Nuclear isomers are eyebrow raising Elements like Ha as well as potentially Th have nucleus geometry anomaly energy that is larger than their fissile energy
a few years ago a Hungarian with a medical x ray machine got some Ha to emit much more radiation from a much milder stimulus than was thought
possible
New Scientist reported on the use of Nuclear isomer fuel on a test plane
Now, with enough photons you can ionize air; slightly moist air is particularly effective
With sufficiently large amounts of energy you deform the gas ahead of the acoustic noise of a flying car such that most of the noise is reflected away from ground Quiet pleasant flying cars are a must
a standing wave hologram is a possibility yet even niftier is the use of quantum teleportation as there is no beam angle
with truly large amounts of quantum linked high energy photons you can make high energy photons appear at a distance from the source these suddenly appear then ionize the gas around them to reflect the acoustic noise that is arriving at the same time
a startling new source of ultra high energy photons is x radiation from sticky tape[Nature link] sticky tape radiation generators could activate the nuclear isomer material as well as possibly provide a collimmated x ray beam to produce very high energy quantum linked photons perhaps even quantum linked x rays
The nifty part is the thorium; if thorium, which is fabulously cheap, can be made to hyperadiate from blowing around what amounts to a plastic vacuum van de graff generator as an aerosol then you have an atomic motor