In the bucolic hinterland North of San Diego, on a hillside shaded by eucalyptus and pine, Attila Melkuti pulls open the doors of a barn. Inside, light gleams off a strange and marvelous contraption he’s been piecing together for the past seven years. He pushes his nearly finished creation into the sun: a curvaceous, cherry-red flying machine that looks like nothing so much as the unholy union of a UFO and a Corvette. “The idea came to me in a childhood dream,” he says. “I believe it could transform aviation.”

Melkuti may be the only one who so believes.