James McCornack

Team Culturing Information

Last updated: Feb 21, 2012

WHO are you?

• Name - James Danger McCornack--please call me Jack
• Location (city, country) - Cave Junction, Oregon
• Contact Information (email, skype, phone) - jack (at) kineticvehicles [dot] com
• Picture -
• Introductory Video -
• Resume/CV -

Writer and designer, president and design chief of Kinetic Vehicles and Kinetic Aerospace. Former founder/president/design chief of Cuyunair Corp which designed and manufactured lightweight IC engines for small aircraft and UAVs, ditto Pterodactyl Ltd which designed and manufactured light and ultralight aircraft, and designed, prototyped, tested and demonstrated UAVs for major aircraft manufacturers.

Kinetic Vehicles designs/develops open source sports cars and provides components to individual constructors. Kinetic Aerospace designs/develops/supplies/services operational stunt and special effect aircraft for action adventure films. Ain't gonna study war no more, but don't mind playing Let's Pretend.

WHY are you motivated to support/develop this work?

• Do you endorse open source culture?

Yes. I live by it.

• Why are you interested in collaborating with us?

Shared ideals, primarily, but also Open Source Ecology has a niche in the GVCS that fits me like a glove. At present (mid-Feb 2012) the Open Source Automobile project seems unlikely to meet its scheduled completion date of 12/31/12 without adult supervision, so I have offered to design and build the first prototype.

Apparently Marcin hasn't delegated the job yet, and from the outside looking in, it seems like this is one project that is running out of time. I like volunteering where I can make a difference, and the more options for small manufacturers, the better.

• How do you think that the GVCS can address pressing world issues?

By doing what it says it's going to do. You've read it all before; the whole point of the GVCS is to address pressing world issues, right?

I'm a one trick pony; I'll probably only work on the OS Car and leave the other 49 GVCS components to folks with skills and experience I lack (okay, I may get involved on the OS Truck if the car thing works out). So speaking only of the OS Car project, I think individuals and small manufacturers can lead the way to efficient and appropriate transportation, which will reduce our culture's waste of fuel and energy, and I think that's a pressing world issue.

• What should happen so that you become more involved with the project?

Marcin should answer my email. :-)

But seriously, folks, the specifications for the OS Car need to be readdressed. It's a tilting three wheeler here and an Urbee-like car there, tandem seating for reduced air resistance and three wheels for reduced weight on one page, but it has a Power Cube on another page...as my dad used to say, "You can have anything you want, but you can't have everything you want."

• What is missing in the project?

The OS Car concept has a number of mutually exclusive features, and Marcin (who I gather makes the decisions of which way these projects go) needs to discard one of each conflicting pair so an actual car can be built. I know it's tough, it drove me crazy as a kid, I'd want this AND that instead of this OR that and I wouldn't get either; to quote my dad again, "You want to be an astronomer but you don't want to work nights."

The other thing missing is commitment to the task. Take a one-hour break from fundraising, choose a project manager, and get started.

• What are your suggestions for improvement of the project?

Either start the OS Car project immediately, or stop saying it will be done this year. Any of the GVCS components that aren't in whatever plan management has for completion should be dropped, pure and simple. If fundraising is geared around finishing the GVCS 50 this year, but the management only intends to do 20 of them, well, call it the GVCS 20 and let your sponsors and contributors know which projects will fall by the wayside.

I think most OSE sponsors and potential sponsors (including myself) will be looking for deeds not words this year. A project that isn't finished on its promised delivery date, that looks like unexpected problems caused a delay, but we all know things happen and an explanation will suffice. A project that hasn't even been started by its promised delivery date, well, that looks like a con, and contributors wonder where their money went.

WHAT are your skills?

• List all of your skills in these areas: Communications - Organizational - Computer Support - Finances - Design - Natural Building - Electronics - Automation - Metallurgy - Engineering - Fabrication - Agriculture - Energy - Architecture - Video/Graphics/Art - PR/Marketing - Education - Construction - Industry - CNC - Chemistry - Product Design - Other

Communications: Good writing skills. I've sold over a million non-fiction words to various magazines, written over a dozen assembly and shop manuals.

Engineering: Considerable experience in aeronautical, mechanical, and structural engineering. Over 10,000 examples of my aircraft designs in the world fleet, roughly 20,000 examples of my engines.

PR/Marketing: That's what sold those aircraft and engines.

CNC: I got impatient waiting for the GVCS CNC Torch/Router Table and built my own last year. I hand-write G Code for simple things, translate from Autocad and Rhino for complex things.

Product Design: A century or so ago, somebody clever said "An engineer is a man who can do for a farthing what any fool can do for a pound." I design with the farthing in mind.

• How have you already contributed to the project?

In 2010 I spoke at length with Marcin re how to get a car design off of the cocktail napkin and onto the road, and what is necessary to achieve 100 mpg in normal driving. In 2011 I demonstrated the OS Car was an achievable goal by building my own low budget two-seat fuel sipper* (its best competition result to date is 127 mpg in a hundred miles of mixed rural road, town traffic, and freeway driving at the Vetter Fuel Economy Challenge...thank you, thank you, hold your applause). So if any nay-sayers have been telling him, "I dunno, Marcin, maybe the OS Car can't be done," I hope my example has blown them out of the water.

Yeah, really. My license number is MAX MPG; that's enough of a clue for google.

HOW can you help?

• How are you interested in contributing to the work of GVCS development?

The Car/Research_Development wiki page describes the OS Car as "...Low Cost (less than $12,000), Ease of Construction (1000 hours of construction time..." when it's sorted out, and I believe I can design and build the first prototype in half the hours, with an additional $3000 for outside labor and overhead, at my facility in Oregon, in the 10 months remaining in this year.

That's what I've calculated, but if I am wrong, I will pay any additional costs and perform (or hire) additional labor as needed for completion in 2012.

• Can you volunteer to work with us, and if so, how many hours per week?

Yes, hours as needed to finish on schedule. I have offered 500 hours of my engineering and fabrication time, total, which will vary from week to week.

Perhaps "work with us" is not totally accurate, since I'll be performing the work in my own shop, a la the Ironworker project, etc. FeF does not have the tools and equipment necessary (though it will once the other GVCS 49 are built) and I don't see the OS Car prototype as a dirt floor, half a kilowatt hour a day project--my laptop and hand tools will suck that up in a few hours, my welder and plasma cutter will go through that power budget in 20 minutes.

• Are you interested in working with us for pay? If so, what services can you offer, and what is your hourly or per-project rate?

No, I'm not interested in working with you for pay. I'm interested in volunteering. But if you're curious, my hourly rate is $50 an hour and it's doubled for rush jobs, doubled again for hazardous jobs. My per-project rate is typically in six digits, but I've gone as low as $50k for a facelift on something I've done before, such as when a manufacturer wants a distinctive product based on my existing design.

My services run the full range of vehicle and aircraft design, development, and support, from concept to execution. It can start with dinner conversation and a handshake, get designed, get built, do its job, and end up in the Smithsonian. Does Mr. Bond have to get into North Korea unseen? No prob, I'll build him a cross between a sport bike and an air superiority fighter.

Doing occasional well-paid trivial jobs gives me the freedom to do work of consequence for free.

• Are you interested in a Dedicated Project Visit?

Maybe when I deliver the car.

We'll have to come up with a set of product specifications by phone and email, because we don't have a lot of time and an unnecessary flight to FeF clashes with my ethics. The point of high mileage vehicles is to conserve fuel, and airliners burn it by the barrel. Unfortunately we can't go any farther until you decide things like how many wheels you want and which one(s) are going to steer. Sure, I can do busy-work, like write up Bill of Materials and Failure Mode Effects Analysis for every OS Car imagined to date (a la the Bid Proposal Template) but it's not coming out of my 500 volunteer hours.

• Are you interested in purchasing equipment from us to help bootstrap development?

Perhaps, but not today.

• Are you interested in bidding for consulting/design/prototyping work?

I'll do any pointless paperwork you like for $50/hr. Unless you want it in a hurry.

• Are you a True Fan? If not, why not?

No. 500 work hours is contribution enough. If I'm not the guy for you, no problem and I'll find other ways to support you. For example, I'll start mailing you money when you start building your car.

• Would you like to see yourself working with us on a full-time basis?

It could happen, if you keep coming up with interesting and/or useful projects. I'd need to take a month off now and then so I could do something that pays, or I'll eventually run out of grocery money.

• Are you interested in being part of the world's first, open source, resilient community? The GVCS is the preparatory step for the OSE Village Experiment – a 2 year, immersion experiment (2013-2014) for testing whether a real, thriving, modern-day prototype community of 200 people can be built on 200 acres using local resources and open access to information? We are looking for approximately 200 people to fill a diverse array of roles, according to the Social Contract that is being developed. This may be the boldest social experiment on earth - a pioneering community whose goal is to extend the index of possibilities regarding harmonious existence of humans, ecology, and technology.

I am, but there's another ethical conflict, plus I think it is seriously flawed as an experiment "...for testing whether a real, thriving, modern-day prototype community of 200 people can be built <snip>"

I've read the social contract, and read what will be considered for long-term tenure, such as "Ability to hold one’s own weight intellectually...This level of ability is comparable to the level found at the post-graduate level in academia...freedom from various psychological ills...Good health and being fully able-bodied, since many tasks at FeF involve physical work." If you're calling 200 smart, well educated, healthy, fully able-bodied people a modern-day prototype community, your elitism is drifting toward the creepy.

If this experiment is a success and becomes the norm of the future, does Granny go out on the ice floe when she can't do calculus any more? What if somebody gets depressed; is that one of the psychological ills that gets them voted off the island?

It's still not the "boldest social experiment on earth." That one was seventy years ago, and it involved loading the gypsies and cripples onto boxcars--you're not going to do that, you're just not going to let them in when the culture of scarcity collapses. Oh yeah, a beacon of light to benefit of all people on Earth--all the smart young healthy able bodied ones who are free of "idle chatter"; is this experiment going to have a control group?

As far as my own ethical conflict goes, despite being ambulatory and white, I wouldn't spend two years in a "gimps not welcome" community any more than I'd spend it in a "coloreds not welcome" community. I agree with Marcin and OSE in most things, but this is contemptible. "Because FeF is a serious attempt at reengineering civilization, only those who can rise to this challenge are invited to participate," eh? Just what is the future you envision?

I'm hopeful you folks will snap out of this before 2013. "The social goal within the community is to live and let live," and it might be better demonstrated if you have a wheelchair user in the mix, or someone who doesn't see well, or someone whose mental acuity is better suited to gardening than "...ability to focus and to perform independent research."

(Readers, I'm not making this up. The quotes are from the Factor_e_Farm_Social_Contract_v1.0 page of the wiki)