod to heritage.
